January 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[Brian Boru]

Have you tried Playnite?

Yep, I've had it for quite a while, it's a more detailed app if you want it to be. But I changed to a spreadsheet as my catalog tool ~6 months ago, since I have hundreds of games which neither Galaxy or Playnite cover—eg BigFish. I also found some games not showing up in it for some reason—getting different total numbers than from Galaxy, for example—so essentially I lost confidence in both apps.

We discussed it ~6 months ago in this thread…

Rank the Launchers/Stores

Rank the game launchers/stores that you use: My rankings: 1) Steam: From adding non-steam games, to store curation and trading cards, Steam does it all and it does it all well. Um...mostly well. Adding non-Steam games is a huge pain compared to GoG, but at least it's possible. The Steam...

forums.pcgamer.com

…and I provide the bones of getting info into Excel in this post:

Page 5 - June 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

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forums.pcgamer.com

It only took ~3 hours for 3,000 titles at 6 game sites. The summary:

 

[ZedClampet]

Why not Access? Would be a lot easier to sort and store notes in, and you could sync it with a spreadsheet.

******

Medieval Dynasty is really an automation game only your machines are peasants. You have close to thirty different buildings, some of which you may want more than one of. Almost all the buildings have multiple things you can assign villagers to.

And it's extremely complex to get the numbers to work.

 

[Colif]

There are people out there trying to beat all the games and tetris has been one for decades. No one knew it had an end until now

 

[Brian Boru]

Why not Access? Would be a lot easier to sort and store notes in, and you could sync it with a spreadsheet.

I've done that for our biz data for ~20 years, but Access is nearly obsolete now for more casual use with all the recent and coming advances in Excel—the whole 'Get & Transform' thing and the new relational ability are quite powerful.

I'm also at least 10 times more comfy with Excel than with Access, just a personal thing—Excel is one of the finest pieces of software I've ever used. My Games workbook is simple, so any extra app would be an over-complication. I keep notes in OneNote, as they benefit from an app more suited to ad hoc freeform content.

 

[BeardyHat]

I heard a lot of bad things about the two Realms of Arcania remakes. I also watched a stream on GOG's Twitch channel yesterday from the RoA: Star Trail (remake of the second installment) and I wasn't impressed at all. Probably it's a better idea to play the original games, although it might be a quite hardcore experience.

After much research (because I've been researching these games as much as playing them at this point), it looks like that was the case when they first released about ten years ago; since then they've patched them heavily and among fans they are apparently the definitive way to play the series these days.

I did end-up buying the entire series on Steam (after initially purchasing Blade of Destiny on GoG), because it was $3.50; I have some fantasy that I'll play the entire series, even if this is wholly unlikely at this point.

At any rate, it's still very intriguing to me and I'm still playing it, even if I have to put it down periodically because the battle system is just awful.

Yeah, such things have been happening for a while now. Never encountered a similar problem myself though. GOG had job cuts some time ago and it appears that the Galaxy team was one of the victims of this policy. There wasn't a major feature update for a very long time now and the integrations aren't working anymore. I have a feeling that the app went into "maintenance mode". Too bad, because at its peak it was a wonderful tool.

Well that explains a lot. I'll probably still use it for the easy access to my library and the few games that offer cloud saves (such as Battle Brothers), but definitely will need to start cutting it out a bit.

 

[ZedClampet]

I've done that for our biz data for ~20 years, but Access is nearly obsolete now for more casual use with all the recent and coming advances in Excel—the whole 'Get & Transform' thing and the new relational ability are quite powerful.

I'm also at least 10 times more comfy with Excel than with Access, just a personal thing—Excel is one of the finest pieces of software I've ever used. My Games workbook is simple, so any extra app would be an over-complication. I keep notes in OneNote, as they benefit from an app more suited to ad hoc freeform content.

Excel is great. Sadly I've been going cheap (free) with Calc. but I'm seriously considering subbing to 365. When I was doing all the NFL stats, Calc would repeatedly freeze up for up to a minute. It was very frustrating.

 

[neogunhero]

I played 15 hours of Cyberpunk over the past week. That is quite insane for me but I’m having a great time and I don’t suspect to be slowing down anytime soon. I’m already level 22 and have nearly 300k eddies which I think is pretty good for where I’m at. I’ve also spent probably 200-300k on cyberware, an apartment in Japantown, a new bike and other random things. I didn’t take Jackie’s bike out of respect this time, instead I bought my own.

