What are you currently playing?

[Shadow Wolf]

Currently playing MGS V and the Uncharted collection on my PS4. I've really enjoyed revisiting Uncharted but I haven't liked MGS V all that much. Im still pretty early on in the game and I hope I'm wrong but it's so repetitive and...shock...boring

Since Hideo Kojima isn't doing those games anymore I haven't had the desire or urge to play them. And the series has really overdone Solid Snake being a frail old man and Big Boss not really being dead. I liked the old Metal Gear games, and I liked Metal Gear Solid up to 3, but 4 I didn't care for and 5 I'm just not feeling it.

 

[Father Heathen]

Since Hideo Kojima isn't doing those games anymore I haven't had the desire or urge to play them. And the series has really overdone Solid Snake being a frail old man and Big Boss not really being dead. I liked the old Metal Gear games, and I liked Metal Gear Solid up to 3, but 4 I didn't care for and 5 I'm just not feeling it.

The games' plots just got progressively more convoluted and incoherent as the series went on.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

Since Hideo Kojima isn't doing those games anymore I haven't had the desire or urge to play them. And the series has really overdone Solid Snake being a frail old man and Big Boss not really being dead. I liked the old Metal Gear games, and I liked Metal Gear Solid up to 3, but 4 I didn't care for and 5 I'm just not feeling it.

I'm a massive MGS fan and I love all the quirky eccentricities. I honestly don't think Kojima leaving should stop you from playing MGS V...what should stop you is it's repetitive nature. That's the biggest issue here. The stealth is fine, even great at times and from a technical stand point, PS4/XB1/PC, whatever platform you want to discuss, this is one of the smoothest and best looking game experiences ever. The issue, story wise, there isn't much beyond the "go here, do this, repeat" that we often get in games and the open world falls behind the likes of Far Cry, GTA, Fallout and Skyrim. It's like an early 00s attempt at what an open world should be.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It's like an early 00s attempt at what an open world should be.

I thought games have often done open world decently for their capabilities. The Legend of Zelda games have usually had fairly open worlds, even if you did need a special item to move on to a larger part of the world. The Elder Scrolls and Ever Quest also have amazing open worlds. Even on the NES there was Final Fantasy (though it required of series of vehicles and ultimately to an aircraft), Dragon Warrior, and, in a ways, Clash at Demonhead. The Metroid games have also long been one large world, and in Super Metroid there are very few areas that can't be reached with a series of well timed morph ball bomb jumps.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

I thought games have often done open world decently for their capabilities. The Legend of Zelda games have usually had fairly open worlds, even if you did need a special item to move on to a larger part of the world. The Elder Scrolls and Ever Quest also have amazing open worlds. Even on the NES there was Final Fantasy (though it required of series of vehicles and ultimately to an aircraft), Dragon Warrior, and, in a ways, Clash at Demonhead. The Metroid games have also long been one large world, and in Super Metroid there are very few areas that can't be reached with a series of well timed morph ball bomb jumps.

Oh, I certainly agree, open worlds have been done well by a lot of games, I won't agree with your whole list but the Elder Scrolls as well as FF...apart from XIII, have had some spectacular open worlds. I'm just saying MGS V isn't as good.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That made me realize that, oh my god, World of Warcraft is an early/mid 00s game! And I was simply amazed and blown away at the world unfolding in front of me because I had never played an MMO before (the only thing close I had ever played at the time was Morrowind). I really miss that game.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

That made me realize that, oh my god, World of Warcraft is an early/mid 00s game! And I was simply amazed and blown away at the world unfolding in front of me because I had never played an MMO before (the only thing close I had ever played at the time was Morrowind). I really miss that game.

Ahhh, I didn't mean all late 90s/early 00s open worlds were bad but they were often limited, although there are still some great examples. But comparing the world of pre-Skyrim elder scrolls to skyrim itself, you can see a huge difference, not just in scale but look, feel, characterisation and "business". Comparing GTA III to even something that followed very soon afterwards in Vice City, the difference is like night and day. So that's what I meant in terms of MGS V, it often feels empty, boring, repetitive and it's "natural" environment lags behind Red Dead Redemption, which was released like 5 years ago.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But comparing the world of pre-Skyrim elder scrolls to skyrim itself, you can see a huge difference, not just in scale but look, feel, characterisation and "business".

