PC Gaming = World of Suck

[Mercutio]

Here's what I think is the primary source for ridiculous screenshots. They probably have a lot of guidance for modding.
Technically you can do the same thing with Fallout 3 I guess. I don't think it gets pretty, but it looks like you can make it less baby poop yellow. I do wonder if modders fixed the crappy plot to the main game.

 

[ddrueding]

Here's what I think is the primary source for ridiculous screenshots. They probably have a lot of guidance for modding.
Technically you can do the same thing with Fallout 3 I guess. I don't think it gets pretty, but it looks like you can make it less baby poop yellow. I do wonder if modders fixed the crappy plot to the main game.

Holy Crap. I might be able to download/install some percentage of those if I commit all the gaming time I have for the week to the cause. Those are awful pretty, though.

 

[Mercutio]

There's a game called Tabletop Simulator that looks super cool other than the obvious drawback that you can all probably guess. The super-amazing thing about it is support for 7-person multiplayer and a pretty decent selection of implemented games including Android:Netrunner, Mage Knight, Cards Against Humanity, King of Tokyo and Sentinels of the Multiverse. You play the games as board games, which means you need to know how to play, but since all the people I was playing Sentinels and Zombicide with are in places that aren't northwest Indiana any more, this feels like it would be the greatest thing in the history of ever if the developer would just release it on GoG.


Anyway, these are the cool screenshots I was talking about.

 

[Handruin]

Wow, I guess I do need to mod my skyrim and give it a try. Those screen captures look incredible.

 

[sedrosken]

Ah, if only I could even hope to run something on that order.

 

[Chewy509]

Hmmm....

 

[Mercutio]

I know Doom 3 was terrible because it was heavily pre-scripted and didn't have all the cool action or ability to both see and shoot, but this looks like a wild over-correction. Maybe they're just emphasizing the mayhem above and beyond the atmosphere, but original Doom was terrifying and kept getting weirder the farther you got into the game, either by adding new textures or new monsters. Maybe we're all jaded and that kind of game just isn't possible any more, but what I'd love to see is someone re-implement classic id software Doom, Doom 2 and NewDoom using a modern engine, rather like the version of Rise of the Triad that was put out in 2013.

Those graphics are definitely super cool though.

 

[Chewy509]

Having played about half way through D3:BFG*, my only complaint was the heavy pre-script and the lack of action compared to the originals... But as you said, "wild over-correction", which may put the heavy action gameplay back in that was sorely missing from D3...

*BFG edn has slightly alternated gameplay, slightly revamped textures/models, and includes the flashlight mod that lets you use the flash light and weapon at the same time....

 

[sedrosken]

Anyone here excited for Fallout 4? I'm not really excited for anything, mostly because I don't have any hardware capable of running it.

 

[Mercutio]

I really liked the first two Fallout games. The third game got the tone dead wrong by dropping the humor for ever-greater darkity grimdark and was critically short on different models and textures for what was supposed to be an open world/sandbox RPG, but it was one of the last mainstream games released without a big studio rights management platform, so I do own it and have played it. The third game was also crashy as hell, has a quest path that's SERIOUSLY easy to derail (I skipped ~80% of the game on my first play-through by picking a lock on the second building I entered after leaving the vault), and has a ridiculously bad ending that railroads the player into doing something that will get them killed in spite of it being non-lethal to literally any other member of your party at that point. It put a bad taste in my mouth for all other Bethesda titles.

But then I read that the clueless pukes who made it had nothing to do with Fallout: New Vegas, which is supposedly much closer in tone to the old games, or with this new game. That gives me hope that it'll be decent.

I still won't be able to play because of Steam or Origin or whatever other malware they're inflicting, but maybe there will be a decent Let's Play for it on Youtube.

On the other hand, did anyone see that Windows 10 will support direct streaming of Xbox games and that the current Xbox is getting support for 360 titles? Because that's actually pretty cool.

 

[sedrosken]

I'd love to find the first two games some time. Never played them but I hear they're really good. I hated the hoops i had to jump through to get 3 running, where New Vegas has given me no issues, even running in WINE admirably on a crappy Intel HD graphics chipset on the Celery laptop I had at one time.

