October 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[Frindis]

@ZedClampet I don't remember the name either, but I was red-colored and just hilarious looking. Supposedly you could do some crazy jumps into narrow gaps with it..

 

[BeardyHat]

I think you guys might be speaking about the Reliant Robin

Goofy thing.

I started experimenting with Caves of Qud, which seems pretty neat. I've played about 5-hours on Steam Deck where it works very, very well; moving over to my laptop, I actually have had trouble with the controls because I'm now so used to using a gamepad for it.

So far, nothing crazy has happened to me, but I'm also playing on Roleplay mode, rather than Roguelike mode, because I just can't get behind spending many hours in a game only to die and lose progress. I know the fun is "learning", but I find that too punishing, as my memory is absolute garbage and by the time I reach the same point as I had died in previously, I've already forgotten why I died. Also, Caves of Qud is kind of relaxing and to up the tension and frustration by going full roguelike just seems counter-intuitive.

I'm also back to fHeroes2. I'm doing the Good campaign, which is apparently really damned difficult with the rewritten AI in fHeroes2 and I can absolutely attest to that. The second map in the campaign you're up against 3 other CPU's, all directly on your border, all of which rapidly have Tier 6 creatures, coupled with generally limited resources. I was on my third try of the map last night, certain I was going to lose again when suddenly I started snowballing. I saw a few opportunities to take undefended castles from the CPU's and that started me on the road to victory.

I love playing it on my Surface Go, using touch in Portrait mode. The screen is still big enough on the 10" tablet that I can do everything I want to with little to no mistakes and it's just so much more comfortable than having a computer on my lap or on the couch arm and contorting myself into a weird position.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've been feeling under the weather the past couple of days. Coupled with the fact that I've been having my hands full entertaining my kid who was off school since Friday and I just haven't had the energy to play anything substantial. My kid is gone until Friday though, so I should be able to get some more sleep and thus more energy.

I joined the Discord for the Minecraft Blightfall modpack and it's become clear to me that actually finishing the modpack is going to take far longer than I initially expected. I doubt I'll actually ever finish it, but I do want to actually get into the magic mods before I drop the game.

 

[Brian Boru]

FC6 is good but I think FC5 is a lot better

In terms of quality and production values, I agree—FC5 is the more polished.

able to sprint faster than cars

I value that highly in FC6 since the map is so big but of course it's still silly to drive around and miss 90% of its secrets and charm. Sprint—smell roses—sprint—smell coffee—sprint—headshots—smell blood… aah, that's the stuff!

companion system

Yeah FC5's is much better, especially giving you the option for 2 buddies. My fav pair were Jess and Boomer until her chat got old and his rear end got in the way. I prefer solo in FC6 and will try it next time I play FC5 too.

combat

There is the ridiculous ammo switching mechanic in FC6 which everyone sidelines by using AP all the time—plus the body shot damage perk if headshots aren't your thing.

Tanks and APCs are new in FC6 and add some grit, and the heavy choppers are much tougher than any aircraft in FC5. FC6 also has tougher poison, fire and blast encounters—but only a few. But still, those require you to outfit and switch between the clothing profiles for optimal results.

Where FC6 combat shines for me is in the base captures. Grabbing those undetected, no alarms, and with the bonus objective are tactically more interesting than FC5's captures.

I'll have to wait until I play FC5 again to know for sure, but at the moment I prefer FC6's combat.

clothing giving you unique perks

The Skill and Health systems are a complete mess in FC6. There is no Health system that I noticed beyond 'Press Z to heal'

The Skill Tree approach in earlier FCs has been replaced by a Skill Buffet of unrecognizable dishes. Spend time mousing over the abysmal UI if you like, but not how I want to spend gaming time. I just picked a set that worked most of the time and never changed after that. Really stupid system.

instead of an outrageously violent animal friend

The FC6 doggies are quiet—Timber is same as Boomer, and Chorizo is useless er, very quiet

Try New Dawn after FC5, it uses part of FC5 map and has some nice changes—base building and 3 'power' levels, plus off-world 'Expeditions' which like base captures can be replayed twice more against stronger opposition. It's good, despite the worst baddie leaders in all of FC.

 

[Frindis]

I think you guys might be speaking about the Reliant Robin

That is a funny car also. I belive I found the car though, the BMW Isetta 3. You also have the mini-cooper that is hilarious to use, but that one has four wheels.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G71WTz6cs6w

 

[ZedClampet]

@BeardyHat @Frindis

You all aren't going extreme enough...

The Peel P50 is what I was talking about

You can upgrade it to an hilarious degree. Good luck staying on the road with it, though. Another funny thing to do with it is run into it at 250 mph in a Ferrari and send it flying.

***

WOOHOO I finally found where all my hard drive space was going on my old Sager laptop.

I was doing a search in File Manager by date for an image. I didn't find the image, but I noticed something was in a TEMP file for a program. The temp file date was 7/12/24, and I wondered why it was still there, so I went to that program's files.

