What are you playing? (Redux)

[Razgovory]

I picked up Arkham City for about 12 bucks.  Good deal and I'm happy with it.  Being Batman is fun.  It runs well even on my crap PC.  The list of things the game does right would take forever to write down.  Great atmosphere, excellent controls, interesting setting... It almost makes me forget how much agonizing pain I'm in.

Still, I promised that I would do a Combat Mission AAR, so I'll think I'll start one of those soon.  I plan on taking a mission that actually was used for a PBEM AAR from before the game came out.  This way you folks can see the battle from two different perspectives in addition to mine.

[Razgovory]

I'm currently looking at some mods to improve the textures and some way to make good screen shots.

[Syt]

Played a bit on the Arma II Op.Arrowhead mod DayZ which is the rage among all the kids.

The mod puts you on the beach of Arma II's Chernarus map. The area is swamped with zombies. You have a canteen of water, some cans of beans, your Makarov pistol and a few bandages. Goal: survive as long as possible. Food and drink are vital lest you starve to death. Food and drink can be found (in form of soda cans, cans of beans) or "harvested" (water from pumps or ponds, food from hunted wildlife). Or you kill other survivors for their stuff. Beyond that it's completely freeform. You can choose to prey on others, or work together for survival, or a mixture of both. Zombies are FAST once they spot you.

I logged on a few days ago, but since it was nighttime (most servers sync to the host's local time) and I couldn't see shit (and barely survived two zombie attacks) I logged off half an hour later. When I logged on today (on a different server) I found my character nearly starving because he hadn't eaten in two days. The mod remembers your position/state when you log off, no matter on which server you play. So I restarted on a US server.

It was 5:30 am there, sun just coming up. On the beach I was attacked by two zombies and emptied almost two of my five magazines into them, and had to use one of my precious bandages afterwards. I slowly made my way west. The small villages were crawling with zombies, so I tried to stay clear of them. Occasionally I heard gunfire in the distance. I came across two small (empty) supply yards when I noticed the buzzing of flies. I scouted around and found the source - another survivor, dead on the ground. Probably killed by zombies - another player would have stolen his stuff. So I picked up an additional water bottle, some soda, and additional ammo and bandages.

I could see the outline of some highrise buildings on the coast in the distance, so Idecided to head in that direction. There was a good chance there'd be supplies there. I approached the industrial district through the woods. I snuck past some zombies (no need to call too much attention to myself). There were stairs leading up a maintenance catwalk and roof. I went up to check my surroundings. Not too many zeds, and no other activity. The church bell was chiming.

I was on my way back to the maintenance catwalk when I noticed movement below. Another survivor, with an assault rifle. I went prone and watched him scurry about. I asked in chat whether the guy was friendly but got no reply. I hid on the roof for a bit, then slowly descended down. I wanted to go deeper into town when I spotted a waterpump in a backyard. One of my canteens was empty. I halted a bit, surveying the area before deciding it was safe to go there. Halfway to the pump I head a zombie growling. I froze and turned around. Nothing. Still moaning. Where did it come from? Probably from beyond a wall. Not to worry. I crouched slowly to the pump. BANG! BANG! Game over.

Oh, and when you die, you start over from scratch.



Overall, it was a pretty tense experience. However, I would probably not recommend the game to people who are easily frustrated when two hours of gameplay are ended by a guy you didn't know was there.

[sbr]

I can't be arsed to find the proper thread, but there is a new EU3 beta patch out.



http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?610360-28th-of-May-2012-checksum-SKPC