I like what MS is doing this year. I never thought I would say that again, but I like the direction they're taking. They're still screwing up a lot of things, but it seems less a deliberate 'screw you' this time.

 

[Chewy509]

Another Doom clip:

 

[Handruin]

I'd love to find the first two games some time. Never played them but I hear they're really good. I hated the hoops i had to jump through to get 3 running, where New Vegas has given me no issues, even running in WINE admirably on a crappy Intel HD graphics chipset on the Celery laptop I had at one time.

I like what MS is doing this year. I never thought I would say that again, but I like the direction they're taking. They're still screwing up a lot of things, but it seems less a deliberate 'screw you' this time.

You should be able to get them both from Good Old Games on the cheap with no DRM. I have them both somewhere in my datahoard collection of stuff.

 

[sedrosken]

Cool. When I get around to setting up a GOG account with actual funds I'll see about grabbing them. They sound like a good way to kill a few afternoons.

 

[Mercutio]

The coverage of the decision to remove the new Batman game from sale is quite interesting. Apparently, there were only 12 programmers assigned to port the Playstation 4 version (?) to PC. Which is very telling from the standpoint of the wider priorities of game studios.

I did watch Totalbiscuit's Youtube review, where an overclocked 5930 with a pair of Titan Xs was regularly dropping below 50fps and sometimes down into the single digits. Makes me wonder if they did any QA at all on the Windows version of the game.

 

[Buck]

PC Gaming - Rust

This probably sounds backwards, considering the inherent purpose of the game, but I do enjoy playing Rust because of its building characteristics. It is safe to say, I play on PVE servers. Currently, I am on my first modded server, where resources abound and stack in great quantities. Playing on PVE servers where PVP is banned, but raiding is tolerated, has been fun too. Of course watching out for the occasional back-stabber is always important.

Lately, the only downside is that with the increase in scene/texture/shading/detail quality, my beloved 560Ti is showing its age. All other hardware has been updated, and it is now the graphics card that is the bottleneck. Alas, I am too cheap to upgrade at this time.

 

[Mercutio]

I suspect that if you moved to something with whatever the replacement for nVidia's Maxwell is, you'd probably be set for graphics for another four or five year. You just to have better hardware than whatever they're shoveling into consoles. Unless you want to play the new Batman game, apparently.

 

[Mercutio]

Buck, have you looked at Ark? The other person I know who really got in to Rust is currently raving about Ark.

 

[Buck]

Buck, have you looked at Ark? The other person I know who really got in to Rust is currently raving about Ark.

Not until you mentioned it! Ark looks cool! Thanks!

 

[Mercutio]

Neopets forum gets filthy when mods get laid off; forum needs its mouth washed out with soap. Neopets. The thing that eight year olds really like before they discover Pokemons.

 

[ddrueding]

A friend turned me onto World of Warships. It is pretty and fun for now, pretty sure it won't last (like Mechwarrior Online).

 

[Mercutio]

The biggest problem I had with MWO was the community. I understand that it's a game with a PVP focus but I couldn't find anybody that was familiar with or interested in the backstory of what was happening in the game. You HAVE to group and you HAVE to use to voice comms to play and if you don't have a regular team you're just going to lose over and over and over while the idiots on your team argue about football or something.

 

[ddrueding]

For me it was the repetitive nature of gameplay. Limited number of maps means that you aren't exploring after a couple days, this is exacerbated by how fast the rounds are. World of Warships has the same issues.

I'm sure that being part of a group with voice comms would make it much more fun. I have 1 friend who plays, and he also has young children and limited time. We have yet to even be on at the same time once.

 

[snowhiker]

delete.

 

[sedrosken]

I just got the new King's Quest on Steam. It hasn't even started downloading yet, but I'll let you guys know what I think of it once it's finished downloading and I've had a few hours to kick it around. Full disclosure: I have never played any of the series. I have heard countless times that it's good, one of the best, maybe even the best, but I've never been bored enough to try it.

 

[CougTek]

I just got the new King's Quest on Steam. It hasn't even started downloading yet, but I'll let you guys know what I think of it once it's finished downloading and I've had a few hours to kick it around. Full disclosure: I have never played any of the series. I have heard countless times that it's good, one of the best, maybe even the best, but I've never been bored enough to try it.

