July 2024 Game Discussion Thread

[Frindis]

The final draft for the Death Rally competition. For those of you who have played Death Rally before or might have ideas for a different approach competition-wise, feel free to do so now because we will be starting the competition on August 1st.

Rules:

• Difficulty: I LIVE TO RIDE /W WEAPONS.
• No cheat codes or glitches (like driving through vegetation or places where there are no roads).
• No restarts to get a better position on the track.
• Maps to compete on: Hell Mountain, Palm Side, Oasis, Snake Alley, Desert Run, Rock Zone, Suburbia, Utopia, NewArk, Complex, Downtown, Eidolon, Bogota, HoloCaust, Toxic Dump, West End, Velodrome, Borneo and Arena.
• The best Race Time on all maps counts.
• Have your forum name as your name in the game with the best race times so we know who you are.
• The lap times can be posted in the official competition post which will be posted on the 1st of August. Post your lap times near the end of the competition and in one post so we don't have to comb through too many.
• In case the last map Arena does not show race time, we'll just disregard it when we look at all race time scores.

Starting tip: Start with easy to hard. It's easier to accumulate cash for upgrades when oppononets car isn't 5x faster than yours.

Winner: The one with the best overall race time on all maps will win and be forever known as the PC Gamer Forums Death Rally Champion. The winner gets a small prize or he can choose his cool custom title as referred to in this post: https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/july-2024-game-discussion-thread.145123/post-391542.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm going to either have to play the tutorial again or just watch a video on Cataclismo. I'm stuck. It told me to move to an area and had the area marked, but I have no idea who I'm supposed to move. I had a character during the tutorial, but I don't seem to be in the level I'm on, or I just can't find myself. I've got workers gathering wood, and I have bowmen loafing around and a wizard, but those are the only people I can find. The camera controls are pretty bad, as is my vision. but the area isn't that big. Probably be best to watch a video.

 

[ZedClampet]

The final draft for the Death Rally competition. For those of you who have played Death Rally before or might have ideas for a different approach competition-wise, feel free to do so now because we will be starting the competition on August 1st.

Rules:

• Difficulty: I LIVE TO RIDE /W WEAPONS.
• No cheat codes or glitches (like driving through vegetation or places where there are no roads).
• No restarts to get a better position on the track.
• Maps to compete on: Hell Mountain, Palm Side, Oasis, Snake Alley, Desert Run, Rock Zone, Suburbia, Utopia, NewArk, Complex, Downtown, Eidolon, Bogota, HoloCaust, Toxic Dump, West End, Velodrome, Borneo and Arena.
• The best Race Time on all maps counts.
• Have your forum name as your name in the game with the best race times so we know who you are.
• The lap times can be posted in the official competition post which will be posted on the 1st of August. Post your lap times near the end of the competition and in one post so we don't have to comb through too many.
• In case the last map Arena does not show race time, we'll just disregard it when we look at all race time scores.

Starting tip: Start with easy to hard. It's easier to accumulate cash for upgrades when oppononets car isn't 5x faster than yours.

Winner: The one with the best overall race time on all maps will win and be forever known as the PC Gamer Forums Death Rally Champion. The winner gets a small prize or he can choose his cool custom title as referred to in this post: https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/july-2024-game-discussion-thread.145123/post-391542.

What does last place get? Need to know if I should clean off a shelf.

 

[BeardyHat]

Tried to stream games to my new TV last night. Went about as well as you’d expect. Turns out, neither Xbox Cloud Streaming nor Steam have dedicated apps for Roku TV, so no native streaming on the TV. I found a different approach, stream my desktop straight to the TV, and it honestly looked and felt pretty good. Quality was maybe a little low, and Win10 doesn’t give me any options to adjust streaming quality which is lame. It wasn’t terrible though, and the response time was quite decent, good enough to play most games and forget it’s there. Then came my main issue, my Xbox controller just couldn’t hold a connection to the PC. The Bluetooth transmitter isn’t strong enough to let me stay connected while in my bedroom. I may need to buy a BT 5.3 transmitter that apparently goes up to 360ft/100m, which I’m only about 20-30ft from my PC so that would help. However I’m not sure if I could justify throwing $20 away just so I can lay in bed and play my PC games.

This seems to be a problem I’ve struggled with a lot of my life haha. I remember dragging my PC to my TV just so I can sit on the couch and play games. Sometimes I really don’t want to sit at a desk, I want to get really comfy and game. Perhaps the only downside of PC gaming, the chairs and desks sometimes suck!!

