Jump to content

MaartenVC

Members Plus
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    815

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Posts posted by MaartenVC

    What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

    in General Banter

    Posted

    elden_ring_bandai_namco_entertainment_16

    Elden Ring

    Highly recommended

    Genre: Open-World Action-Role-Playing Game
    Setting: Dark Fantasy

    Positives:
    + Explore vast intricate lands with tons of dungeons
    + Find numerous weapons, armour and items
    + Meet mysterious characters
    + Fight soldiers and countless monsters
    + Defeat unique menacing bosses
    + Fight and play however you like
    + Gather materials and craft stuff
    + Sneak, jump, jump-attack, ride your horse, jump your horse, double-jump your horse
    + Relaxing exploration mixed with intense fighting
    + Imaginative world-setting and beautiful art-style
    + So much freedom
    + Also fun for non-dark-souls-fans
    + Atmosphere

    Tips if you start as a Wretch:
    0. Go and unlock the first, second and third Sites of Grace.
    1. Get the Spirit Calling Bell by meeting Melina at the third Site of Grace, to be able to summon spirits in boss-fights.
    2. Learn how to fight with the club: Two-hand the club. (Y+RB) Do heavy jump attacks. (Forward+A, RT) Follow up with light attacks. (RB) Dodge roll away from attacks. (Direction+B)
    3. Farm some runes by fighting the soldiers along the road to and at the Gatefront Ruins near the third Site of Grace.
    4. Buy the chain armour from the first merchant at the second site of Grace, the Church of Elle.
    5. Success.

    Technical: Except for a few frame-drops I had no issues at all playing on my laptop.
    (2560x1440, Ryzen 7 5800H, RTX3070, 16GB, SSD, W11)
    (I heard some people have stuttering issues; So test first or wait for patches)

    • Like 3

    NOT Coronavirus COVID-19

    in General Banter

    Posted

    It seems like most countries in Europe are lifting most of their covid-19-restrictions.

    I guess the idea is to make covid-19 endemic, with the idea of its mutations becoming less fatal and less hospitalizing, treating it like other common infectious respiratory diseases, creating natural resistance to it among the population, with a voluntary yearly vaccination.

    ... Or maybe its just to make society breath again, for a while, before maybe having to restrict again.

    We'll see how things evolve from here. Let's hope for the best. Fingers crossed. It's not over yet.

    "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future..."

    Celebrity Deaths

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Ian McDonald,

    (25 June 1946 – 9 February 2022) was an English multi-instrumental musician, best known as a founding member of the progressive rock band King Crimson in 1968, as well as the hard rock band Foreigner in 1976.

    McDonald began his music career as an army musician, where he learned several instruments and taught himself music theory. He co-founded King Crimson and appeared on their 1969 debut album In the Court of the Crimson King, playing Mellotron, keyboards and woodwinds. In the mid-1970s, he moved to New York City where he co-founded Foreigner, appearing on the group's first three albums. He later collaborated with Steve Hackett and played in the King Crimson spin-off group 21st Century Schizoid Band. He was also a session musician, predominantly as a saxophonist.

    King Crimson - The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)

    • Like 1
    • Sad 1

    What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

    in General Banter

    Posted

    5 hours ago, chronical said:

    I'm a big fan of space sims and I've been following Star Citizen for ages, 8 years of development for that is kinda.. nuts. There's a tweet of the CEO saying he'll never spend the backer money on yachting, years later he's on a yacht in a selfie. Seeing them sell ships for thousands of dollars to spacesim-fan-whales is just shite. Especially for a non-free to play game. Can you at least earn in game currency to buy them too?

    Yes, you can actually buy all ships with in-game earned money too, so I guess that's ok, but you'll have to grind pretty hard for some ships.
    I just think it's not ok to be able to buy progress or advantages in a multiplayer game. Kinda unfair.
    Beware though, if you're going to play and you decide to invest a lot of time in it, if you buy ships with in-game earned money, they might be deleted from your account on the next big wipe. Not sure when that would be, and not sure how often they wipe.

    Oh yeah, I've actually been playing some more the last days.
    There's just something about this game that makes me want to come back to it, even though it's in alpha and even though I reset my account with each death.
    Yesterday I had not a single bug for at least 2 hours, which was quite refreshing.

    I'm going to play some more, see the sights, test some more.

    What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by MaartenVC

    I played Star Citizen, so you don't have to.

    I followed this guide:

    I was an early kickstarter-backer. That was over 8 years ago. lol.
    But I have never touched the game until now.
    Took a while to download. Folder is 75GB. SSD is highly recommended they say.
    Watch the tutorial video above. You'll be thankful you did.
    There's no real good-functioning in-game tutorial yet.

    First impressions
    Character creation is kinda weird. You have to combine faces to make your face.
    Not a lot of options actually. No beards. Few hairstyles. Can't adjust body.
    That's too bare-bones for a persistent online universe imo.
    When first waking up from your bed in game you might experience some graphical loading issues.
    Graphics are not very optimized though. So beware.
    Just let your pc do its thing. Things will get somewhat smoother the longer you play.
    Visually it looks very detailed. Very impressive.
    Especially station interiors and ships. They look amazing.
    But space looks kinda dull imo. I guess they went for realistic space, not breathtaking nebula space.
    That's a valid choice. And the devs seem to go for realism in most cases.
    The controls, interface, inventory-management and movement are all very clunky.
    Not intuitive at all. I think that's a major drawback for new players and more casual players.
    Simply activating stuff requires you to press F, mouse over a text field, and left-click. Why?
    The gameplay seems okay for an immersive game.
    There is some content in the alpha, but obviously there's still a lot of things missing.

