What are you playing?

GasBandit

Staff member
Jeez, Palworld doesn't have any concept art at all. There's literally zero 2D concepts, documents or anything of any kind. They apparently STARTED designing with 3D models and, what do you know, they're almost directly lifted from recent Pokemon games with some slight alterations.

Who knew a crypto/AI asshole CEO with a company that literally didn't include artists and didn't know what 3D rigging was could manage to put out such a feature rich game so quickly.

I WONDER HOW?
 
Jeez, Palworld doesn't have any concept art at all. There's literally zero 2D concepts, documents or anything of any kind. They apparently STARTED designing with 3D models and, what do you know, they're almost directly lifted from recent Pokemon games with some slight alterations.

Who knew a crypto/AI asshole CEO with a company that literally didn't include artists and didn't know what 3D rigging was could manage to put out such a feature rich game so quickly.

I WONDER HOW?
After having played some of it now, I can guarantee that anything that isn't ai generated Pokemon copy is just an asset sold in a store somewhere. All the guns and other weapons look like they are straight out of the unity or unreal asset store, whatever they are using, the survival/base building models and animations all look like they are straight packages from survival_game.pak, etc. If they weren't copying Pokemon it would be any other generic asset flip survival game of which there are thousands of already on steam.

And hey, if people are liking it I'm not gonna yuck their yum, but I really doubt anyone will be playing this in a month. This game has "never makes it out of early access" kinda written on it
 

GasBandit

Staff member
The resource gathering animation is right out of Fortnite. And as Dunkey showed for a split second, sometimes the game accidentally refers to the player as the fortnite asset name as referenced in code.
 
The resource gathering animation is right out of Fortnite. And as Dunkey showed for a split second, sometimes the game accidentally refers to the player as the fortnite asset name as referenced in code.
You know, I may have given them too much benefit of the doubt. I assumed they bought a bunch of assets, but they could have just straight up stolen a bunch too
 
Lil’ Guardsman has been fun so far. It’s like a funnier and less dark version of Papers Please. You’re a 12 year old girl who covers for her dad’s shift at the city gates in a fantasy spoof setting. You decide who you admit by carefully interrogating and using various tools to suss out the true intentions of those entering.
my favorite character thus far is the singing Disney peasant girl.
Who likes to burn things…
 
At the end of last year, I re-subscribed to PS Plus with an annual membership during a sale for it. I've been revisiting games I tried the last time I had PS Plus but they didn't grab me at the time for whatever reason.

Days Gone

I don't know what changed since the last time I played it, but I got absolutely hooked on this. I think I got into a grove of running missions for outposts, looting and crafting, and later hunting hordes. The story isn't anything fantastic, but each outpost faction was interesting. Glad I gave it a second chance because I wound up finishing the whole thing.

Ghost of Tsushima

I'm nearing the end of this breathtakingly gorgeous game. Again, I got into something of an open-world grove with this one. Looting, crafting, emptying the world of Mongols. The story has been just engaging enough to keep me going. There's a strange dichotomy between choosing to be an honorable samurai or a sneaky assassin who plays dirty to get the job done. It doesn't really make a difference which way you play it and I kind of wish the game made you feel more torn between the paths.

Still, with both games, if they ever announced sequels for either one, I'd be down for a new one.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

This one has kinda been spoiled for me because I've played so many games that do what it does better. SW Jedi Fallen Order has a much better plot, and better combat. Control did telekinesis better. Arkham and similar games had much better combat. In comparison SW:TFU just feels clunky and cheap. It's not a bad game, it's gameplay just feels more dated than the graphics.
 
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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Demo

It's a faithfull recreation of the Nibelheim incident from the original with some added content. The fights are very fast and snappy. And with the new menu Rebirth feels like a proper rpg while Remake more like an action adventure.

I expect many videos with Cloud playing popular songs on the piano on YouTube the coming days.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I just started playing Journey to the Savage Planet and so far I'm enjoying it. Thus far the vibes I'm getting from it are Slime Rancher, hold the farming, add violence and a dark sense of humor with a heavy dose of colonialism/capitalism parody. Explore, kill local fauna, gather resources, build upgrades. There's no hunger bar or other survival mechanics, outside of a health meter (which gets upgraded by eating strange orange goo, after which the cheerful computer voice gleefully updates you on the strange alien tumors it's causing to grow inside of you).
 
