Favourite computer games of all time. [2]

Seems to be so far.

Really good so far!

New PvEvP mode which is cool.

Story has been good... they went for a darker tone and nailed it I think. Just done main story and now to see what is next.

{{How is it on the dip your sporran and micro transaction you into bankruptcy and an early grave front?}}

There was a massive backlash early in Destiny 2 because of the big push for microtransactions in game and lack of things earnable in game.

Most people didn't have an issue with paying extra for certain cosmetic items so long as the rest of the game had lots of loot to earn, which it didn't.

Happy to say now that the game activities now have lots of items attached to activities and the vendor you can spend real money with also has ways to earn that loot... just takes ages.

That is the right balance I think.

... just takes ages.- Lance

{{{Mmmm, how ages is ages?! If they make the grind so tedious you'll give up in the end and just pay up then its just the same really.
For me all micro-transactions should be purely cosmetic, no weapons, armours, power ups, special abilities or any of that- you should earn those by playing for them not buying them. But that's my take on it.

On another note I think I am ready for the rubber room and the fancy jacket that ties up the back! I have being playing Skyrim for a long time, years in fact, and I've been using chatty companions for most of that time, but in VR Ive taken of late to talking out loud to my companions when they talk to me and answering them back, or responding to their comments! Really weird thing is it feels even more wrong not to respond when they make some comment or observation, it just feels more natural (and unbelievable as it may sound, less rude) when they are standing right next to you to say something back. I'm not sure if its the immersive power of VR, or if I'm just going ever more mad? }}

It is all cosmetic stuff from there. There is armour but it is more for pretty armour than anything. No special perks.

There is a new area called the Dreaming City. Figgy and Azreil would love it... Think you might like it too!

Hey Petty I just found out that there's an Elite: Dangerous RPG, made by Modiphius. Ha!

https://www.modiphius.net/collections/elite-dangerous/products/elite-dangerous-rpg-core-book

{{ Hi Forest- interesting as that looks, and it does I think if I try starting to play ED in real life as well as in VR my better half might just go full Italian on me!     }}

Rightly so.

Recently started another playthrough of Fallout 3, the story, missions and world are neither as polished nor as expansive as New Vegas (well, in content anyway, the Fallout 3 map is substantial bigger) but I've always found it more atmospheric, easier to get into and just more enjoyable than the follow up, the grey and brown post apocalyptic ruins are more fun to shoot up than the endless desert...none of those annoying Cazadors or game breaking glitches either...

{{Fallout 3 is like New Vegas lite- well it did come first- but New Vegas was a different team (the original Fallout creators, 1 and 2- its the only fallout game not made in-house by Bethseida since they got the rights and considered by many fans as the best Fallout, though I'd agree with you Fallout 3 has a certain charm of its own in its more simple narrative and less faction driven mechanics. Its simpler, but in its own way feels freer for it).
You might be interested in this when it comes out Malick, from that original Fallout and New Vegas team-





{{ So two things made me think of writing another piece on Skyirm, namely why despite having played it for 7 years now I noticed I already clocked up 80 hours of game time in SkyrimVR, or readng a recent article pointing out that incredibly, seven years after release, Skyrm is stil in the top ten steam charts for most active players, beating many triple A games released in the past year. Why is that the case? How many other seven year old games have such a large and active user base still? (the answer is, in case you were wondering, none).
I had planned to discuss its accessibility, how it uses the main quest to introduce new players to mechanics whilst letting older players go get on with things, and plenty more besides. But instead here is a small tale (bugs included its Bethseida!) of myself, Tain the Second, a Nord who just wants a quiet life but can't have one thanks to destiny, and his two companions, Lucien, an Imperial scholar, clever, witty and completely unsuited to the deadly perils of adventuring, but keen nonetheless, and Vilja, a fair lass from Solsteihm who enjoys a drink , dancing on tables, and music. Quite handy in a fight too.

So a normal sort of day in Skyrim in that the three of us were going from A to B, from Eldergleam Sanctuary across the hot springs and into the colder climes around the city of Windhelm. And to save time we were bypassing the main roads and taking the briefer, but riskier, route across the wilderness.