Dagger and Morrowind, even years later, are great games still. Oblivion was great at first, but it has not aged well with its bad character movements and poor world physics (such as everything on a table moving when you pick one item up). Skyrim is great (even if dead dragons dropping from the sky isn't), but Morrowind has the best "open" world experience because it isn't stupid big like Daggerfall, it lacks the compass markers of Oblivion, Skyrim, and ESO (which marks even non-active quests), and it is possible for people important for quest lines, including the main one, to be killed.

So that's what I meant in terms of MGS V, it often feels empty, boring, repetitive and it's "natural" environment lags behind Red Dead Redemption, which was released like 5 years ago.

I would have to assume that is because MGS was never intended to be in such a world. You sneak through a small location, uncover plot elements, and encounter some very interesting and unusual characters. I imagine the results would be worse than taking Mega Man out of a side scroller and putting him in the 3D world of Mega Man Legends.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

Dagger and Morrowind, even years later, are great games still. Oblivion was great at first, but it has not aged well with its bad character movements and poor world physics (such as everything on a table moving when you pick one item up). Skyrim is great (even if dead dragons dropping from the sky isn't), but Morrowind has the best "open" world experience because it isn't stupid big like Daggerfall, it lacks the compass markers of Oblivion, Skyrim, and ESO (which marks even non-active quests), and it is possible for people important for quest lines, including the main one, to be killed.

I would have to assume that is because MGS was never intended to be in such a world. You sneak through a small location, uncover plot elements, and encounter some very interesting and unusual characters. I imagine the results would be worse than taking Mega Man out of a side scroller and putting him in the 3D world of Mega Man Legends.

No, MGS V was always meant to be open world, it's just poorly made. Which is sad because MGS has been my favourite series till this point. There are moments of brilliance though and some exceptional missions which really require full on stealth to get the best results. I'd recommend it but only after a price drop.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I discovered that in ESO you can turn off the compass! And even though the interface doesn't work the greatest, it seems - in my experiences thus far - to be one of the least buggiest and glitchiest Elder Scroll game.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

ARRRGGGHHHH!!!! There is a 9 GB update for ESO!! That's gonna take me till tomorrow to download!

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I rented Star Wars: Battlefront, and it's wicked fun. The basic death match is a lot like CoD, but without the trash talk, and many of the scenarios are a ton of fun. And it's awesome that they have aerial combat!
I also rented WWE 2K16, because it has an interesting roster (even Mikey Whipwreck, of all people). Haven't played it yet, but I'm about to.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I can't really get into wrestling games anymore, but Star Wars Battlefront has consumed a lot of my time lately. I do much better in a spacecraft (especially the TIE fighter, which is especially maneuverable and it turns on a dime) than I do on foot. And I've noticed that a lot of people crash into the ground, especially if the fighting is happening above a mountain. The only down side is I get very few actual kills but lots of assisted kills. And I have yet to find any of these hero powerups.

 

[Father Heathen]

That made me realize that, oh my god, World of Warcraft is an early/mid 00s game! And I was simply amazed and blown away at the world unfolding in front of me because I had never played an MMO before (the only thing close I had ever played at the time was Morrowind). I really miss that game.

Early WoW (vanilla and BC) was amazing. Too bad it went down hill from there. My first MMO experience was Everquest. Another one that started off awesome, but went down hill after the first 2 expansions. I get what you're saying by first experience with an MMO. First playing Everquest, I was in awe of the vast, complex world, and freedom of exploration and character building, along with the literally thousands of other players running around in the same world to interact with.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Early WoW (vanilla and BC) was amazing. Too bad it went down hill from there.

I loved the game back then, and what was possible with character builds. I have an undead warlock that used to kick a lot of ***, benefited from being an undead 'lock in ways that warlocks of other races couldn't, and the cross-spec I had across Demo/Dest/Aff made my warlock very difficult to kill and very deadly anywhere I fought. But when the Lich King expansion came out, and the specing and character trees remade, it was no longer possible to do the things I used to do, and then Cata did away with the spec tree entirely, and my warlock has been degraded to the "fluffy" stereotype of old.