I started a new play through of Garden Paws. I loved it when I first played a few years ago (I think? Or longer?) and i saw that they added a new map.

My little cotton candy cat is adorable!
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I just started playing Journey to the Savage Planet and so far I'm enjoying it. Thus far the vibes I'm getting from it are Slime Rancher, hold the farming, add violence and a dark sense of humor with a heavy dose of colonialism/capitalism parody. Explore, kill local fauna, gather resources, build upgrades. There's no hunger bar or other survival mechanics, outside of a health meter (which gets upgraded by eating strange orange goo, after which the cheerful computer voice gleefully updates you on the strange alien tumors it's causing to grow inside of you).
I've gotten really sucked into this. It's definitely not as chill as Slime Rancher, because it's got boss battles. There's also a freaking ton to explore and collect. With all the scanning and collectibles, there's more than a little Metroid Prime in the inspiration for this. Getting new upgrades allows you to revisit old areas and find more stuff.

My biggest complaint is that there is no map. You can get guide markers showing the direction towards quest goals, and later upgrade to locate nearby collectibles, but there's no map showing you how various areas are connected. There are quick-travel teleporters, but if you have a bad sense of direction this game is going to be horribly frustrating.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I've gotten really sucked into this. It's definitely not as chill as Slime Rancher, because it's got boss battles. There's also a freaking ton to explore and collect. With all the scanning and collectibles, there's more than a little Metroid Prime in the inspiration for this. Getting new upgrades allows you to revisit old areas and find more stuff.

My biggest complaint is that there is no map. You can get guide markers showing the direction towards quest goals, and later upgrade to locate nearby collectibles, but there's no map showing you how various areas are connected. There are quick-travel teleporters, but if you have a bad sense of direction this game is going to be horribly frustrating.
Journey to the Savage Planet is one of the best games I've never heard of. If it hadn't been part of Prime Gaming it would have completely passed me by, and that's a shame because there's a lot to like in this.

The battle against the Floopsnoot Matriarch is one of the best times I've had shooting glowing weak points in a while. No real spoilers here, giant space alien, shoot the glowing spots, jump and dodge attacks while doing so, figure out how to get past shields when the glowing spots get blocked. It could be a boss in a Metroid Prime game (if those games had standard FPS controls). It was really well done, though. The pacing and the difficulty were fantastic. I was zipping along during the first phase, and by the final third I was scrambling between health pickups.

I'm still mildly lamenting the lack of a map, but I haven't gotten outright stuck at any point, and while the game is absolutely packed with collectibles it seems like it doesn't expect you to actually find anywhere near all of them to progress. (For instance, I've already maxed out my health, but that happened before I hit 60/100 collected of the upgrade material.)
 
Bought Helldivers 2. Apparently, some update and the huge influx of new players fucked up matchmaking. So only solo play or playing with friends. Guess i gotta play alone for now.
 
How is it as a solo experience? I usually don't play online games, whether coop or PvP, but all the recent hype has made me a bit curious about the game.
 
What time(s) would you usually play? ‘Cause I do.
Thanks for the offer, but due to time zones, i am playing at the time where you probably are at work. :)

How is it as a solo experience? I usually don't play online games, whether coop or PvP, but all the recent hype has made me a bit curious about the game.
I think solo play will let you experience maybe 30% of the game. From the little that I played. There is no chance that you can solo the waves on higher difficulties. So probably no Defense Missions for you. There seems to be "stealth" so you can do the "destroy objective missions" if you dont get caught, but if you extract you will still need to defend your LZ. But I am very very early into the game, so take what i say with a grain of salt.
 
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Dave

Staff member
Thanks for the offer, but due to time zones, i am playing at the time where you probably are at work. :)



I think solo play will let you experience maybe 30% of the game. From the little that I played. There is no chance that you can solo the waves on higher difficulties. So probably no Defense Missions for you. There seems to be "stealth" so you can do the "destroy objective missions" if you dont get caught, but if you extract you will still need to defend your LZ. But I am very very early into the game, so take what i say with a grain of salt.
Well considering right now I work nights so I'm awake from 5:30 pm central time until about 9 am central time... :-P
 

Dave

Staff member
Everyone is playing Nightingale but me. I have a bug that several others have and that's you can't exit the tutorial area. Your portal just won't open. Which stops you from playing the game. So here I sit, unable to play Last Epoch as they are down, and unable to play Nightingale because of bugs. And I'm up all night.
 