The first thing of note was coming across on the shores of a large hot spring pool a small grouping of what at first appeared to be large dome shaped nest structures, I assumed nest because the only living things there were Guarns, a sort of placid two-legged animal.
Closer inspection of the 'nests' however revealed them to be in fact structures, with rope and the like holding them together which the Guarn had neither the opposable thumbs nor wits to build. So who lived here? Where were they? Further investigations turned up a saddle and pack on one of the guarns. So someone definitely owned them, and lived here. But it was deserted.
Finding no further clues to the mystery I moved on only to hear a short distance away the sounds of combat, clash of weapons, discharges of magic. Creeping closer I saw over the ridge that there were a bunch of goblins fighting among some bone strewn ruins with an altar table at its centre. So I quickly drew to my bow and knelt down in the long grass to take aim, and whilst lining up a first target noticed they were in fact fighting each other.
Still goblins are goblins so with my trusty team we set about them and wiped out the lot and examined bodies after. At which point it became clear we had two tribes of goblins here, one lot presumably from the nearby village with guarns, which cleared up that mystery. But was this just a tribal clash, or were the altar and ruins something to do with it? They were covered with bones and skeletons, and a book on necromancy sat atop the altar itself- not very goblin.

It was then a sudden zap of lighting magic singed my arse- there was a necromancer running about and the bone strewn ruins were suddenly being filled with resurrected angry skeletons!
It seemed the goblins had ended up clashing right where these necromancers had set up their altar to all things dead and the necromancers had temporarily scarpered till all the goblins were dead.
For some reason my two companions were very reluctant to take on the necromancer and after much chasing about I had to down him myself. I say much chasing about because of  Skyrim  programming bugs, at one point he took to the air and began running upwards into the sky- this is a game bug that happens occasionally but its one of those you tend to forgive in a world where people can turn invisible or be a talking cat or become ethereal, floating doesn't seem that weird- so I shot him from the sky finally whereupon he plummeted to his death. Made my way back among the ruins to my companions and turned to Lucien and said "fat lot of use were," when right behind him a second necromancer, unbeknown to any of us who had likewise been up in the sky somewhere all this time, suddenly plummeted earthward with a shriek and crumbled to a heap with a thud and perfect comic timing to end our encounter here.

So moving on from that the next incident of note on this journey was whilst walking along a road I had stumbled across and spying a roadside house with the hopes of it being an inn, as night was drawing in and the sun was setting, and shortly was set.
Approaching the house it was to see it was clearly half in ruins, though lights came from within its broken walls, more pressingly there was some sort of fight going on atop the cliff above the road- I could hear it but not see it- but it did not sound good.
This was because it was not good, nothing about the situation it turned out was good, the house was being used by a large well organised group of bandits not keen on surprise visitors but as if that was not trouble enough they in turn were currently under attack by a Vampire Lord and his minions looking for new acolytes and probably breakfast.

This was not good, everyone was fighting and both sides wanted to fight me and my friends at any opportunity There were clouds of bats, gargoyles being summoned, death hounds howling and vampires draining the life from any in reach.
Things were soon looking bad, with my companions temporary knocked out of action by a couple of gargoyles and myself running low on arrows and space to run away! And just then, as death was beckoning, in came the Dawnguard, vampire hunters, unleashing their hounds and volleys of vampire killing bolts from their crossbows.
Joining their numbers we drove back the Vampires, took out the Vampire Lord and made short work of the remaining bandits.
The Dawnguard patrol, after telling me I should join their ranks officially at Fort Dawnguard, moved on their way and my companions and myself took to the ruined house to check it out, discovering the rear of it was still standing, had a lit fire, and even proper beds not just piles of hay on the floor.
The moons were now up and needing a rest after al that it was as good an inn and free, so we stayed and had a meal. And spent the night sleeping in the beds of the men we had just killed!
Tomorrow would be a completely different day and a different tale to tell.


That I think sums up Skyrms longevity more than any essay, because whilst there are scripted missions, a main quest and the radiant go here get x, kill x, save x, infinite quests what really makes it is how the world works.
Its a proper sandbox, where the pieces are let loose to interact with each other and you then interact with them. None of the above tale was from scripted events, no programmer meant those things to happen as they unfolded. They happened because the games systems were left free to interact with each other- and then I, the player come along and can choose if I want to interact with whatever is going on and out of that comes my own unique story in the game world.
And when I next load up and take my character out into the morning sun to set off another day in Skyrim it will be different again, those exact same circumstances I described won't happen again, but new ones will.

Why is Skyrim still so played after seven years? What's the genius behind its longevity.

Its simple, after 100's of hours of playing the game next time I play I still wont be entirely sure what to expect, or what might happen, or where I might find myself or what I might be doing. And I cant think of another game that is true of. Or that has ever done it so well. }}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:How many other seven year old games have such a large and active user base still? (the answer is, in case you were wondering, none).

