The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (9 October to 15 October)

[mainer]

I'm still playing Mass Effect Legendary. Finished up with ME1 last week, and have started ME2. I was initially dismayed when clicking on ME2 from the Launcher (from which you can start any of the 3 games), and it would start to load, then CTD. I tried it 4 times in a row, and it still wouldn't launch.

So I restored ME2 to it's vanilla state (which can be done with the backup/restore button in the ME3Tweaks Mod Manager), and reinstalled my mods, but eliminated the Unofficial Patch and 2 mods that were dependent upon it. Now ME2 launches and runs perfectly with no issues.

The visual difference isn't as noticeable in the LE version of ME2 as it was in ME1, but it still looks quite good to me. The first major difference is the combat, and this was true in the original ME trilogy as well, that it is much more fluid and controlling companions is more precise. In fact, the combat situations play more like a shooter-type game, where you can "run over" ammo clips to pick them up.

The second major difference, which I don't really like, is that the leveling up system & skill choices (important in any RPG) are much less varied, and a bit too "dumbed down" for my taste. Just looking at the level up screens you can see the differences:

ME1 LE level up screen

ME2 LE level up screen

The 3rd major difference is in the equipment available, or in the "loot" you find. In ME1 there was just too way too much "loot", and after about mid-point in the game 95% of it was basically useless. But you could upgrade your companion's weapons/armor, as well as add in weapon armor mods. In ME2, there's hardly any "loot" at all, very few upgrades, and no way to change your companion's equipment.

Neither game got it right in my opinion, the design choices went from one extreme to the other, without hitting that "sweet spot" of efficiency and complexity. Don't get me wrong, I still think these games are great RPGs, but it's mainly because of the arching story, the companions and their stories, and the conversations and interactions of everyone.

I've never really been a car person. I usually just buy a mid-priced SUV and keep it for 15 years. One time right after I got married I decided I needed to up my car game and I shopped around for months. I looked at Jaguar and a bunch of others, but I finally decided I was too big to be getting in and out of small cars and bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee instead. Drove that for 16 years and then bought a Ford Flex, which I'm still driving.

I'm not a car person at all now. I'm about to pay off my 2017 Toyota Sienna in December, and I don't care about getting anything else. But when I was younger, I did love Jags.

I'm not a car person any more either, I don't drive that many miles a year anymore, so I'm just looking for a dependable & affordable small sized SUV that can still handle weather extremes. I bought a 2021 Jeep Renegade last year to replace my aging 2010 Tacoma. It's smallish, economical to drive, handles well, and still has 4-wheel drive in nasty weather.

But my favorite car that I've ever owned was a 1967 Ford Mustang back when I was 22. Straight-six, 3-speed, no anti-pollution or electronic gadgets, and no computers. I rebuilt the carburetor a couple times, replaced the clutch, brake pads/lines/rotors and exhaust. Can't do that stuff anymore, vehicles are way too complicated for the common man (woman).

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm not a car person at all now. I'm about to pay off my 2017 Toyota Sienna in December, and I don't care about getting anything else. But when I was younger, I did love Jags. I suppose if I were to get excited about something today, it would be a Tesla Roadster. Those things are awesome.

How in the world did you find a Ferrari for $28k?

They (308's) were all priced around there in the early 90's. I just checked now and they are going anywhere from $80k to 100K. Damn, I should have bought it

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/l-Used-Ferrari-308-d1846

 

[ZedClampet]

@Zloth oh god. I honestly don't know if I can stand this X4 Foundations flight tutorial. You know, you can fly just fine in No Man's Sky and you don't have to press every f****g button on the keyboard.

If I can just persevere through these tutorials (unlikely due to ADHD) I would probably fall in love with this game, but, god, this is the worst. The ABSOLUTE worst. Somebody save me.

WTF am I doing? I've been flying towards this yellow square for 5 minutes on auto-pilot.

Edit: Yeah, no, I quit when it started to show me how to target enemies and I couldn't just aim at them. The directions were too small for me to read.

Eh, I'll try again later with a controller. I'm not sure this is for me as I get infuriated by needless complexity.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

But my favorite car that I've ever owned was a 1967 Ford Mustang back when I was 22. Straight-six, 3-speed, no anti-pollution or electronic gadgets, and no computers. I rebuilt the carburetor a couple times, replaced the clutch, brake pads/lines/rotors and exhaust. Can't do that stuff anymore, vehicles are way too complicated for the common man (woman).

In 1990, I bought my first car, and it was a 1978 Ford Mustang II with T-Tops. It was a lot like this one, only with cherry red interior. It was a lightweight car with a V8 engine. It could move. I'm thinking I paid $2000 for it.