I've played the first one of the series, in 1981. It was big for that time, but I wasn't very good at gaming and I've never finished it.

 

[Mercutio]

I remember being stuck at the bottom of the well in the first King's Quest. I had every single other part figured out but I could never get out of the well after I killed the dragon. I did finish King's Quest 2, Space quest, Police Quest, both Leisure Suit Larry titles and the Black Cauldron, among those old Sierra games.

 

[ddrueding]

I remember keeping paper notes on the different potions and ingredients. Good times.

 

[sedrosken]

So it's basically "Jumping Through Hoops: The Game." But I love it. Something about the atmosphere is so utterly charming that it's kept me entranced for more than about a half hour at a time, which is more than I can say about just about anything these days.

 

[Clocker]

Spent $2.99 on Grid (racing game) for PC and am totally loving it. Many hours of fun and with my GTX970 I can crank everything up to max and it doesn't even break a sweat.

 

[ddrueding]

Was just looking into buying Grid2 (huge discount on Steam right now), but decided to re-install Prison Architect instead.

 

[Clocker]

Bought Mad Max for $15 on Steam from cdkeys.com I am totally loving it. Only about 1/2 hour in but already worth the money. Love how fast Steam's servers are too! I like getting games this way...not having to deal with media etc.

http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/mad-max-pc

 

[Clocker]

Was just looking into buying Grid2 (huge discount on Steam right now), but decided to re-install Prison Architect instead.

I had Grid2 installed but it would not launch properly on my machine for some reason and I could not play it. Luckily Steam lets you get a refund, which I did. From what I read, the original is more fun anyway, if I remember correctly. I have to agree it is fun to play and for the price you could not go wrong.

 

[snowhiker]

It is nice to be able to fully utilize your 100+ mb/s internet connection.

 

[sedrosken]

As someone with a 3.3mbps internet connection... I envy you all. Often I end up not being able to do much at all for fear of bogging down the internet for everyone else in the house. Still, better than having the raw speed required but having a data cap as well.

Excuse me while I unplug my ethernet cord because I don't want Windows Update to kill the bandwidth.

 

[snowhiker]

As someone with a 3.3mbps internet connection...

That's 30,000x faster than first time I sat in a friends house and connected to another computer via modem. 110 baud. 110 CPS. And it was coolest F'ing thing in the world, back in 83-84'ish.

 

[sedrosken]

Probably, but these days 30,000 times your first experience just doesn't cut it.

 

[Mercutio]

3Mbit is probably right on the threshold of what I'd call tolerable. At least that's fast enough that you aren't really waiting for pictures to load on a web page.

To give you some idea of how fast 110bps is, I can remember being on a 300bps connection and being able to watch individual words as they were received. 1200bps was slower than I'd call a comfortable reading speed and 9600bps was the last time I even tried to keep up with text as it was displayed. Be thankful for what you have, sed.

 

[ddrueding]

I think it is all relative to what the author of the pages you are viewing had in mind. The BBS days had all kinds of optimizations for low-bandwith connections, but I remember being on 28.8 long after 56k was a regular thing and suffering for it. Then when I had dual ISDN when everyone else was on 56k I was laughing. Same when I was one of the first to get DSL.

 

[blakerwry]

I guess it all depends on the application. 14.4k was fine for a text based internet and faxes. Websites with static images were a drag on anything below 56k+. Interactive websites and what we now call SD video probably requires 2-3+ Mbps using modern codecs. If you want HD video you'll need 8Mbps+. If you share your internet connection between multiple people/devices that are competing for the same finite bandwidth, you'll need to multiply these numbers.

Since the application(s) have changed, so has our need for high bandwidth access. At work, I dial-up to several routers for out of band access and 9600bps (default for a lot of equip) is acceptable. At home where the wife wants to browse the web (including SD video), while someone else wants to watch netflix (HD video), the kid does homework/skype across the ocean/facebook, and there are other devices that may be downloading updates, refreshing content in the background, etc we are content with a 15Mbps+ connection. Our provider recently upgraded us from 15/1mbps to 50/5Mbps (TWC cable) and I'm not complaining, but I'm also not really noticing a big difference. I'm sure I will appreciate the increase the next time I go to upload photos to zenfolio.