*cough* DoTA 2 is 7 years old, and has around 10 million monthly active users.

{{I was thinking of real games by which I mean not MMO's, as they are different genre altogether in terms of what they aim to do, which is provide an ongoing experience as opposed to narratives with end points and completion. Mainly games with a strong or major single player focus. }}

As far as games I've been playing for the past while:

I'm still a big Halo fan, though Halo 5 was disappointing.

I got into Destiny, which can be an extremely frustrating game for a variety of reasons, but it keeps me coming back.

The Dark Souls series is fantastic, and frustrating for entirely different reasons

The new Tomb Raider series is incredible as well, doesn't hurt that Laura is... well put together

While not extremely true to the books, and use the films as significant source material, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and War are very fun to play

Mass Effect is amazing, and Andromeda gets a bad rap

Quantum Break was also a game that got unnecessary flak but was incredible.

Those are just some of the more noteworthy games I've been playing

Not extremely true to the books?

More like extremely NOT TRUE to the books!!!

There's a Tomb Raider book? It came first??

{{ Bought a VRgame made by just one bloke, its early access, but I liked the cut of his jib and his aims and the constant updates and work he has been doing on it, and worse ways to spend 15 quid than supporting a new freelance developer. Game is called Blade and Sorcery and its basically an arena fighting game. It is tons of fun and it has to be said ridiculously violent as you stab folk in the tender bits with a variety of weapons.
One of its main features is its largely successful attempts to give the impression of weight to the weapons and contact when you swing them. Its all nicely convincing.
On the 'sorcery' side of things you have basically force powers, you can zap folk with lighting from your hands, and you can use telekinesis to pull weapons to your hand or twat people with inanimate objects like barrels.
Its still evidently early access, there are occasional bugs, glitches and even the odd crash, as you;d expect from early access and a single developer, but if you've got vr and got 15 quid spare it is not a bad buy even as is. You'll certainly have fun, bloody, violent fun, but fun }}

Lorient Avandi wrote:As far as games I've been playing for the past while:

I'm still a big Halo fan, though Halo 5 was disappointing.

I got into Destiny, which can be an extremely frustrating game for a variety of reasons, but it keeps me coming back.

The Dark Souls series is fantastic, and frustrating for entirely different reasons

The new Tomb Raider series is incredible as well, doesn't hurt that Laura is... well put together

While not extremely true to the books, and use the films as significant source material, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and War are very fun to play

Mass Effect is amazing, and Andromeda gets a bad rap

Quantum Break was also a game that got unnecessary flak but was incredible.

Those are just some of the more noteworthy games I've been playing

You play Destiny? That is pretty much the only game I have time for these days!

Lancebloke wrote:You play Destiny? That is pretty much the only game I have time for these days!

Yep! I have a good time with it, though like I said it frequently frustrates me.

halfwise wrote:There's a Tomb Raider book? It came first??

While I am sure there are Tomb Raider books, (I know there are comics), they didn't come first. Both Forest Shepherd and I were referring to the Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and War games and their relation to the Legendarium.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Not extremely true to the books?

More like extremely NOT TRUE to the books!!!

Yeah, well... I'm pretty sure they had the same license as the films so they couldn't really do much that wasn't in the LOTR trilogy or Appendices. They weren't as horrid as I really expected them to be going in.

Still waiting for a truly well done LOTR game (not glorified LOTR fanfic). LOTR: Conquest had so much potential but just didn't execute

Lorient- I feel like I have asked this before... what platform do you play on?

Lancebloke wrote:Lorient- I feel like I have asked this before... what platform do you play on?

Xbox. I'm far too big of a Halo fan to main anything but Xbox

I thought so. Won't be running any forumshire raids then!

Lancebloke wrote:I thought so. Won't be running any forumshire raids then!

Too bad...

You on PlayStation or PC?

PS4. I got the free version on PC but didn't want to go through levelling all over again!!

Lorient Avandi wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:Not extremely true to the books?

More like extremely NOT TRUE to the books!!!      

Yeah, well... I'm pretty sure they had the same license as the films so they couldn't really do much that wasn't in the LOTR trilogy or Appendices. They weren't as horrid as I really expected them to be going in.

Still waiting for a truly well done LOTR game (not glorified LOTR fanfic). LOTR: Conquest had so much potential but just didn't execute

It's a tabletop RPG, but The One Ring is a really well done Middle-earth game. Most Tolkien of any game that I've ever played.