41 replies to this topic

[Caseyweederman]

Ooooooh. Can I write some dialogue? Quests? Plot? Descriptions? Text filler?

[Drackir]

We already have a plethora of stuff thanks to Pontifus. The story and quests are something I have to dig into again since most of it was written years ago. However, I don't think we have any items set in stone yet, so... maybe.

[Caseyweederman]

Sweet. Let me know.

[Caseyweederman]

Anyways. Back on topic.
I bought Gears of War 3 on release day and recently played through it from start to finish (with a short break so I could go to work) with Dan. You remember Dan?
This game's got the best story of the three, and I'm really glad they closed off the series. None of this open-ended ambly sprawl with no clear destination for these guys.
Horde mode introduces a bunch of tower-defense mechanics. Killing foes nets you dollars and you can spend these on repairing and upgrading turrets, decoys, barbed wire and the like in between waves.
I've heard a lot about beast mode, but I haven't tried it yet.


Also: Skyrim. Soon. So soon I can taste it. Mmm, Skyrim.

[Drackir]

Skyrim = preordered.

/excitement

Hopefully Fondusi's dev won't slow down too much.

[Caseyweederman]

Skyrim == preordered. PC. Clothmap yes.
Which version? For which console?
I had my eye on the $150.00 one but that's not really reasonable.

[Drackir]

Skyrim == preordered. PC. Clothmap yes.
Which version? For which console?
I had my eye on the $150.00 one but that's not really reasonable.

I'm getting it on Xbox. I'll probably grab the PC version when it goes on crazy discount on Steam at Christmas.

On a side note, I just got the logo, loading and background screens running for the Fondusi's game client. Woo hoo. :-)

[Megell]

I'll be buying the torrented version of skyrim.

[Drackir]

Get a job, you hippie!

[Megell]

With an english and psychology degree? hardly. I can now offically tell you about your favourite authors problems.

[Drackir]

Time for a PhD!

**Edit:**
Also, Skyrim tomorrow!

[Caseyweederman]

Tomorrow? Skyrim tonight!
I'm installing it and then going to sleep. Kinewa is going to play it while I'm at work cursing under my breath. Then I am going to play all weekend.
I took a morning shift on Friday before I found out that the place I ordered it is having a midnight release.

[Drackir]

Meh. I *could* get it at the midnight release, but I can wait.

[Caseyweederman]

Skyrim Skyrim Skyrim Skyrim Skyrim. Skyrim?
I've killed two dragons and cleared out the chaural stronghold under the lighthouse at level 5. What have you done today?

[Drackir]

Yeah. I'm level 10. Done quite a bit so far. Got a couple shouts under my belt.

[Caseyweederman]

I have way more shouts to unlock than I have dragon souls. I don't know how that happened. Do the walls give you multiple shouts? I haven't found much use for them. Hey, that guy backed off for half a second. 'Kay.
I'm level... 12? 13? My favorite tactic is flame/flame with the dual destruction perk, switching to heal/heal when I'm desperate. Ooh, I've got fast heal now, I should swap that in.
I'm struggling to bring my smithing skill up. I don't think I can make any headway financially, at least not yet. I've put a bunch of energy into enchanting, so maybe that will help.
Every time I find an anvil I am immediately too overburdened to run. Heh.
It's weird to be grinding up a craft. It doesn't feel natural to be smithing a whole pile of daggers so that some day I will be able to smith dragonplate armor. Also there are nowhere near enough materials.
Overall story decisions: Beeline for mage's college, set up my room as permanent residence. I've chosen no sides in the war, but if it's possible to solve the issue with diplomacy, I will.

Woop, I was going to link to some steam screenshots but I guess I didn't upload them properly at home?

[Megell]

Shouts are only ever important on master difficulty as far as I can tell.

Basically they only play in when you need 1) an instant win 2) a breath to recover a tiny bit. I playing a pretty dedicated breton mage at level 30 now with only enchantment and smithing as sub skills. No armor whatsoever and not alot of health means that most non-magical foes one-shot my character unless I'm using stoneskin at the time(which upgrades it too 2 hits at most). I can definitly say the knock back at level 2 has saved my ass more times then I can count, and the level 3 ice is just hillarious for swarms. My conclusion is shouts are basically only good as a reserve for the highest difficulties where you have to hit most enimies 10 times with a ice/firebolt to kill them (most other spells in the destruction domain arn't worth the magicka cost, ossacially with icestorm/fireball as an exception).

I'm guessing though, for a melee character, shouts are basically usueless though.