The program is an AI video enhancer that I was using to upgrade our old home videos. I went to the temp folder and there were 82 GB of "temporarily" stored videos there. On a laptop with only a 500 GB hard drive, that was a very significant amount.

I finally got it back over 150 GB of free space.

 

[ZedClampet]

Damn. I've been wanting the Barents Sea and North Atlantic fishing games for a long time now. They finally went on sale, and I got both for under $20, but I'm going to have to refund them. I just can't deal with how realistically slow the boats/ships are. It was going to take me 30 minutes to get from my fishing longlines to the port to sell my first catch. For me, 30 minutes of staring at fake water as my boat putters along is unbearable. After you've unlocked a port, you can fast travel to it, but people in the reviews were complaining about how long it took to travel to fishing spots. I thought I could handle it, but no.

 

[Frindis]

The Peel P50

Ahhh, forgot about that one!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0vjVQFAi6U

 

[BeardyHat]

That is a funny car also. I belive I found the car though, the BMW Isetta 3. You also have the mini-cooper that is hilarious to use, but that one has four wheels.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G71WTz6cs6w

@BeardyHat @Frindis

You all aren't going extreme enough...

The Peel P50 is what I was talking about

You can upgrade it to an hilarious degree. Good luck staying on the road with it, though. Another funny thing to do with it is run into it at 250 mph in a Ferrari and send it flying.

***

WOOHOO I finally found where all my hard drive space was going on my old Sager laptop.

I was doing a search in File Manager by date for an image. I didn't find the image, but I noticed something was in a TEMP file for a program. The temp file date was 7/12/24, and I wondered why it was still there, so I went to that program's files.

The program is an AI video enhancer that I was using to upgrade our old home videos. I went to the temp folder and there were 82 GB of "temporarily" stored videos there. On a laptop with only a 500 GB hard drive, that was a very significant amount.

I finally got it back over 150 GB of free space.

Talking about Forza and watching these videos makes me really need to play it some more. I picked 4 up over the Summer and did end-up spending some time with it to buy and unlock cars for the kids, but I haven't been back since then.

Which makes me so thankful for Steam's network transfer stuff. I've got the game installed on an old gaming laptop my kids use, so I'm transferring the damn near 100-gigs over to my main desktop from there. I'm near my datacap with Comcast for the month due to the many huge games I've downloaded and don't need to get hit with extra fees for going over!

@ZedClampet one of my favorite tools for this is is WinDirStat. It's one of the quickest, easiest ways to find out where your disk space is going and I've installed similar programs on my Android phones and my Deck. Often I'm confused as to where all my space is going on any given device and this will easily uncover all that information.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Halloween Steam sale is live. My wish list is all itchy.

 

[ZedClampet]

Talking about Forza and watching these videos makes me really need to play it some more. I picked 4 up over the Summer and did end-up spending some time with it to buy and unlock cars for the kids, but I haven't been back since then.

Which makes me so thankful for Steam's network transfer stuff. I've got the game installed on an old gaming laptop my kids use, so I'm transferring the damn near 100-gigs over to my main desktop from there. I'm near my datacap with Comcast for the month due to the many huge games I've downloaded and don't need to get hit with extra fees for going over!

@ZedClampet one of my favorite tools for this is is WinDirStat. It's one of the quickest, easiest ways to find out where your disk space is going and I've installed similar programs on my Android phones and my Deck. Often I'm confused as to where all my space is going on any given device and this will easily uncover all that information.

Comcast got rid of the datacap here and lowered their 1 Gig to $70/mo due to there being 3 other 1 Gig providers in town. Then they called me and tried to get me to come back. To be honest, their TV/Internet is better than these other guys, but I just changed and don't want to change back just yet.

 

[Pifanjr]

@ZedClampet one of my favorite tools for this is is WinDirStat. It's one of the quickest, easiest ways to find out where your disk space is going and I've installed similar programs on my Android phones and my Deck. Often I'm confused as to where all my space is going on any given device and this will easily uncover all that information.

There are several alternatives to WinDirStat that are, supposedly, up to 50x as fast. I personally use WizTree.

 

[ZedClampet]

I really wish I had someone else's brain. A developer sent me a PM on Steam requesting feedback. I then wrote this massive thing and hit "send", and Steam told me I was limited to 1000 characters. I then spent 15 minutes editing my response before the light kicked on, and I just divided it into multiple comments.

 

[BeardyHat]

There are several alternatives to WinDirStat that are, supposedly, up to 50x as fast. I personally use WizTree.

Haven't heard of it, I'll give it a try, thanks!

