Playing other games

[Gavrushka]

One of the fundamentals of role playing is immersion. After a mention of Pathfinder, I started up a new game today, and you realise how the actions of all characters are considered and in keeping with who they are. - As soon as that foundation is removed, role players will struggle to build anything meaningful from the game. In the original Baldur's Gate, I remember a character with a hamster who suddenly attacked the rest of the party because we hadn't rescued someone - we were minutes away from the location. - It stopped the game for me there and then, even though I appreciated it had to have been a simple countdown timer that triggered at a very inappropriate moment. Nowadays, there's no excuse for a sloppy narrative considering the resources available to such game designers.

Considering BG3 is still in development, I wonder if they'll remove such immersion destroying guff. - A writer who doesn't *get* the characters they're creating narratives for has nothing to add to the game, and should be replaced. I hope Felter is right, and they will make alterations, and considering they've probably pulled in several million pounds in the opening days, they should be able to invest heavily in a more lore-conscious and plausible script for the actors.

I'll follow the link tomorrow, and read the review, but I'm pretty gutted. NWN and Baldur's Gate, along with the very early AD&D games formed some of my most enjoyable gaming experiences.

[Mightysword]

I don't remember any point in either Divinity: OS or D:OS2 where anything like that happened, so I'd really like to know what Larian are playing at there.

While I think it's partially due to it being early access and things haven't well thought out yet, the overall tone and style are fairly consistent with D:OS and D:OS2. One of the reason I never really connect with my party in OS2 is because it's never quite established WHY these characters are following me around. Sure, there is some convenience excuse, and "band together for the sake of survival" can pass for a reason, but then WHY is it that it becomes MY party? If all these characters hate/distrust me so much, why is it I became the default leader of the group? (if I remember correctly one lady before joining you flat out said she's ready to slit your throat anytime). Sure as the game process you can see how they accept you, but then it doesn't change the fact the whole party came together for no more reason than to give you a party to play the game with.

While eventually I think the script may get better, I don't think the tone or narrative gonna change much, and I doubt it will ever come close to the narrative style of the old BG series.

One of the fundamentals of role playing is immersion. After a mention of Pathfinder, I started up a new game today, and you realise how the actions of all characters are considered and in keeping with who they are. - As soon as that foundation is removed, role players will struggle to build anything meaningful from the game.

And I think this is where Pathfinder excelled. Comparing to what I just said in the previous paragraph: the game gave a very clear reason why you are chosen as the leader, and the characters who decided to follow you give very specific reasons on the qualities that make them follow (or not follow) you. Yes, it's just superfluous for the next few hours since eventually you can recruit all of them, but like you said it creates immersion. Also, the 2 "slave" mages you rescue have a back story that as dark/bad//depressing as the one in OS2, but it's only a "part" of characters, whether with Laraan's writing the backstory IS the whole character itself, making it very one dimensional.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

Assetto Corsa was at € 10 on Instant Gaming, so I bought it.
Nice struggle on the first laps, I was too used to easy arcade driving of Horizon, but applying just a couple of standard behaviours (like braking without steering...) I began to have some good fun!

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

One of the fundamentals of role playing is immersion. After a mention of Pathfinder, I started up a new game today, and you realise how the actions of all characters are considered and in keeping with who they are. - As soon as that foundation is removed, role players will struggle to build anything meaningful from the game. In the original Baldur's Gate, I remember a character with a hamster who suddenly attacked the rest of the party because we hadn't rescued someone - we were minutes away from the location. - It stopped the game for me there and then, even though I appreciated it had to have been a simple countdown timer that triggered at a very inappropriate moment. Nowadays, there's no excuse for a sloppy narrative considering the resources available to such game designers.

Considering BG3 is still in development, I wonder if they'll remove such immersion destroying guff. - A writer who doesn't *get* the characters they're creating narratives for has nothing to add to the game, and should be replaced. I hope Felter is right, and they will make alterations, and considering they've probably pulled in several million pounds in the opening days, they should be able to invest heavily in a more lore-conscious and plausible script for the actors.

I'll follow the link tomorrow, and read the review, but I'm pretty gutted. NWN and Baldur's Gate, along with the very early AD&D games formed some of my most enjoyable gaming experiences.

Sorry for the double post, but this is so unrelated to Assetto Corsa...

I'm interested in BG3 as a role player and big fun of older BGs.
As you guys mentioned, it looks like you need to play their pre-cooked characters to experience the full stories, and that's very far from what I think a role playing game is... Sad.

[Mightysword]

So after watching many video I gave in and decided to grab Crusader King 3 Royal Edition. Gonna give it a swing tonight after dinner, here hoping it will not disappointed.

And if it doesn't then I hope I will be able to drag myself to bed on time, I have to work early tomorrow.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

So after watching many video I gave in and decided to grab Crusader King 3 Royal Edition. Gonna give it a swing tonight after dinner, here hoping it will not disappointed.