My dude! This is what you need:

https://imgur.com/R9fDdmQ

90% of my gaming happens like this. The nipple on the Thinkpads is very accurate and excellent for gaming, which is a major reason I only buy the brand; it's not as good as a proper mouse, but it's damn close and you can easily use one if needed. Alternatively, Steam Deck.

That said, I know this isn't terribly feasible for most, so if I were you, I'd go hit-up a local Goodwill, Craigslist or Facebook marketplace and find an old business PC for $20, toss a in a decent Wifi card and you're off to the races with Steam Streaming and/or Moonlight. Bonus, you could toss in a used graphics card for cheap and you've got a fairly capable gaming machine that'll play most stuff.

I have an HTPC hooked up to my PC that sees a lot of use by my kids and myself when I play games for the family from the couch. It's only an i7-7700 with a 1070, but it runs Lies of P, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc, etc, without issue. It's all old used parts or parts I used to own that have been repurposed for couch gaming.

I've become kind of a PC couch gaming aficionado in the last 5 or 6 years.

The final draft for the Death Rally competition. For those of you who have played Death Rally before or might have ideas for a different approach competition-wise, feel free to do so now because we will be starting the competition on August 1st.

Rules:

• Difficulty: I LIVE TO RIDE /W WEAPONS.
• No cheat codes or glitches (like driving through vegetation or places where there are no roads).
• No restarts to get a better position on the track.
• Maps to compete on: Hell Mountain, Palm Side, Oasis, Snake Alley, Desert Run, Rock Zone, Suburbia, Utopia, NewArk, Complex, Downtown, Eidolon, Bogota, HoloCaust, Toxic Dump, West End, Velodrome, Borneo and Arena.
• The best Race Time on all maps counts.
• Have your forum name as your name in the game with the best race times so we know who you are.
• The lap times can be posted in the official competition post which will be posted on the 1st of August. Post your lap times near the end of the competition and in one post so we don't have to comb through too many.
• In case the last map Arena does not show race time, we'll just disregard it when we look at all race time scores.

Starting tip: Start with easy to hard. It's easier to accumulate cash for upgrades when oppononets car isn't 5x faster than yours.

Winner: The one with the best overall race time on all maps will win and be forever known as the PC Gamer Forums Death Rally Champion. The winner gets a small prize or he can choose his cool custom title as referred to in this post: https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/july-2024-game-discussion-thread.145123/post-391542.

Eager to get started! I assume it'll run for the entire month of August?

 

[Frindis]

What does last place get? Need to know if I should clean off a shelf.

I dunno, maybe one of those certificates like the one Brian Boru got?

Eager to get started! I assume it'll run for the entire month of August?

That is correct. A whole month seems like a reasonable amount of time in the hunt for the best race times.

 

[Brian Boru]

Was looking for a tower defense game

Best I ever played was the original Plants v Zombies, if you haven't tried it—franchise is/was on steep sale.

I would prefer to find it myself without help from something that lies.

You said similar about Wikipedia recently. What about roads, do you use them? You know almost all of them lead to places you don't want to go, right?

 

[Colif]

You said similar about Wikipedia recently. What about roads, do you use them? You know almost all of them lead to places you don't want to go, right?

Well, I only go out twice a fortnight so yes, I use roads but I not a lot. One destination I could do without but the other is just shopping.

Most roads aren't edited by just anyone. Wikipedia is the last place I would look. Unless I want a simple explanation. Some subjects are likely to be true on there... I used to think Britannica was above this sort of thing but its been dragged into the mud since it went from being printed to online.

 

[Brian Boru]

not a lot. One destination I could do without but the other is just shopping.

Surely you can also find 2 articles in Wiki that you can become familiar and comfortable with over time?

Wikipedia is the last place I would look

Where are the first and subsequent ones—or are there also only 2 so that last is also 2nd?

I used to think Britannica was above this sort of thing

That was never the case, at least in 2nd half of 20th century—I never looked into earlier than that. My notes:
Kenneth Kister did a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the 1993 Britannica with Collier's Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana—grades of A–D or F were awarded in 4 areas: Coverage, Accuracy, Clarity, and Recency.
In all categories and for all encyclopaedias, the 4 average grades fell between B− and B+.
In Accuracy, Britannica got 1 D and 7 As, Encyclopedia Americana 8 As, and Collier's 1 D and 7 As = Britannica 92%, Americana's 95% and Collier's 92%.
In Recency, Britannica got 86%, Americana 90% and Collier's 85%.