I get what you're saying by first experience with an MMO. First playing Everquest, I was in awe of the vast, complex world, and freedom of exploration and character building, along with the literally thousands of other players running around in the same world to interact with.

Those things you describe, when I first experienced them, it instantly changed my mind about paying a monthly fee to play a game. I thought it was just dumb and something that shouldn't be, and then I realized that it was a whole new world to explore, player interactions that I have never known before, and a level of complexity to the game and character build/development that you don't see on many games, and I decided the occasional indulgence in a subscription wasn't that bad of a thing, especially considering the servers have to be costly to run and maintain.

 

[Father Heathen]

I loved the game back then, and what was possible with character builds. I have an undead warlock that used to kick a lot of ***, benefited from being an undead 'lock in ways that warlocks of other races couldn't, and the cross-spec I had across Demo/Dest/Aff made my warlock very difficult to kill and very deadly anywhere I fought. But when the Lich King expansion came out, and the specing and character trees remade, it was no longer possible to do the things I used to do, and then Cata did away with the spec tree entirely, and my warlock has been degraded to the "fluffy" stereotype of old.

I played an undead priest, holy/disc. Had a reputation as a good healer on my server (back when reputation meant something, before the cross-realm ****) Played in smaller, more casual guild that was laid back, friendly, and tight-nit. About a year into BC I grew tired of it, quit, and gave my account to a guildmate. After WoTLK came out, my brother invited me to play with him and his GF, so I started a new account and made a Taurin Druid, resto spec. WoTLK wasn't entirely bad, but it introduced a lot of things I thought were detrimental, such as queueing up for, and instantaneously teleporting to battlegrounds and dungeons was lazy and handholding, and made the non-instanced world - a huge portion of the game's content - redundant. Communicating and socializing was no long necessary to get a group, and since you were matched up with people from different servers, there was no longer anything to deter players from being douchebags. Eventually grew tired of the game and quit again. Tried Cataclysm when it first came out for about a month, hoping that it was a return to the glory days. Was left disappointed (too watered down) so I cancelled a final time and never looked back.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I remember when the LFG queue was introduced it suddenly became harder to find groups for certain instances, and it often took longer to find complete groups as people no longer hung out in the normal spots when you were looking to group up for a particular instance. And the teleportation thing, that killed a steady source of income for mages and warlocks.
But I was actually excited at first for the cross-server thing, because I had played on Azgalor since vanilla, and not wanting to start over on a new server I was hoping the cross-server would add more life back for Azgalor players as the server went from over crowded and having wait times back during vanilla and BC to having a very low population by the time of the cross-server stuff. Not only did that not happen, there was no longer a reason to be polite in groups as the social aspect of the game revolving around grouping was done away with, people started helping themselves to mats in instances instead of rolling for them, and the battle grounds became a joke because people stopped using strategy, stopped playing as a team, and incessantly done things that loose the game. I remember once I was even flagged for "bullying" because I blasted someone for standing still the entire time I was fighting someone while I had the flag, and doing nothing but watching.

 

[Shad]

Been playing Fallout 4. However I became distracted by the settlement mechanics. So now my playtime largely revolves around scavenging for settlement building materials. I used a settlement console script to override the size limit for each settlement so its like Fallout lego gone mad.

I hope to build Thunder dome and find a Tina Turner NPC. Two men enter, one man leaves!

 

[Shadow Wolf]

My ESO Wood Elf sorceress is up to level 17. I'm definitely going to need to redo my skill points though, as I'm not using some abilities that I unlocked as they really aren't fitting into my style.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Been playing Fallout 4. However I became distracted by the settlement mechanics. So now my playtime largely revolves around scavenging for settlement building materials. I used a settlement console script to override the size limit for each settlement so its like Fallout lego gone mad.

I hope to build Thunder dome and find a Tina Turner NPC. Two men enter, one man leaves!

I got just into the beginning of Fallout 4, and haven't played it sense. Been doing a bit of Diablo 3 to slowly work my way to the platinum trophy, and playing a good deal of Elder Scrolls Online. I also played a bit into Disgaea 5, but not too much of that because so much of the game has changed. But there are some interesting free Prinny DLC, including one Prinny that has a crap ton of HP, one that hits like a nuclear bomb when you throw it, and another that has all the different tiers of all the different offensive spells and the healing spell.