And if it doesn't then I hope I will be able to drag myself to bed on time, I have to work early tomorrow.

It's very funny if you're a fan of the genre.

I'm recently having a blast with Assetto Corsa: completing a race is so rewarding!
Last weekend I completed my first online race, it was a Mazda cup event (all cars were race modified Mx-5) in Imola: qualified 6th, ended 5th. The first 3 drivers were doing their own race (~3-4 seconds faster lap times than everyone else...), and I battled for the 4th position until the last turns, ending up with too much risk to gain that half second from the car in front of me and making a couple mistakes for that reason. Just 7 laps, but so exhausting and rewarding.

[Mightysword]

Going back to one of my old comment in this thread

Never played a Pokemon game, and never will, but now I understand why some people like them. Grabbed Planet Zoo, and damn try to breed the perfect animal can be a really addicting business.

I just realize you can do the same thing here in Ck3 ... uh oh.

[GCU Grey Area]

Going back to one of my old comment in this thread

Never played a Pokemon game, and never will, but now I understand why some people like them. Grabbed Planet Zoo, and damn try to breed the perfect animal can be a really addicting business.

I just realize you can do the same thing here in Ck3 ... uh oh.

Tend to agree. Took several centuries to get there (often pushing the limits of inbreeding in the process) but this is my current ruler:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bzhc98wnt4j0l ... 1.jpg?dl=0
That's a genius beautiful herculean giant with divine blood (he's also a possessed witch, but nobody's perfect).

[Mightysword]

Aka I gonna be spending tons of hours playing the game in a way it's NOT meant to be played.

[GCU Grey Area]

Aka I gonna be spending tons of hours playing the game in a way it's NOT meant to be played.

Think it's entirely possible that obsessing about creating the best possible ruler in each generation is exactly the way it's meant to be played. All those traits do have a significant impact on how successful a ruler is, as does their education as a child & even the tenets & doctrines of their religion - e.g. creating a religion with polygamy & a VERY liberal approach to who can sleep with who means lots of kids, a VERY tangled family tree & keeps those genetic traits in close circulation. Just need a method of keeping the horde of inbred rejects from ever inheriting anything (as essentially the norse pope I'm using education in the wrong religion as a mechanism to exclude undesirables from the line of succession).

[burger1]

Cyberpunk 2077 delayed until Dec 10, 2020.

https://www.cnet.com/news/cyberpunk-207 ... to-dec-10/

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

Cyberpunk 2077 delayed until Dec 10, 2020.

https://www.cnet.com/news/cyberpunk-207 ... to-dec-10/

I mean, it's called "Cyberpunk 2077", not "Cyberpunk 2020"...

[Mightysword]

After playing CK3 for a week it makes me realize how much of a care bear gaming in generally are. It's not rare for a game to advertise itself as "having the choice of becoming good and evil", but they are mostly just gimmick. It's easy to be good, you're encouraged to be good, and the evil options is something you do for the laugh. Not in CK3.

One of my first rulers was a guy who are compassionate, forgiving, and trusting. I fancied create a virtuous dynasty, attracting the best and brightest, the beacon of hope in the dark of the medieval age ... and boy what a trainwreck that was.

- He's so nice, everyone want to take advantage of him and stress him out.
- He's so nice, each time he wants to get back at people or to simply leverage thing out, it stress him out.
- He's so nice, all the pleasure activities that's supposed to how him relax usually end up stress him out even more.

Basically, he's so nice he can't do anything without getting stressed out. His wife must had thought he's a chicken and cheat on him, he found out but couldn't punish because it'll stress him out. At that point he decided he had enough and go after her lover, for once in his life, he will rather be a man instead of the chicken. Sure, the decision stressed him out but he commit. But then, all of his virtuous trait and life style mean his intrigue sucks, so instead of killing the lover, he ended up killing his own wife by accident instead. You guess it, even more stress!

It wasn't all that bad, in the end there was never really a need for anyone to go after his life, he offed himself not even half way in his reign. What a trainwreck that was, and the best part is the player can do absolute nothing to stop it.

[Vertigo 7]

Nintendo dropped a demo of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity yesterday. If you play it, your save will carry over to the full release which is schedule for 11/20.

I did download it and I started playing but Zeta knocked out my power after about 20 minutes in. I did enjoy what I’ve experienced thus far. Game play is what you would expect for a 1 vs 1000 game but they did put a lot of emphasis in making the character animations, combat techniques, and so forth as close as possible to BoTW. You can still do all the time dilated combat moves like perfect dodge/block and flurry rush.

And if anyone is wondering, weapon and shield durability are not part of this game. Like the original Hyrule Warriors, there is the ability to upgrade weapons and fuse passive bonuses. Each playable character has their own unique combat style and weapon choices with Link being the one character that can use most of the weapon types.

One of the big asks since this game was announced was an opportunity to control the divine beasts. Based on some gameplay video Nintendo dropped a few days ago, we’re gonna get that chance!