 

[Zloth]

@Zloth oh god. I honestly don't know if I can stand this X4 Foundations flight tutorial. You know, you can fly just fine in No Man's Sky and you don't have to press every f****g button on the keyboard.

With great power comes great responsibility. With great variety comes complex UIs.

WTF am I doing? I've been flying towards this yellow square for 5 minutes on auto-pilot.

Five minutes? Was this the part where it's teaching you how to jump into travel mode, right about here? If you don't engage that mode, it will take way too long as you'll be flying far slower than you should - like trying to taxi to the next town in an airplane.

By the way, there are other tutorials after this one showing how to mine, build bases, and so on. No hurry to run through those. I would just take note of the topics, then go visit them when you get interested.

Eh, I'll try again later with a controller. I'm not sure this is for me as I get infuriated by needless complexity.

Some is needed, some are just options. For instance, you'll need to switch back and forth between normal flight mode and flying with your mouse pointer free so you can select stuff on the screen. There's also another flight mode that reacts to your mouse differently and the newtonian mode. Those are both options - if you like'm, use'm. If not, forget about them.

It seems like there were some options for font sizes in the many settings, but I might be confusing it with another game.

 

[ZedClampet]

With great power comes great responsibility. With great variety comes complex UIs.


Five minutes? Was this the part where it's teaching you how to jump into travel mode, right about here? If you don't engage that mode, it will take way too long as you'll be flying far slower than you should - like trying to taxi to the next town in an airplane.

By the way, there are other tutorials after this one showing how to mine, build bases, and so on. No hurry to run through those. I would just take note of the topics, then go visit them when you get interested.

Some is needed, some are just options. For instance, you'll need to switch back and forth between normal flight mode and flying with your mouse pointer free so you can select stuff on the screen. There's also another flight mode that reacts to your mouse differently and the newtonian mode. Those are both options - if you like'm, use'm. If not, forget about them.

It seems like there were some options for font sizes in the many settings, but I might be confusing it with another game.

There's no excuse for the controls. None. The game is complex, sure, but this is just stupidity. There are different modes of flight in No Man's Sky and things you have to select on screen, yet somehow they manage to do all of that without half-a-dozen key combo presses and without forcing you to take your hand off of the mouse.

Nevertheless, if I can just soldier through, I'm sure I'll like the game. I'm going to bind all the keys they make you take your hand off the mouse for to my extra mouse buttons, and if I have any buttons left, I'll create a macro or two for combo presses.

But my biggest issue is that I haven't had my ADHD medicine all week because the pharmacy is having problems getting it in, so I quit amphetamines cold turkey after 20 years of never missing a dose, and you aren't supposed to do that, and it's been a challenge.

****************************

My response to Playground Game's dismissive response to my crash report:

"You need to be paying attention to the Steam forums. This is happening to nearly everyone, and there are a lot of very upset gamers there. But you all have no idea because you never interact with your customers and dismiss problems when reported as if they are user error.

You broke the game, and you need to fix it."

 

[Zloth]

There's no excuse for the controls. None. The game is complex, sure, but this is just stupidity. There are different modes of flight in No Man's Sky and things you have to select on screen, yet somehow they manage to do all of that without half-a-dozen key combo presses and without forcing you to take your hand off of the mouse.

No Man's Sky uses an arcade shooter model. X games have a lot more.

One thing I think really could use streamlining, though, is docking. They've got that whole system in there for docking nicely, but the docking computer is very, very cheap. With that, you just need to fly close to the right spot and you get sucked in. So why have the fancy, slow one? After the first hour, the only times I needed it was when I captured a ship without one and flew it to dock myself.

Oh! Do definitely map the "loot magnet" to a mouse button. That's the only mapping I ever do, but you need to be steering while chasing down that stuff.

 

[ZedClampet]

No Man's Sky uses an arcade shooter model. X games have a lot more.

So what you're saying is "blah blah blah".

But never mind that. I'm about to go down in a blaze of glory in the Forza Steam forums. If one more idiot tells me to reboot my PC or "clean" my drivers, I swear to God....

 

[ZedClampet]

@Zloth AND ANOTHER THING!

Nah, I'm just yanking your chain. It will be a fun game once I get past the tutorial. Hey, I did the multi-hour Stationeer tutorial, so I can do this. I'm just not in the mood for it, I guess.

***********

Having fun playing Total War Warhammer 3 and Forza Horizon 4 at the same time. I'm keeping them both open and during the TWW3 AI turn, I'm hopping over and doing a race.