In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Nature asked scientists to compare Wikipedia's scientific articles to those in Encyclopaedia Britannica. The comparison resulted in a tie; both references contained four serious errors among the 42 articles analyzed by experts.
It also discovered many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements—162 in Wikipedia and 123 in Britannica.
…
[2010] The Journal of Clinical Oncology found Wikipedia had same accuracy and depth about 10 types of cancer as the Physician Data Query, a professionally edited database maintained by the National Cancer Institute.

You should edit yourself into this page

 

[ZedClampet]

I dunno, maybe one of those certificates like the one Brian Boru got?

Did he make it himself?

 

[Pifanjr]

@ZedClampet I would recommend looting a bit in high-level zones. Run in, loot stuff, and get back to the safe zone. Rinse and repeat like an insane hoarder of trinkets that might be usable and the hope for the love of god that you survive the blood moon


Btw: Has anyone tried out the Fallout: London mod that was recently released?

PCGamer has made an article on it:

Fallout: London is a truly impressive modding achievement that mostly hits the mark, but it's barely playable right now

Non-UK readers may wonder if this is what London is really like. The answer is yes.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Frindis]

Did he make it himself?

Nah, I made it. Probably why he has put it on the wall in his basement toilet.

 

[Colif]

Take 3:

it felt longer than 3 hours... remembers he restarted a few times,

An early snapshot

A later one

I was running out of space to build in. I ran out of cards before I did though.
The 20k was my high score until I played that game, it doesn't change it until the end.
I have been playing on largest maps.

Some of the building combos don't seem to work, I tried the same one twice and it didn't work both times. not amused
It has a skill tree but you can only pick 6 decks, and there are about 10 choices.
So it offers replayability to get all the combo buildings. I made the cathedral for first time in that run.

I wasn't sure what experience was for until I looked on my profile and worked out that is where all the banners I have been winning are going... so I changed it

Jarl is a title earned, I removed my name from picture

 

[ZedClampet]

People are min-maxing in Farm Together 2. You can visit other farms and help out. I went to a couple and all the farms were perfectly flat and everything was laid out in careful rectangles. Meanwhile, I'm building things like desert oasis fish farms.

It may not be the most efficient use of space, but it's more fun to me. I don't have as much money as the min-maxers. but I've got $4 million, which is more than enough.

 

[neogunhero]

I have an HTPC hooked up to my PC that sees a lot of use by my kids and myself when I play games for the family from the couch. It's only an i7-7700 with a 1070, but it runs Lies of P, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc, etc, without issue. It's all old used parts or parts I used to own that have been repurposed for couch gaming.

I’ve seriously been thinking about getting some sort of HTPC set up. Even just a cheap PC just capable enough to stream games from my main PC and hook it up to the TV with HDMI would be good with me. I’m going thrifting this weekend so I’ll see what I can find to hopefully make this happen! I think I know what my next project is going to be…

 

[Colif]

game is very specific about order. I placed the items down for this building and it didn't work... so I restarted on same map and got it right 2nd time

Might have to try the challenges, some of the merge buildings are mysteries to me. I haven't seen any of their parts which is odd as I think I have played all the decks now?

Not concerned about beating 45k again, only got 35k last game.

 

[ZedClampet]

Had to refund another game. Bought Aska for us to play. It was working fine for awhile, but as soon as we started exploring, it crashed. Went back into the game, started exploring and crashed. I rebooted my computer and went back into the game. I told Guido if it did the same thing this time we were refunding it. As expected, as soon as we started exploring it crashed. Sorry. not trouble shooting. There are enough games out there that I don't need a broken one.

 

[Brian Boru]

Aska

But it's EA, right? You're going to lose some.

I'm building things like desert oasis fish farms

Oh good one. If it was me, I'd probably build something ridiculous…

next project

So PC1 sends game to PC2.
PC2 then sends game to TV.
TV then sends game to you.
You do an action.
Your action is sent to TV.
TV sends your action to PC2.
PC2 sends your action to PC1.
PC1 wonders what took you so long, it's already 5 actions beyond that.

Good luck with that

 

[Brian Boru]

33m video from GDC about an important topic for some.

Hearing Health in Video Games

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HycjDyGIjfQ

 

[Frindis]

The monthly competition - Death Rally Classic has officially started. Good luck to the participants!

https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/monthly-competition-death-rally-classic.145396/

 

[Frindis]

Change of rules for the monthly competition in Death Rally: Instead of competing in all maps, we are cutting it down to 6 maps so more people can be able to join in on the challenge.

• Maps to compete on: Hell Mountain, Eidolon, Toxic Dump, Downtown, Oasis, and Snake Alley.

Good luck to everyone!