Today I hopped back onto my MUD (basically a text-based MMO, for anyone unfamiliar) to play a bit, after an absence of several months. I noted that one feature of the game didn't seem to be working right, or at least it was working differently compared to before. My character on this mud can have companions that follow me around and help me in combat, but I noticed that my followers would stop following me, and would instead just stand in one place no matter what commands I gave to them.

So while I was whining on the MUD about this unexpected behavior, apparently one of the coders/maintainers of the MUD (known as wizards on this particular MUD) heard me, so he looked into the code right there.

Wizard: "Ok, it looks like the code for followers has changed since you last played, so what should be happening is (X, Y, and Z). So if you do (A), it should now be working right."

Me: "Ok, I just did (A), but they're still not following me."

Wizard: "Oh, ok, I think I see the problem now. Do (B) and then do (A), and it should work right.

Me: "Ok, I just did (B) and then (A), and they're following me now, but now they won't attack my enemies.

Wizard: "Hmm, all right, I think I see what went wrong, try doing (C) and that should fix it."

Me: "Ok, I just did (C), and now my companions have disappeared entirely."

Wizard: "... Hmm, ok, I think I see the issue now, give me a sec." (5 minutes later) "How about now?"

Me: "Now my character's companions are working correctly, but my character itself can't enter combat."

Wizard: "WTF."

Apparently since this MUD was coded by a bunch of different people, many of whom are not professional programmers, the code for companion behavior as well as how companions interact with player characters is a massive and impenetrable jumble of spaghetti code that would take days to actually sort through. So... I've just decided to not use companions for now.
 
Today I hopped back onto my MUD (basically a text-based MMO, for anyone unfamiliar) to play a bit, after an absence of several months. I noted that one feature of the game didn't seem to be working right, or at least it was working differently compared to before. My character on this mud can have companions that follow me around and help me in combat, but I noticed that my followers would stop following me, and would instead just stand in one place no matter what commands I gave to them.

So while I was whining on the MUD about this unexpected behavior, apparently one of the coders/maintainers of the MUD (known as wizards on this particular MUD) heard me, so he looked into the code right there.

Wizard: "Ok, it looks like the code for followers has changed since you last played, so what should be happening is (X, Y, and Z). So if you do (A), it should now be working right."

Me: "Ok, I just did (A), but they're still not following me."

Wizard: "Oh, ok, I think I see the problem now. Do (B) and then do (A), and it should work right.

Me: "Ok, I just did (B) and then (A), and they're following me now, but now they won't attack my enemies.

Wizard: "Hmm, all right, I think I see what went wrong, try doing (C) and that should fix it."

Me: "Ok, I just did (C), and now my companions have disappeared entirely."

Wizard: "... Hmm, ok, I think I see the issue now, give me a sec." (5 minutes later) "How about now?"

Me: "Now my character's companions are working correctly, but my character itself can't enter combat."

Wizard: "WTF."

Apparently since this MUD was coded by a bunch of different people, many of whom are not professional programmers, the code for companion behavior as well as how companions interact with player characters is a massive and impenetrable jumble of spaghetti code that would take days to actually sort through. So... I've just decided to not use companions for now.
So they quit on you? How hot were they?
 
I pre-ordered Last Epoch this morning and am hoping it will be available tonight to try.

I have high hopes! I loved Diablo 3, liked Diablo 4 and as much fun as PoE was, that talent tree was super confusing.
 
Today I hopped back onto my MUD (basically a text-based MMO, for anyone unfamiliar) to play a bit, after an absence of several months. I noted that one feature of the game didn't seem to be working right, or at least it was working differently compared to before. My character on this mud can have companions that follow me around and help me in combat, but I noticed that my followers would stop following me, and would instead just stand in one place no matter what commands I gave to them.

So while I was whining on the MUD about this unexpected behavior, apparently one of the coders/maintainers of the MUD (known as wizards on this particular MUD) heard me, so he looked into the code right there.