A few things I’ve noticed after not playing this game for over 3 years: the vendors never have anything good and it’s surprisingly easy to make eddies. I think one of the recent patches changes how vendors work and now it doesn’t matter where they are located they will always have near identical inventories, clothing vendors excluded. I understand why they would make this change, it’s a lot more convenient to travel to whatever ripperdoc is closest to you rather than have to travel all the way to the opposite side of town to get the specific port you need. However it breaks the immersion completely for vendors which is quite ironic since they made lots of immersion adding changes recently. I’d rather have unique vendors sell unique parts than everyone sell the same stuff. What could help this is if you could browse their inventories before ever going to their store, so you won’t waste time going to them all to find something specific.

When it comes to eddies, I’m applying my Starfield tactics here: kill EVERYONE, take EVERYTHING, sell it ALL. I don’t care if the gif tells me to do something quietly and not get caught, I’m storming into that ramen shop and killing EVERYONE and selling all of their weapons. From what I can tell this pays way more than doing the job exactly how the fixer wants it. Just random numbers, but it seems a standard gig will pay 5k, 8k if you do it quietly. If I kill everyone and only get paid 5k for the job, I’m going to make at least an extra 5k from selling all the weapons, so really it makes more money to be a bloodthirsty samurai. Plus whenever you find random gangs on the streets and NCPD is asking to take them out, do the same thing and you will make lots of money. Rinse and repeat and you’ll be swimming in eddies very early into the game.

I’m playing the game with no regrets for anything. I’ll do the occasional quick save/load but for the most part I’m sticking with my choices and actions. Most of the time if I have a timed response I’ll just stay silent to see what happens. I’m not feeling super connected to the story, perhaps because I knew the intro already and have gotten decently far the last time I played but I’m just going through the motions when it comes to dialogue cutscenes. I’m much more invested in the gameplay than the story right now.

Overall it’s a great game and I’m playing it how I want to play it. I’m having tons of fun and really debating if I should pick up Phantom Liberty or not.

 

[BeardyHat]

Well, I dunno; I might have reached a mental turning point with Realms of Arkania - Blade of Destiny. I might just be tired at this point and I'll get back to it, but after about 8-hours with it, I feel like I may have seen what it has to offer, which isn't a great and deep story nor engaging combat and gameplay, nor even interesting exploration from what I've seen.

I'm trying to decide if maybe I've misjudged, but I feel like I now "get it". In theory, I like the idea that I need to prepare my party for everything, including stocking up on food, water (in my case, beer, currently), as well as give them warm clothes and sleeping bags to survive the cold, as well as find herbs and such so I can treat potential disease, but none of it is really all that interesting. Everything is pretty much done through mouse clicks and menus, having the correct skill level in any given skill needed for those things.

I don't really feel much like I'm exploring a world. So far what it's been is being in a city/village that's essentially a zone. Traveling out of it is simply clicking on a map and watching a red line fill on the road you're traveling and being periodically interrupted by menus until you get to the next town zone. I'm not exactly exploring the wilderness and avoiding danger around every corner.

Granted, this is all a product of age and the fact that the remake is a 1:1 copy of the original, but even Might and Magic from the same time period seems to have more going on with it. Sure you're in town zones, but at least there's an overworld to wander around and explore, discovering things along the way.

Again, maybe I've misjudged, but I don't feel like the game is going to get substantially different from this point.

 

[Sarafan]

Well that explains a lot. I'll probably still use it for the easy access to my library and the few games that offer cloud saves (such as Battle Brothers), but definitely will need to start cutting it out a bit.

You can always drop the client and use offline installers. I was a fan of these sometime ago, but Galaxy convinced me to use the client. I might return to offline installers for GOG games though in the future. The biggest problem is the lack of cloud saves.

Excel is great. Sadly I've been going cheap (free) with Calc. but I'm seriously considering subbing to 365. When I was doing all the NFL stats, Calc would repeatedly freeze up for up to a minute. It was very frustrating.