Been a long time since I played FH4. I was pleased to see that when I quit the game I had $11 million. Also, they gifted me two Super Wheel Spins per week, and I now have 62 Super Wheel spins. That's my favorite part of the game. I'd rather spin the prize wheel than race.

 

[Zloth]

But never mind that. I'm about to go down in a blaze of glory in the Forza Steam forums. If one more idiot tells me to reboot my PC or "clean" my drivers, I swear to God....

Remember that scene in Roger Rabbit where the baddy was knocking the 'shave & a haircut' bit? That's me right now.

 

[ZedClampet]

Remember that scene in Roger Rabbit where the baddy was knocking the 'shave & a haircut' bit? That's me right now.

You know, I liked that movie, but I only watched it once, and that was when it first came out, so I don't remember it very well. I do remember something about a knock, but I couldn't go any further than that. I need to watch it again.

 

[Brian Boru]

playing Total War Warhammer 3 and Forza Horizon 4 at the same time

Huh… don't think I ever tried that—just thankful that one game will play without glitches.

Anything special you need for that, eg beefy hardware or some software app or Steam setting? Does one game have to be non-Steam, or will Steam launch both without complaint?

Begs the question: what limits number of simultaneous games, without using virtual machines or any advanced techniques?

 

[ZedClampet]

Huh… don't think I ever tried that—just thankful that one game will play without glitches.

Anything special you need for that, eg beefy hardware or some software app or Steam setting? Does one game have to be non-Steam, or will Steam launch both without complaint?

Begs the question: what limits number of simultaneous games, without using virtual machines or any advanced techniques?

I don't really know that much about it. It doesn't require very beefy hardware because I'm doing it on my laptop.

I've never tried more than 2 at a time, but I don't think there's a limit. Just ,open two or more games in the normal way. They do have to be on the same computer. If I set my laptop next to my desktop and opened a game in the desktop, that game would be closed by Steam if I then opened a game in my laptop,

Unless I was imagining it, the Total War AI turn takes longer when you minimize that window, so maybe Windows is allocating resources at least reasonably intelligently. It still works on things in your minimized window, but it seems to put most of your resources to what you are actually looking at. I didn't notice any difference in Forza while I was playing, but I'd guess I was getting a lower FPS. I didn't have the counter up though. But whatever FPS I was getting was fine. Forza games are very well optimized, though.

I also didn't notice any difference in Total War while Forza was playing, but there's very little movement on screen in Total War except in battles. I did fight one battle and it was fine.

 

[Brian Boru]

never tried more than 2 at a time

Very interesting, I must experiment on my i7-7 and 1060-6GB.

It could be ideal the way you're doing it, ie a turn-based game like Civ and something else.

Come to think of it, I do Alt+Tab out of intros or cut scenes sometimes—can't recall which games will play thru and has a Continue button. Not much point being dumped back into a fight

I often leave games paused on the Taskbar while I switch out to something else—Far Cry 5 the most recent, no problems doing that.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Begs the question: what limits number of simultaneous games, without using virtual machines or any advanced techniques?

And that question inspires another unrelated question. How many virtual machines could you run recursively within other virtual machines? Like a VM within a VM that is within another VM.

 

[ZedClampet]

Very interesting, I must experiment on my i7-7 and 1060-6GB.

It could be ideal the way you're doing it, ie a turn-based game like Civ and something else.

Come to think of it, I do Alt+Tab out of intros or cut scenes sometimes—can't recall which games will play thru and has a Continue button. Not much point being dumped back into a fight

I often leave games paused on the Taskbar while I switch out to something else—Far Cry 5 the most recent, no problems doing that.

Ah, yeah, about that. Total War keeps going when you tab out, but Forza goes to the pause menu. I didn't really think about it because that's what I want them to do. So I guess it depends on the games. I used to do it with Warframe a lot, but Warframe had timers that were tuned to real world time, so even though it went to a pause menu, the timers kept going. (Edit: I just remembered that Warframe went to the menu, but didn't actually pause, so you needed to be somewhere safe to tab out. I used to tab out on my ship, come back and check on how crafting was going, start new crafting, etc.)

So for it to be worthwhile, you need one of the games to keep going in some way. V Rising is another game the keeps trucking when you tab out. In fact, there's no way to pause V Rising no matter how hard you try. It also has companion missions tied to real world time, so another perfect one.

But those games seem to be naturals. I wouldn't play Far Cry 5 and Far Cry 6 at the same time. There'd be no point.

 

[Pifanjr]

But my biggest issue is that I haven't had my ADHD medicine all week because the pharmacy is having problems getting it in, so I quit amphetamines cold turkey after 20 years of never missing a dose, and you aren't supposed to do that, and it's been a challenge.