[Caseyweederman]

Shouts are just a different form of magic. Their limiter is a cooldown instead of a mana cost. It's pretty fun freezing high-level monsters in a giant case of ice and then just letting them <shades /> chill.
The knockback is handy when you're rushed by a bunch of melee clowns, and it can get a dragon to stop attacking you long enough to heal yourself.
All in all I don't use them too often as they usually don't occur to me. They're just separated enough that I don't pull them out unless I'm desperate for another source of damage.

I'm level ~35 and on the quest for the forge fingers I found an Arch Necromancer. I could barely deal him damage and he could one-shot me with his dual fireballs. The part that made this an impossible fight instead of an interesting fight is that every time he dropped below 30% health, he healed himself to full.
I ran away with the quest item, but I'll always remember, and some day I'll go back and kick his ass.

But geez, it was like I just couldn't touch him.

[Megell]

This is my second character. The first one was a lvl 20 fighter orc experiment. Fun for a while but it grew boring relitivily quickly.

But some cool tips for everyone intrested in playing a mage.
If your doing enchantment look into the absorb magika or resitance too it, abosrob magika can be hard to find on generic items, but it will turn up sonner or later. Good races are breton which has a natural 25%(?)resitance and epic dragon skin ability that provides 50% absorbtion for a minute. Nord is also a suprisingly good choice as well as the 50% resistance to frost really seems to shine as most of the most powerful enemy mages seem to prefer ice magic when it comes down too it. Dark elves arn't bad, 50% fire resistance with a +10 starting boon to destuction... I'd avoid highelves because the +50 magicka sucks in conparison to the defense especially at higher levels when spells become scary.Throw this in with a moderate alteration skill that will eventually provide 30% additional resitance, 50%absorbtion (or something) and a master enchanted item or two with those properties and your laughing at mages. Without throwing too much effort into this character is currently sitting at a 25% rate of absorbtion, 70%ish magic resisitance, and almost 225% regeneration. (I've mastered enchantment at this point, azure's black star makes this a joke - because dispite what the game says, it absorbs white souls as well, and petty gems are easy to buy in bulk for training purposes). Worrying about restoration is not really a problem as duelcasted healing brings you up to full health so fast it's retarded. The only thing really worthwhile in that tree happens to be the +25%(50% with a second purchase at 60) magicka regeneration. Not bad for a background perk.

Offensivily, if your playing a dedicated mage go for the frost and fire bonus in the destruction tree - skip sparks until a higher level or when perks become more liberal. (its because sparks is meant to be a happy medium for characters who are not a dedicated mage. Not much is strong against it, but not much is weak to it). Get duel cast, and the knockback as soon as possible too - this will really help you when fighting strong single enemies. Illusion is as far as I can see virutally useless overal - but I need to explore it considerably more before I can make a final call. Quite casting (perk) is good, but long term isn't worth it unless you have a high sneak, and muffle (spell) does the job just as well. Alteration is fantastic, I can't preach this enough, the tree is epic, and the bonus especially along the side are so worthwhile it's not even funny. Conjuration is nifty, espeically if your outnumbered, a zombie or a flame thinnger can save your ass in a boss fight - but long term takes alot of dediction to get past skill level 40.

Conclusion
Breton mage - destruction/alteration - sub in enchantment conjuration = best.
Nord mage - destruction/conjuration - sub in combat or smithing with alteration - good.
Everything else - pretty terrible.

[Caseyweederman]

So I got into the beta for Path of Exile, and I've got to say, it's everything that I loved about Diablo II.
If you've played D2, you'll find PoE has a very familiar feel, only it's a free-to-play massively multiplayer game.
I dunno how much I'm allowed to say about it.
There's a potion belt, only this one is cooler. You only drink as much of a potion as you need, and then that potion bottle fills up a little with every kill. You'll find bottles with special enchantments, you want to hold on to those ones.
There are acts and chapters, waypoints and a stash at your campsite. There are scrolls of identify and of town portal, but there are also a dozen similar items which have their own effects. One raises the quality of your weapon. One rerolls the sockets on a piece of equipment. One rerolls the enchantments on a piece of equipment. These are all used in a barter system of trade.
There is a freaking massive, expansive skill tree. I'm very excited about exploring its branches.
There are quests, rewards, NPCs, sprite recolors, random maps, a rewarding combat system...
Oh, the gems which you socket into equipment are spells which can affect each other like materia. That's cool.

Anyways, that's what I'm playing. Alongside Skyrim and Terraria and Minecraft and Cave Story + and...