Wizard: "Ok, it looks like the code for followers has changed since you last played, so what should be happening is (X, Y, and Z). So if you do (A), it should now be working right."

Me: "Ok, I just did (A), but they're still not following me."

Wizard: "Oh, ok, I think I see the problem now. Do (B) and then do (A), and it should work right.

Me: "Ok, I just did (B) and then (A), and they're following me now, but now they won't attack my enemies.

Wizard: "Hmm, all right, I think I see what went wrong, try doing (C) and that should fix it."

Me: "Ok, I just did (C), and now my companions have disappeared entirely."

Wizard: "... Hmm, ok, I think I see the issue now, give me a sec." (5 minutes later) "How about now?"

Me: "Now my character's companions are working correctly, but my character itself can't enter combat."

Wizard: "WTF."

Apparently since this MUD was coded by a bunch of different people, many of whom are not professional programmers, the code for companion behavior as well as how companions interact with player characters is a massive and impenetrable jumble of spaghetti code that would take days to actually sort through. So... I've just decided to not use companions for now.
Likely a programmer issue as well as an architecture issue (or lack thereof). Most MUDs get features added either by cribbing code from another MUD, or inserted slapdash when someone like the owner or a player has a 'brilliant idea'. All those slapdash additions invariably lead to spaghetti code. BTDT
 
Apparently since this MUD was coded by a bunch of different people, many of whom are not professional programmers, the code for companion behavior as well as how companions interact with player characters is a massive and impenetrable jumble of spaghetti code that would take days to actually sort through. So... I've just decided to not use companions for now.
OMG you're bringing back memories from being a GM in a very popular MUD for a little over a decade.

--Patrick
 
I pre-ordered Last Epoch this morning and am hoping it will be available tonight to try.

I have high hopes! I loved Diablo 3, liked Diablo 4 and as much fun as PoE was, that talent tree was super confusing.
Awesome! I highly suggest offline mode until they can get the server issue cleared up.
 

Dave

Staff member
I don't know why, but LE1.0 removed something I used CONSTANTLY. It was working before and now it's just gone.

The ability to rebind your LMB to attack. Why they removed it is beyond stupid. It was working, tested, and everything was fine. Now to attack everything is counterintuitive. Now you have to spam RMB for basic attacks (which in every other game ever is your "OH FUCK!" power attack button, or you have to hit the QWER keys. It's just dumb. It's the ONLY dumb thing I've seen them do.

Never mind. It's a bug.

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Really, really rocky start to the servers, but things have settled down and seem to be running well now. YMMV.

125K concurrent players right now.
 
Things have definitely calmed down, game running SMOOTH as silk. New graphics are fantastic, lots of little fun things happen during the campaign. It's just gorgeous.
 
Have they fixed the LMB issue?
No, they have not implemented the hotfix yet from what i can see. They have it set as a High Priority though.

I guess I'm lucky I don't use my mouse buttons for anything but movement. If you have an Orbweaver or a similar devise, might want to use that or a controller in the meantime.
 
Now you have to spam RMB for basic attacks (which in every other game ever is your "OH FUCK!" power attack button
What happens if you switch your mouse to left handed mode in your computer's settings? Yeah it'll be annoying having to switch that before and after playing every time but it might work as a temporary workaround till they squash the bug.
 
Warlock is stupid fun. Cthonic Fissure is absolutely nutty and way more fun than I expected. Leveling with Ignite, but will probably need to switch to Necrotic damage for endgame.
 

Dave

Staff member
No, they have not implemented the hotfix yet from what i can see. They have it set as a High Priority though.

I guess I'm lucky I don't use my mouse buttons for anything but movement. If you have an Orbweaver or a similar devise, might want to use that or a controller in the meantime.
According to the Discord this is not a bug and there's no plans to change it. HUGE step back and absolutely makes it hard to play. Basic functionality in every ARPG game and these guys remove it for 1.0?!?
 

Dave

Staff member
On Reddit the same dev says it's a bug that they are going to patch. Both were posted on the same day. WTF?
 
According to the Discord this is not a bug and there's no plans to change it. HUGE step back and absolutely makes it hard to play. Basic functionality in every ARPG game and these guys remove it for 1.0?!?
The devs themselves have said it's a bug so I don't know if you should trust whoever on discord is telling you this.

 
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