I can't imagine my wife doing a multi-hour tutorial while off ADHD meds. That's some dedication.

Having fun playing Total War Warhammer 3 and Forza Horizon 4 at the same time. I'm keeping them both open and during the TWW3 AI turn, I'm hopping over and doing a race.

Playing two games at the same time because it takes half a minute between turns however...

Playing Civ V together has let to the popularization of the "song" "Waiting for player" in our household.

 

[ZedClampet]

Playing two games at the same time because it takes half a minute between turns however...

I've never timed it, but I'm confident in saying it's longer than that on my laptop. A Forza race generally takes 2 to 3 minutes, so it's perfect. Unless, of course, someone stops progress in Total War to do diplomacy.

Edit: Okay, now I've timed it. I have 157 factions left, and it took 1 minute 27 seconds, the first 30 seconds or so of which were armies and characters moving at the end of the human turn,

Also, if I don't do something during that minute and a half, I fall asleep.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've never timed it, but I'm confident in saying it's longer than that on my laptop. A Forza race generally takes 2 to 3 minutes, so it's perfect. Unless, of course, someone stops progress in Total War to do diplomacy.

Edit: Okay, now I've timed it. I have 157 factions left, and it took 1 minute 27 seconds, the first 30 seconds or so of which were armies and characters moving at the end of the human turn,

Also, if I don't do something during that minute and a half, I fall asleep.

I always move all of my armies and characters manually because they move faster that way. At least in TW:W2, I'm not sure if they changed that in 3. I can't say I'm not impatient to a certain degree either .

In fact, I just played a bit more of Control and died several times and the loading time is terrible. I want to be able to jump back into the game immediately to try again, but instead I'm watching some pulsing red stuff for like 20 seconds each time. It got even worse when I also had to run from the control point to the area I was fighting in after suffering through the load time each time.

I disabled pretty much all of the HUD stuff before I even started playing, but I decided to at least add the health bar back so I can get a better idea of how many bullets I can take before dying. I thought disabling all of it would be nice for the immersion, but I failed to account for how rusty I had become in anything that requires fast reflexes and accuracy. I haven't really played a game requiring either in probably over 2 years.

 

[Zloth]

Woo HOO! Got my COVID booster. That thing always knocks me down hard with a high temperature, so I'm flat on my back for one day and pretty exhausted the next. Not this time! Just a sore arm and I got strangely thirsty - which might have just been the dry, windy weather.

On top of that, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has only crashed on me once lately. They just added controller support to the game, so I wondered if maybe my old XBox 360 controller was confusing it. I haven't played enough to be remotely certain, but that might have been the case. (Or it could have been a fix in the latest update that wasn't mentioned in the notes.)

I often leave games paused on the Taskbar while I switch out to something else—Far Cry 5 the most recent, no problems doing that.

What about starting another desktop (windows key + tab, pick Add in the upper left)? You can go to the second desktop, start the second game, then switch back and forth between them with windows key + control + right/left arrow keys. That way neither game gets minimized.

Also, if I don't do something during that minute and a half, I fall asleep.

Errrr, get more sleep?

 

[ZedClampet]

Errrr, get more sleep?

Thank you, Dr Zloth. I'll let other people with insomnia know that the solution to their problem is to get more sleep. I don't know why we didn't think of it.

 

[Zloth]

If you've got insomnia, then how do you fall asleep in 90 seconds!? Now I'm totally confused.

 

[ZedClampet]

My wife is in a board meeting, which they do remotely these days. She's on the couch next to me, and one of the board members just spent 10 minutes talking about his love for Final Fantasy. He got started on it because he showed everyone a picture of his new puppy, which he named "Chocobo". I had the urge to squeeze into my wife's webcam picture and comment about how terrible Final Fantasy 13 is, but I was able to refrain, barely.

I've listened to all their board meetings since I retired, and this guy always manages to talk about video games at some point. I've been at a lot of different company's board meetings through the years, and sat on a local charity's board for one term, and when the meetings are conducted in person, people rarely get off-topic (not counting the charity's meetings, which were far more informal). But it seems like when people are attending remotely that they open up a bit. Also, board members seem to have gotten a lot younger. When I attended my first board meeting at First Horizon Bank back in the late 90's, everyone there but me was old and completely out of touch. I had to ensure them that people did, in fact, use ATM's and Internet banking (people don't use ATM's anymore, but in the 90's they definitely did).

But anyway, this video game guy is my all-time favorite board member I've never asked the wife where he works or what his real job is. Now he's talking about IRA's and taxes, so it's time for me to tune out...