 

[Brian Boru]

I finally found where all my hard drive space was going

I have 3 utilities in my notes for this:
WizTree *
WinDirStat
TreeSize Free

WinDirStat is the one I've used most, simple clear interface and drilldown. I haven't needed it in years tho, so next time I'll probably use WizTree—that * star * must mean it impressed me

 

[ZedClampet]

I have 3 utilities in my notes for this:
WizTree *
WinDirStat
TreeSize Free

WinDirStat is the one I've used most, simple clear interface and drilldown. I haven't needed it in years tho, so next time I'll probably use WizTree—that * star * must mean it impressed me

I've actually got one of those, I don't remember which one, on that computer. I just hadn't used it. I might have gotten around to it eventually. To be honest, I'm not used to using them because I've never had a problem before. I've always known where my storage was going. I'm sure I've wasted a GB or two here or there, but I've never tried to free up space and failed until recently with this laptop.

 

[Brian Boru]

Selling Steam Inventory

I see there are now 'Instant' and 'Quick' sale buttons on your Inventory items—this is new since I last stumbled across Inventory 2-3 years ago. Makes it very easy if you don't want to haggle—I just sold, or listed for quickie, maybe 100 items in ~10 minutes.

Dunno what the 'Sell at $0.01' is all about If you're new to this, don't get too excited—I probably made $4 for my wallet

Got ~50 emails already re sales made.

 

[BeardyHat]

I have 3 utilities in my notes for this:
WizTree *
WinDirStat
TreeSize Free

WinDirStat is the one I've used most, simple clear interface and drilldown. I haven't needed it in years tho, so next time I'll probably use WizTree—that * star * must mean it impressed me

Dang, WizTree is fast! Seems just as usable as WinDirStat at a glance. I'll definitely be giving it a more thorough try when I next need to do something like this.

Selling Steam Inventory

I see there are now 'Instant' and 'Quick' sale buttons on your Inventory items—this is new since I last stumbled across Inventory 2-3 years ago. Makes it very easy if you don't want to haggle—I just sold, or listed for quickie, maybe 100 items in ~10 minutes.

Dunno what the 'Sell at $0.01' is all about If you're new to this, don't get too excited—I probably made $4 for my wallet

Got ~50 emails already re sales made.

My guess is that people can put in Buy Orders for a certain amount of money and many just do it at a penny, thus the immediate Sell at that rate, versus listing and having to wait for a bid or whatever.

 

[Brian Boru]

many just do it at a penny, thus the immediate Sell at that rate

No doubt that's correct, but there are apparently plenty of higher buy orders—the lowest instant sell I saw was 3 cents.

"Veilguard" doesn't come out for another couple of days. Yet you put 50 hours into it?

yeah, post you replied to has magically disappeared, thanks for spotting the BS.

 

[Colif]

They finally caught Brian

 

[Colif]

Are games prices going up because companies know their product won't sell as well as before so they need to charge the few still crazy enough to buy them more to compensate for all those who aren't?

Some of that now disappeared post does ring true from the reviews I have watched.

 

[ZedClampet]

Things you will always learn about someone if applicable:

They use GoG
They use AMD
They use Linux

The vast majority of people don't use any of the three, but if a person does, they always tell you. This is why reading forums or comment sections you would assume that they are all more popular and widespread than they actually are.

This also leads to a pet peeve of mine, people on Steam begging for GoG and Linux editions. You know what? If you want to play games, Linux isn't the best choice. If you picked it, that's your problem. Don't expect developers to spend a fortune porting the game to a system almost no one uses. It is not financially viable for small dev teams to port to Linux. Use Wine or use Windows or don't play.

As for GoG, you killed it when you demanded CDPR not use DRM on any games at all. It's like asking developers to give their games away for free because they will immediately be available on P2P sites. If you want DRM-free games, help go after the pirate sites. Support copywrite law. Etc. Or just be patient. A lot of games come to GoG DRM free after they've been out for awhile.

Why should developers cater to a few non-conformists? The games are available in Steam, Epic and Windows Store and playable on by far the most popular OS. Buy them there and play on Windows or don't buy them.

 

[Colif]

I expect it depends on the type of forum, some of those topics may not show up a lot on Knitting forums

Linux zealots are the worst, jump on any windows update and try to convince new people to join the dark side. Every new thing windows does... it brings them out.

I assume the AMD thing is about GPU as there is a large amount of people using their CPU.

No comment on GOG as never used it.

 

[Brian Boru]

They finally caught Brian

I saw Herson's video on that earlier, nice detective work.

GOG is good for games released for earlier versions of Windows and which need some tweaking to work on current versions—I assume Steam hasn't recently started packaging such.

Linux is a nice simple OS for people who aren't able to make Windows work—and could be well suited to obsolete hardware, which is a good thing for landfills. Great for servers tho, been on my little shared ones for 25 years.

AMD is fine, I've had their CPUs and GPUs before, if you count ATI. If I was building in 2025 I'd probably go for an AMD CPU, Intel haven't covered themselves in glory recently with their Boeing-like incidents.

 

[Colif]

Newest Intel CPU need bios/driver updates before they are competing even against their previous exploding CPU, in gaming anyway.