- Artillery now moves at the same strategic speed as cavalry and infantry.
- Defensiness now modifiers military tactics for the DEFENDER by 50% of its value. (both local and country)
- Reinforcement factors on armies now gets a bonus by 10% per each maneuever value of its leader, up to maximum of the 200% in safe home provinces.
- Increased reinforcement in provinces that have a supply line of invested fortresses to friendly territory to be 100% + manuever.
- Manpower pool is now 10 years to recover, and manpower effects have been lowered.
- You can now see what government forms can be discovered that you can convert to, but still greyed out.
- AI now considers monthly interest payments, not yearly, for monthly budget calculations when maintaining trooplevels.
- Added triggers unit in province triggers for cavalry, artillery, big ship, light ship and transport
- Fixed a bug which caused the local controllers global trade income modifier affect everyones trade income for that province, instead of the merchants global trade income modifier.
- Fixed display issue for colonial growth and low maintenance.
- State Controlled Guilds no longer increases revolt risk.
- Veterans homes now requre land tech 40, and are now almost guaranteed to happen for a country.
- Per capita tax now only increases stability costs by 10%
- AI will now do the kampaku decision.
- Savoys capital is now Chambery until 1563 in the start.
- Savoy now has occitain as accepted culture, and the province Savoie is now occitain.
- Spanish localisation fixed for 5.1 texts.
- Corrected more german text files.
- State controlled guilds now only costs 1 magistrare for France.
- Fixed a bug with the bring the dutch back to catholisism mission.
- Swapped positions of gaelic and Finno-ugric cultures, to make Gaelic and French different colours
- Promote Cultural unity now lets you remove nationalistic rebels when nationalism is expired, not before.
- Fixed names of Bruno and Galilei.
- Japanese rebels can now only appear in Japan.
- Tokhtamysh removed as a GOL general at game start
- Paying Sound Toll now requires the sound toll to actually exist
- Turkey & Urbino are now friends of Ragusa from the start.
- Fortresses of Ragusa is now improved.
- Ragusa is now a maritime style republic from the start.
- Ragusa can now enact Thalassocracy.
- Delhi and Timurids now start with a truce.
- Golden Horde and Genoa now starts with a truce.
- Wokou pirates will no longer appear in Korea after defeated.
- Born under a star is now even better.
- Papacy creation fixed.
- Fixed a crashbug with two france at the same time.
- Shogun will no longer write satires about himself.
- Continental Congress can no longer be made into a military leader.
- Trigger conditions for missions have been changed to make sure only monarchies can form unions.
- Now more countries may get subjugate/conquer missions.
- All PAP provinces is now immune to Conquest missions.
- Using generic_annex_vassal_mission no longer means you might end up with unlawful territory ~10.5 infamy and a stab hit for completing the mission.
- The mission Iberian conquest of Tangier will only trigger after 1420.
- Changed Conquer Finland mission to make it trigger more often.
- Forming the Mughals will not revert tech to Muslim tech if you have westernised to the oriental tech group.
- RUS is now only able to make St. Petersburg its capital if it has over 300 treasury to prevent RUS having to take a loan after taking the decision.
- HRE is now more likely to stay decentralized due to events.
- Sound Toll event no longer makes anyone lose merchants.
- The Tunisian starting monarch "Abd al-Aziz" martial stat has been boosted to better match his stats as a general.
- TUN and TRI is now allied from game start to 1510 (to represent Hafsid Empire).
- MAZ is now a vassal of POL at game start to 1526.
- ETR is now a vassal of RFR from 1801-1807.
- Plock (256) is owned by MAZ from game start and transferred to POL after 1495.
- The capital of Podlasia (269) is changed to Drohiczyn from game start to 1657. Province is now owned by POL from 26 March 1569 and no longer a core province of LIT from July 1, 1569.
- Volhynia (279) is owned by POL from 26 March 1569 and no longer a core province of LIT from July 1, 1569.
- Kiev (280) is owned by POL from 26 March 1569 and no longer a core province of LIT from July 1, 1569.
- Poltava (290) is owned by POL from 26 March 1569 and no longer a core province of LIT from July 1, 1569.
- Gafsa (352) now has fort level 1 at game start.
- Gabes (353) now has fort level 1 at game start.
- All MOR/TRI/TUN/ALG provinces now has training_fields from game start.
- Cairo (361) now has the Al Azhar university at game start.
- Changed capital of Priangan (625).
- Changed trade good of Sierra Leone (1118) to ivory. GBR owns Sierra Leone (1118) from 1787.
- EFR is removed from peninsulawar.
- Spelling and grammar mistakes are corrected.
- Cities and buildings positions has been fixed in several provinces.
- Map borders/seacoasts and other flaws has been fixed.
- Trent (110) has been added to the German region and removed from Italian region.
- Ancona (119) and Romagna (114) has been removed from Lombardia region.
- Lausitz (60) and Niederlausitz (1763) has been removed from the German region.
- Gorz (1769) has been added to Austria region, removed from Croatia region and removed from Western Balkans region.
- Krain (129) has been added to Austria region and removed from Croatia region.
- Conquer_Florida mission now awards temp_claims on all four provinces.
- tobacco_factory checks for any existing manufactory and rewards are more substantial.
- Conquest mission is corrected and should be Working As Designed now.
- Completing annex_mazovia mission now adds cores on 256 and 257.
- The four reqonquista missions are now accessible after 1420, 1440, 1460 and 1480
- conquer_bosnia mission now points at proper Bosnian provinces.
- conquer_istria and subjugate_aquileia no longer need to own 111 to successfully finish the missions.
- conquer_fruili only triggers if Fruili is not a capital or owner only owns one province.

[Josephus]

Gotta give paradox credit for still working on that.

Wait...so is this patch for the stand alone version? I never bought the last XP with the Asians on the cover.