Sorry for the long, meandering post about board meetings, but I think it's interesting that gaming is obviously becoming more and more mainstream, so much so that a board member feels comfortable talking about it.

Now I'm totally confused.

People with insomnia frequently have trouble staying awake during the day and can often sleep when/where they aren't supposed to be sleeping. I have problems with my internal clock. I can be exhausted all day and then be wide awake and feeling great starting in the evenings. One would think melatonin might help in that situation, but it doesn't. And if I give in and take a nap during the day, then there's no reason to even bother trying to sleep at night. When my insomnia is at its worst, even high doses of tranquilizers won't knock me out at night. At one point they even put me on an anti-psychotic that's known to cause severe drowsiness, and it was the only thing that's ever worked. However, as you might imagine, being on anti-psychotic medications when you aren't psychotic isn't the best idea, and I had to stop the medication due to other side effects.

********************

I got Forza working, but I'm not sure what's wrong with it. When I unplug my laptop, it changes the graphics settings to low, and I can enter the game. I can then put them back on "Extreme" and play as usual. I need to go through the settings, turn things on/off and experiment to see what's causing my crashes. But at least I know I can start the game with my laptop unplugged.

 

[Pifanjr]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers for Control

I played a bit more Control during my break today and got telekinesis, which is nice because I'm still not great at aiming and the telekinesis seems to auto-aim somewhat. However, I also got annoyed a bunch more. I got to the part where you have to pick up a phone. There's what seems to be a barrier with a pull chain right by it. When I pull on the chain, the barrier disappears, so I assume I can walk on. Instead, I plummet to my death and I have to wait for the loading screen, then run from the latest control point and fight a bunch of respawned enemies before I can get to the same point.

Then when I get to the astral plane I plummet to my death because I can't see there's a gap between two platforms. Who decided to add platforming elements to this game? When I respawn, I successfully jump the gap, only to be killed by some weird gravity anomaly that I had no indication of was dangerous. In fact, the first one I saw had just disappeared, so I assumed it was just showing me the way to go. After another respawn, I realize they are enemies that can't be killed and just slowly follow you around, forcing you to circle around them. The reason the first one had disappeared initially was because it moved where I couldn't see it.

This game is really trying my patience.

People with insomnia frequently have trouble staying awake during the day and can often sleep when/where they aren't supposed to be sleeping. I have problems with my internal clock. I can be exhausted all day and then be wide awake and feeling great starting in the evenings. One would think melatonin might help in that situation, but it doesn't. And if I give in and take a nap during the day, then there's no reason to even bother trying to sleep at night. When my insomnia is at its worst, even high doses of tranquilizers won't knock me out at night. At one point they even put me on an anti-psychotic that's known to cause severe drowsiness, and it was the only thing that's ever worked. However, as you might imagine, being on anti-psychotic medications when you aren't psychotic isn't the best idea, and I had to stop the medication due to other side effects.

My wife been having trouble with insomnia lately as well and has been spending most nights doing WoW raids with her guild. She has also started playing Final Fantasy 14 on their recommendation.

 

[ZedClampet]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers for Control

I played a bit more Control during my break today and got telekinesis, which is nice because I'm still not great at aiming and the telekinesis seems to auto-aim somewhat. However, I also got annoyed a bunch more. I got to the part where you have to pick up a phone. There's what seems to be a barrier with a pull chain right by it. When I pull on the chain, the barrier disappears, so I assume I can walk on. Instead, I plummet to my death and I have to wait for the loading screen, then run from the latest control point and fight a bunch of respawned enemies before I can get to the same point.

Then when I get to the astral plane I plummet to my death because I can't see there's a gap between two platforms. Who decided to add platforming elements to this game? When I respawn, I successfully jump the gap, only to be killed by some weird gravity anomaly that I had no indication of was dangerous. In fact, the first one I saw had just disappeared, so I assumed it was just showing me the way to go. After another respawn, I realize they are enemies that can't be killed and just slowly follow you around, forcing you to circle around them. The reason the first one had disappeared initially was because it moved where I couldn't see it.

This game is really trying my patience.

My wife been having trouble with insomnia lately as well and has been spending most nights doing WoW raids with her guild. She has also started playing Final Fantasy 14 on their recommendation.

I've heard 14 is really good. It's a great story how the game bombed, and they went back and completely reworked it. I'm not really an MMO player anymore though. I don't feel like the ones I've played have done anything in particular very well. The emphasis seems to just be on the amount of content. But I haven't played all that many MMOs. That's just my impression from the ones I've played.