Any gamers around here?

[drunkenshoe]

Not aware if it was posted. This looks so good. E: but independent. I dunno maybe rules changed and now, that's better. I hope it will come out and as good as it looks.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1401370/Viking_City_Builder/

[Hydra009]

I've been itching to dive back into the Heroes of Might and Magic games lately.

So I bought HoMM5 from GoG, which was waaay cheaper than Steam ($5 on GoG, $10 on Steam).  Confusingly, Steam offered a larger % off, but it wasn't a better deal because of a larger base price.  Don't do me dirty, Steam!

And I was pleasantly surprised that GoG even included the famous skillwheel (3rd party program that helps plan hero builds).  That's above and beyond service and made a great first impression.

I loved playing HoMM5 again, but the game has one serious flaw - AI turns take forever.  When you hit End Turn, it's a solid minute of dead silence and choppy animations.  Even alt-tabbing won't save you, the game pauses itself and resumes where it left off.  There is no escape.  So basically, you play the game for a couple minutes, then watch absolutely nothing for a solid minute.  Over and over again.  That adds up.

Well, there's a new mod called Heroes 5.5 that not only fixes that, it also drastically improves the AI.  Hard, but not unbeatable.  The base game was like fighting a shitzhu.  The modded game is like fighting Gollum for the One Ring.  He might not be the toughest guy around, but he's vicious and tenacious, and there's a 75% chance someone's finger is going to get bitten off.

[henny]

Any MMORPG / RPG games recommendations here? Thank you so much!

[Blackleaf]

Any MMORPG / RPG games recommendations here? Thank you so much!

Hey, don't know you. Please make a post in Introductions, please.

Also, I'd recommend trying out The Elder Scrolls Online. It's free to play, with DLCs for purchase, and all its DLCs are all available if you pay for a subscription. If you've played Skyrim before, it's like a nice medium between the single player Elder Scrolls and a typical MMORPG. It's definitely improved over the many years since it launched, as they've taken feedback from their fans. Personally, I don't play it anymore, but that has more to do with my lack of free time, my erratic work schedule making it impossible to plan anything with a guild, and a lack of roleplaying servers, rather than the game not living up to my standards. Seems WoW is the only game that still remembers the roleplaying part of MMORPG.

I'm actually hoping the next single-player Elder Scrolls takes some things from the MMORPG. Better character customization (an essential for an MMORPG, but would be appreciated in single-player too), racial styles for crafting, cooking actually being a useful skill, lockpicking that doesn't freeze the world around you, and dyes for clothing and armor would all be welcome for me.

[Mr.Obvious]

My brother got me red dead redemption 2 for ps4.
Goddamn I love that man.
Anyone elso playing that? Could form a posse online.

[Blackleaf]

My brother got me red dead redemption 2 for ps4.
Goddamn I love that man.
Anyone elso playing that? Could form a posse online.

I have it, but I haven't played much of it. Not because I don't enjoy it, but just because I have too many games. lol

[Hydra009]

Any MMORPG / RPG games recommendations here? Thank you so much!

City Of Heroes.  Love letter to golden/silver-age comics.  Completely free.  Decent game design:  no arguing about phat lewts or corpserunning or killstealing or waiting on windriders or grinding rep.  You can literally fly within the first hour of playtime.  Once you hit max level (<1 week of serious effort), you can take part in 99% of game content.  Many PC classes and class combinations, wide varierty of enemy mobs and locations.  Friendly and active community.

[Hydra009]

I'm actually hoping the next single-player Elder Scrolls takes some things from the MMORPG. Better character customization (an essential for an MMORPG, but would be appreciated in single-player too), racial styles for crafting, cooking actually being a useful skill, lockpicking that doesn't freeze the world around you, and dyes for clothing and armor would all be welcome for me.

Racial styles for crafting?  Expanded cooking would be good - Skyrim cooking was pretty barebones.  Dyes would be awesome but given Bethesda's owners, I'm pretty sure we'd have to pay $30 for blue.

Personally, I'd be fine with:
A class system (pick several skills and your character will at least initially be better with those skills, even though technically, you can eventually hit 100 in everything)
Custom spells
Competing factions (seems kinda dumb that you can become the master of every guild - no one has a problem with the head thief becoming the archmage)
And finally, meaningful choices that change the gameworld (at the very least, townsfolk acknowledging your deeds)

[Blackleaf]

Racial styles for crafting?  Expanded cooking would be good - Skyrim cooking was pretty barebones.  Dyes would be awesome but given Bethesda's owners, I'm pretty sure we'd have to pay $30 for blue.

Personally, I'd be fine with:
A class system (pick several skills and your character will at least initially be better with those skills, even though technically, you can eventually hit 100 in everything)
Custom spells
Competing factions (seems kinda dumb that you can become the master of every guild - no one has a problem with the head thief becoming the archmage)
And finally, meaningful choices that change the gameworld (at the very least, townsfolk acknowledging your deeds)

In ESO, armor and weapons (note that clothing counts as an armor class in ESO) can be crafted in the styles of all 10 playable races, plus more. They all offer the same protection, if made from the same base material, but they have their own visual flair. For instance, you can have Nordic steel armor or Imperial steel armor, or even Daedric steel. No longer does "orcish armor" or "elven armor" tell you what material it's made of.

Hopefully they calm down with the microtransactions with future ganes. Some think they were planning to sell, and were trying to appear as profitable as possible. Inflate their numbers, basically. I don't think it's too much to ask that we be allowed to rock our pink Daedric armor without paying extra. I miss the days when content was lumped together into big DLCs, rather than charging for a single sword.

[Blackleaf]

Speaking of DLC, when they rereleased Skyrim with the more stable and upgraded Special Edition, part of me was really hoping they would release extra DLC for the game. I mean, they even allowed PC players to get Special Edition for free, like they really wanted us to be prepared for extra content. Of course, it turned out they mainly just did that so they could sell us stuff on the Creation Club.

I would have bought a new DLC right away. Why do they only release two major DLCs for each Elder Scrolls game, but they have half a dozen for Fallout? You'd think a fantasy game would have more potential. Oh well.

[Hydra009]

When gamers say that they like the game's graphics, are they talking about its photorealism or its art style?  Because those are two very different things.

Personally, I'll happily play a game with crude graphics if it has an attractive art style.

[Mike Cl]

When gamers say that they like the game's graphics, are they talking about its photorealism or its art style?  Because those are two very different things.

Personally, I'll happily play a game with crude graphics if it has an attractive art style.

Depends upon the game.  Games like Fallout 4 I prefer photorealism.  With Skyrim, I like some photorealism but also some art style mixed in.  With Borderlands games, the cartoony feel is good because it is well done and fits the mood of the game.  The Civ games stylish art is a must.  One type of graphic turns me off and that's the Mind Craft type--I love legos to play with but not for graphics in any of my games. 

[Blackleaf]

Art comes in many styles, which are all valid. This applies to video games as well. Back when games were measured in bits, graphics were very important, because they were more limited with what they could do. When games went 3D, those crude, polygonal models blew our minds. Then each generation pushed the boundaries of what was possible even further. Today, photorealism is still cool, but the difference between current gen and last gen is not as dramatic as it was between, say, PS1 versus PS2. So now people don't make it as much of a priority, and we even have some games that look intentionally dated. Some horror games use PS1 style graphics to leave more to the imagination, which helps to make a player feel uneasy. With a game like Skyrim, photorealism helps with immersion, but nobody wants to see a photorealistic Mario game. What determines if the graphics are "good" these days is whether or not they fulfill their intended purpose.