[FunkMonk]

I picked up Max Payne 3 for the PC and the multiplayer is actually amazing.

[Octavian]

I picked up Max Payne 3 for the PC and the multiplayer is actually amazing.

Also playing Max Payne. Haven't tried multiplayer yet but I am enjoying the singleplayer campaign. Max' cynical remarks and outlook on life reminds me of CDM.

[FunkMonk]

I picked up Max Payne 3 for the PC and the multiplayer is actually amazing.

Also playing Max Payne. Haven't tried multiplayer yet but I am enjoying the singleplayer campaign. Max' cynical remarks and outlook on life reminds me of CDM.

The only downer with the game is its consolitis (saved checkpoints, XBox/PS3 menus, P2P multiplayer service). But it's still a pretty good port and runs well on my mid-level computer while still looking absolutely amazing.

[Octavian]

I picked up Max Payne 3 for the PC and the multiplayer is actually amazing.

Also playing Max Payne. Haven't tried multiplayer yet but I am enjoying the singleplayer campaign. Max' cynical remarks and outlook on life reminds me of CDM.

The only downer with the game is its consolitis (saved checkpoints, XBox/PS3 menus, P2P multiplayer service). But it's still a pretty good port and runs well on my mid-level computer while still looking absolutely amazing.

Its shooting mechanics are great as well. Hopefully some of it will make its way to GTAV.

[sbr]

What's the deal with Max Payne 3 MP, anything new and/or exciting?

[FunkMonk]

What's the deal with Max Payne 3 MP, anything new and/or exciting?

I like it because I get to run around shooting dual pistols like a mad man in slow motion and knifing CoD cover-shooting wannabees in the back and still achieve a positive K/D ratio (1st place isn't uncommon).

This is a pretty good representation of the gameplay in multiplayer. If you don't it hilarious or fun then this game might not be for you.

Also it's really fun while drunk. 

The MP is actually designed much like CoD or Battlefield. You level up to get access to upgrade weapons, items, and perks. You also earn cash which you use to buy these things once you're a high enough level. There are no "kill streak" perks but there is something called "Burst" that uses adrenaline which you use to activate slow-motion shootdodging and activate your perks. You can build up to three levels of adrenaline by doing whatever. The perks are really fun. I'm using one called Sneaky that disguises you as someone on the other team. Another is Booby Trap, that explodes someone if they try to loot your body for health/adrenaline/cash. It's good for trolling.

I just unlocked Sneaky and it's absolutely hilarious. Most people really suck at this game and treat it like Call of Battlefield Honor 3. In the map "Hoboken" there are two buildings opposite each other overlooking an alleyway. I just pop Sneaky, march across to where the campers are popping shots into the alley, walk up to them and shoot them in the back of the head. They're totally confused. 

Once you reach Level 4 (maybe like an hour of play time) you an make custom loadouts. Each weapon and item has a certain weight. There are three levels of weight (light, medium, heavy) which dictate how fast you can run and how much stamina you have. I have two right now: One is a dual handgun light with infinite stamina, the other is a heavy armored shotgun-wielding maniac.

[sbr]

What's the deal with Max Payne 3 MP, anything new and/or exciting?

I like it because I get to run around shooting dual pistols like a mad man in slow motion and knifing CoD cover-shooting wannabees in the back and still achieve a positive K/D ratio (1st place isn't uncommon).

This is a pretty good representation of the gameplay in multiplayer. If you don't it hilarious or fun than this game might not be for you.

Also it's really fun while drunk. 

  That's hilarious.  I'm tempted now.

[Solmyr]

I can't be arsed to find the proper thread, but there is a new EU3 beta patch out.



http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?610360-28th-of-May-2012-checksum-SKPC

There's an even newer one now: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611193-1st-of-June-2012-%E2%80%94-Checksum-QKPU

[FunkMonk]

What's the deal with Max Payne 3 MP, anything new and/or exciting?

I like it because I get to run around shooting dual pistols like a mad man in slow motion and knifing CoD cover-shooting wannabees in the back and still achieve a positive K/D ratio (1st place isn't uncommon).

This is a pretty good representation of the gameplay in multiplayer. If you don't it hilarious or fun than this game might not be for you.

Also it's really fun while drunk. 

  That's hilarious.  I'm tempted now.

All that said, it's got a bad case of consolitis. I run the game fine in SP but in MP crashing out of a game or being unable to connect is just as common as getting in. It's buggy and it's frustrating. 

[Tamas]

I need to find what are the steps to fool Steam via proxy server. I thought I could play the civ5 expansion tomorrow, but it won't be out for Europeans until Friday. WTF.