    Gameplay
    There are missions you can do. That's good.
    However, instead of receiving them from talking to npc's in the world you get them by choosing an item from a list in a menu. clapclap A bit dull, don't you think?
    Why not have a spicy interaction with a security guard, an alien in a bar, a fat banker, or shady individual?
    Also, so far, the missions don't seem very interesting or unique, or at least they seem somewhat unfinished in a very raw state. Very dry.
    A gameplay thing I personally miss is character-stat-progression. Maybe also skill-unlocks.
    But that's just the RPG-fan in me. Obviously this is not an MMORPG.
    Crafting equipment and building your own ships our stations are also not a thing it seems.
    Why am I gathering resources? Just for cash? To influence the economy? Ok.
    Wouldn't it be more fun if players could at least craft equipment with all the different things they find in the universe, increasing their chance of survival?
    I guess that would make it a different game though. I guess I played too many open-world survival-craft games. lol
    It seems that most progression is unlocked by making money, by doing deliveries, mining, shooting scum, market-trading, and completing missions.
    This way you can buy better ships and equipment and do more challenging stuff.
    I think the devs rely more on their players finding joy in doing stuff in co-op.
    Doing random stuff together, doing missions together, exploring together, fighting each-other, forming guilds,...
    I guess it's thus a multiplayer game first.
    Having fun with friends. An irl mission could be to look for friends.
    Now let me dream: Will we be able to act out Star Trek, the Expanse, Firefly? That would be awesome.
    But it might also maybe just be wishful thinking. lal
    It's an ambitious game for sure.
    Combining space-flight, first-person-shooting, hand-made environments, realism, trading, and exploration all within a multiplayer setting is quite a challenge.

    Bugs
    The biggest problem however for now are the bugs.
    Some are visual. Some disrupt gameplay. Some stop you from performing certain actions.
    But there's also quite some game-breaking bugs, in which case you should respawn or even reset. 
    But yeah, that's what an alpha build is. Still after so many years though.
    I wasn't able to complete a single mission, which sucks. All progress lost every time.
     - Some equipment kept disappearing from my inventory. No hand-mining for me I guess.
     - Invisible hands. No miming for me I guess.
     - A box I couldn't drop. So I had a box as a glove.
     - One time I even had an entire backpack as a shoe. lol
     - Third person view flipping out like crazy.
     - Being stranded because my quantum boost wouldn't activate.
     - A triple overloaded backpack I couldn't remove or interact with.
     - Automatic landing doing weird stuff, shoving me into a building.
     - Flashlight-circle disappearing in the environment.
     - When in inventory the camera clipping with the environment.
     - An NPC revolving around their own body like an ungodly snake.
     - Prone going bonkers on non-flat ground.
     - Clothes clipping witch each other.
     - Losing mission-progress. And thus mission rewards. No $ for me.
     - Random stationary floating equipment.
     - Being stuck in a cave forever. Alone. With my thoughts.
    The list goes on...

    c8accfc1e1bb34a1f9f63f83abd9be1b5f3eeca3

    Micro-transactions
    A thing I actually really dislike is that you can buy the better ships with real money.
    They're not just cosmetic. They have quite an impact on game-progress.
    That's not very balanced, is it?
    Now, supporting the devs with all your money is fine by me. Go nuts big spender.
    But buying vastly better ships... That's a big no-no for me.
    How is that fun for all the non-spending players?

    Conclusion
    In its current state it's playable, but I don't recommend playing it now.
    Best to wait a few more years. But it's going to be a looong wait though.
    And in the end I'm not sure if the devs will be able to deliver the promised ultimate space-sim though.
    Will it be fun? is my main concern.
    I think it would have been better if they started with some fun gameplay-mechanics and intuitive controls, and build from there, adding to it, expanding the universe later on.
    I honestly kinda feel like we'll see better similar games sooner then whenever Star Citizen will release unfortunately.
    (The Outer Worlds 2, Starfield, No Man's Sky 2, Freelancer 2, Eve Online 2, some out-of-nowhere simple-looking but amazing indie game...)
    But hey, I hope they prove me wrong.

    Extra video:



    :watmm:
    62adrk.jpg

    • Like 4

    NOT Coronavirus COVID-19

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by MaartenVC

    Starting last week almost my entire family got infected with covid-19.
    Myself, my so, my brother, my sister, my mother, and my father.
    But also a couple of my nephews and nieces. (maybe also an aunt or an uncle, not sure)
    I can only assume it is/was the omicron-variant, based on its speed, spread, and non-lethality.
    The fast spread of this variant is very very impressive from what I can tell.
    It spread through our family like wildfire.
    We did many many self-tests, but it seems that wasn't enough.
    From what I can tell in the first days you may actually not feel sick and may not even test positive on a self-test, but may actually already be able to spread the variant.
    Well, that's how I make sense out of the spread.
    I'm not sure how it could have spread so far and wide otherwise.
    Anyway, the next day or a few days later you might get some symptoms or even feel quite sick.
    The severity varies very wildly it seems. Some people feel sick for just 1 day, while others will have multiple symptoms over several days and might only be back to health after a week up to 10 days. Not sure about hospitalizations or lethality.
    Full vaccination probably keeps the severity and length in check. I'm not sure about boosters. I have no idea how severe it could get if one's not vaccinated.
    Beginning of the 5th wave (omicron-wave) in Belgium.
    My so had the following symptoms: fatigue and consisting cough worsened by asthma, diarrhea.
    I had the following symptoms: some fever, nightly sweating, heavy body ache, headache, sore throat, some coughing.
    We both quarantined for 10 days. We're both ok now. Most of my family is ok as well, except for my father whose still quite ill.

    • Like 4
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.