I have Microsoft 365 subscription only to be able to use Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. I used LibreOffice for years though. It's a nice thing if you don't want to spend money. However most of the people (including me) think that Mircosoft apps are much better.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm seriously considering subbing to 365

We get either the $80 or $100 for 15 months versions of the Family SKU, which we share with 3 other family members—so that's 5 individuals on multiple industry standard apps which are always up-to-date. Superb value.

LibreOffice … most of the people (including me) think that Mircosoft apps are much better.

There are loads of fair-to-good options for personal and casual use, MS 365 is aimed at pro use—just like Photoshop is for pro use, while I use PaintShop Pro and mostly IrfanView. Apart from Libre, there are…
Calligra Office
FreeOffice
Google Docs
MS's free Office Online
OfficeSuite
OnlyOffice
Polaris Office
WordPerfect
WPS Office
Zoho Workplace
…among others—eg my fav alt WP is Atlantis Word Processor.

Our biz includes incoming and outgoing documents of various types—the outgoing ones have to pass 'acceptance tests' at their destinations, so I have to get them right. MS Office is the compatible industry standard to achieve that.

Incoming from alt Office apps—incl MS Office for Mac—had/have too many artifacts to use easily. After wasting serious time on them initially, I found it easier and far quicker to nuke them and rebuild from scratch in MS Office.

 

[ZedClampet]

I made a mockery of Stellaris for a couple of hours. I needed to learn the game, but decided I didn't want to, so I came up with a plan to play as fast as possible and learn backwards from my mistakes. So I just sent 3 science ships and 4 construction ships around as fast as I could. I didn't bother paying real attention to the research, the politics, etc. I just selected things as fast as possible. Started building out my navy eventually and got invaded shortly afterward, which was no problem. I had crazy stockpiles of materials and 5 stations capable of cranking out ships. Then I started to expand and build again. The only problems I've had were with idle politicians and a severe consumer goods shortage, which I managed to take care of and noted. Overall, I had a blast with it, but it actually wore me out concentrating on doing everything so quickly. Decided I needed a brain break.

I have a feeling my empire is sick at its core and I just don't know it yet

 

[Brian Boru]

learn backwards from my mistakes

Congrats on your major breakthru!

Far Cry—explore, get eaten by tiger.
Note to self: have shotgun b4 going East.

Civ—send Settler and Warrior to that nice city spot, get whacked by Barb axeman.
Note to self: put fogbusters in place b4 Settler trips.

Command and Conquer—tech towards airpower, get hammered by early assault.
Note to self: never send a rifleman to a tank fight.

Any game—sit thru intro.
Note to self: mods!

You'll never look back!

 

[Brian Boru]

Wargame Construction Set Pack

@BeardyHat & other wargamers—above GOG 3-pack looks maybe interesting for currently $8.50, or normal $10.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm so easy.

I was playing a second campaign in Medieval Dynasty, and I had just recruited a woman to work the fields. I was standing in one of the fields when she walked up to me and said, "Wow, you're so handsome. How come you aren't married?"

That was all it took.

Looking back on my life, I guess I'm just lucky no one called me handsome. Well, except for the drunk and blind (according to my wife and daughter) cashier at Taco Bell who called me "beautiful".

 

[BeardyHat]

Wargame Construction Set Pack

@BeardyHat & other wargamers—above GOG 3-pack looks maybe interesting for currently $8.50, or normal $10.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Hex based wargames are such a huge blindspot for myself. Really feel like I need to be much more deeply into them, but of the many I own, I often find them fairly obtuse and not very fun.

I fear that I'm a "Basic *****" and like Skirmish style much better, where I can see my little individual guys moving, shooting and taking fire.

 

[Johnway]

So after a month of POE league, i've managed to clock in 17 challenges and got all the tier 1 cosmetics. i'm not exactly motivated at this point to get the last 5 or 6 challenges as its too much luck of the draw and/or grinding and hoping for the best. Tbh the costmetic isn't that hot and after some seriously frustrating/boring runs i'm taking a break and focusing on something else. namely Age of empire 2. Finished the berbers campaign and tbh on standard it was a breeze, it seems like either the enemy doesn't have the motivation to attack or i'm getting better. then again "standard" is considered easy mode and moderate is normal or something.

but besides those 2 games, i've not had much gaming done. I had a personal family tragedy and it ended my Christmas holiday and 2023 in the most sad way possible.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played some more Stellaris today, and paused the game for the first time. Realized I wasn't giving enough love to the colonies, so I took a wild guess as to how to manage those. Having a lot of fun with it.

*****

@Kaamos_Llama Played my first bit of Elden Ring today. Only thing I didn't like were all the messages and ghosts left by players. I didn't get very far, so it's probably worse at the beginning, but it was very distracting. I may start playing offline. Don't really want to get invaded, anyway.

*******

I was supposed to be testing a game today, but the developer didn't give me any way to report bugs, so I didn't test for very long, maybe an hour. I'm a horrible one to test for bugs anyway. I don't usually notice minor bugs, so I have to really try to concentrate if someone is wanting me to report them. This game seems really clean to me, at least the first hour was. He's not planning to release it for another few months.

Game doesn't have a name yet. File calls it "shootergame" which is the Unreal default.

I'm concerned he's not going to be able to optimize it, though. It has a ton of high detail metahumans running around, so the game is crawling. They could be from something else and not metahumans, but they look perfectly real except for the animations, which kind of ruins the whole effect.

 

[ZedClampet]

OH Sh!!!!T!

I was in the middle of working on a project. I had Blender, Photoshop, Painter, and Unreal Engine all open and was going from one to the other. At 8:48 pm, with zero warning, my PC froze up for about 10 seconds then did a reboot/Windows update that obviously shut down all my apps and lost a lot of my time/work. Thanks, Microsoft.

 

[Zloth]

Thanks, Microsoft.

On the first Thursday of the month!? That's not a normal update.

 

[Brian Boru]

with zero warning, my PC froze up for about 10 seconds then did a reboot/Windows update

Are you certain it was a Windows Update? That's 3 separate things that are very unlike how MS does things.

If you're not certain, do a malware scan.

I'm assuming your PC could handle those beefy apps together, and none of them had a memory leak or other malfunction. Event Viewer or Reliability Monitor should provide a clue.

 

[ZedClampet]

On the first Thursday of the month!? That's not a normal update.

Are you certain it was a Windows Update? That's 3 separate things that are very unlike how MS does things.

If you're not certain, do a malware scan.

I'm assuming your PC could handle those beefy apps together, and none of them had a memory leak or other malfunction. Event Viewer or Reliability Monitor should provide a clue.

This isn't that unusual. All you have to do to trigger this is to have updates on, but keep declining them. Eventually it just updates. It's happened to me before. I kind of lost track over the holidays, or I would have known it was about to happen and turned off updates. There might have been a warning that popped up behind my apps. I've noticed the firewall notice doesn't move to the front now.

 

[Brian Boru]

This isn't that unusual

Ah okay, I just let the Updates happen on schedule, so don't see what you do. I guess that's better news than it being something else

 

[Brian Boru]

Hmm, I may have mostly got my wish for more aggressive Barbs in Civ 4. This is turn 55 in current game:

5 Warriors, 1 Spearman, and a Barb city already!

It's a Custom Continents map from the Full Of Resources map mod, Small size with 3 other civs and 5 continents. I'm sharing mine with Mansa Musa, and loudly pointing towards his location—hoping Barbs take hint.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hmm, I may have mostly got my wish for more aggressive Barbs in Civ 4. This is turn 55 in current game:

5 Warriors, 1 Spearman, and a Barb city already!

It's a Custom Continents map from the Full Of Resources map mod, Small size with 3 other civs and 5 continents. I'm sharing mine with Mansa Musa, and loudly pointing towards his location—hoping Barbs take hint.

The thing that gets me about barbarians is that, while they are usually too weak to take over a city (at least in 5), even if you are well defended, you have to run your workers somewhere out of harm's way. It's annoying when they kidnap someone and start running away. Let that happen and your valuable worker/settler can take a bunch of turns to recover, which is kind of brutal.

 

[Brian Boru]

your valuable worker/settler can take a bunch of turns to recover

Yeah, same in 6 where they beeline the guy back to their Camp. In 4 tho, your guy is toast if they get him—ie zapped on the spot.

I like to play where each civ has their own patch, like above 5 continents for 4 players. So I want strong Barbs to preserve a need for military development, so the game's requirements don't become lopsided towards economy only.

The extra continent should be Barb infested by the time I/we get there, which keeps the mid game interesting for a while. But the map scripts aren't perfect of course, so sometimes 2 civs share a large continent.