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

After playing CK3 for a week it makes me realize how much of a care bear gaming in generally are. It's not rare for a game to advertise itself as "having the choice of becoming good and evil", but they are mostly just gimmick. It's easy to be good, you're encouraged to be good, and the evil options is something you do for the laugh. Not in CK3.

One of my first rulers was a guy who are compassionate, forgiving, and trusting. I fancied create a virtuous dynasty, attracting the best and brightest, the beacon of hope in the dark of the medieval age ... and boy what a trainwreck that was.

- He's so nice, everyone want to take advantage of him and stress him out.
- He's so nice, each time he wants to get back at people or to simply leverage thing out, it stress him out.
- He's so nice, all the pleasure activities that's supposed to how him relax usually end up stress him out even more.

Basically, he's so nice he can't do anything without getting stressed out. His wife must had thought he's a chicken and cheat on him, he found out but couldn't punish because it'll stress him out. At that point he decided he had enough and go after her lover, for once in his life, he will rather be a man instead of the chicken. Sure, the decision stressed him out but he commit. But then, all of his virtuous trait and life style mean his intrigue sucks, so instead of killing the lover, he ended up killing his own wife by accident instead. You guess it, even more stress!

It wasn't all that bad, in the end there was never really a need for anyone to go after his life, he offed himself not even half way in his reign. What a trainwreck that was, and the best part is the player can do absolute nothing to stop it.

And that is soooo funny, isn't it?
I once was planning to give my firstborn all my domain by disinheriting / denouncing his brothers. I was going to be so stressed, because I had traits like "Just" and "Forgiving"...
At some point in time, (and please note my favourite child was 14 at the moment) they started to get killed by someone... I investigated, spent a lot, and who was the serial killer? My Sadistic Cynical Genius heir, who started his tabula rasa with puberty... He killed three brothers and a couple of court members by the time he was 20.

[GCU Grey Area]

After playing CK3 for a week it makes me realize how much of a care bear gaming in generally are. It's not rare for a game to advertise itself as "having the choice of becoming good and evil", but they are mostly just gimmick. It's easy to be good, you're encouraged to be good, and the evil options is something you do for the laugh. Not in CK3.

One of my first rulers was a guy who are compassionate, forgiving, and trusting. I fancied create a virtuous dynasty, attracting the best and brightest, the beacon of hope in the dark of the medieval age ... and boy what a trainwreck that was...

And that is soooo funny, isn't it?
I once was planning to give my firstborn all my domain by disinheriting / denouncing his brothers. I was going to be so stressed, because I had traits like "Just" and "Forgiving"...
At some point in time, (and please note my favourite child was 14 at the moment) they started to get killed by someone... I investigated, spent a lot, and who was the serial killer? My Sadistic Cynical Genius heir, who started his tabula rasa with puberty... He killed three brothers and a couple of court members by the time he was 20.

Yeah - CK3 truly does a masterful job of subverting what constitutes a "good" ruler - BrasatoAlBarolo's Sadistic Cynical Genius with a proven track record in the murder department shows real promise, whereas Mightysword's Compassionate Forgiving Trusting ruler is deserving of nothing but contempt, & in my game probably also an early grave (these days I tend to be quite harsh in dealing with Dissapointments in the line of succession).

[Mightysword]

investigated, spent a lot, and who was the serial killer?

I'm curious what do you mean by "investigate". I had seen other people talk about it, like tracking the visitor to your court, see who suddenly just got a lot money, or even start your own fake murdering scheme on someone you think gonna be the next target to bait the "real" murderer into joining as a co-conspirator. I haven't get to the point in the game where I pay close attention to these detail yet, but I did run into them. I.e I do know sometime I get co-conspirators in my murder scheme but I don't pay attention to who they are, but it seems it should be taking not for future preference.

Tend to agree. Took several centuries to get there (often pushing the limits of inbreeding in the process) but this is my current ruler:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bzhc98wnt4j0l ... 1.jpg?dl=0
That's a genius beautiful herculean giant with divine blood (he's also a possessed witch, but nobody's perfect).

Curious, again this is something I see other people talk about a lot, but is "pure blood" (not divine blood) something you do for the prestige rather than the practical benefit of it? It requires at least 4 generation of direct inbreeding (brother-sister) with a lot of stress and rng involves, not to mention the bodies of fail subject piling up. If the end result is to reliably getting good top trait, there are other method that's much easier.

In my longest save, I have so many bloodlines that can get lvl3 on the 3 main buff (Genuis/Beautiful/Hercules) reliably that I even export excess candidate to help the AI. It's no uncommon to run into a foreign dynastie with the blood mother/father in my game. What I do is by the 3rd generation I manage to consolidate the 3 good trait into my main line to get the blood-father buff, and you can even catch wanderers with all 3 lvl3 trait around the world.. Then I start splinting it into new house, adding one house per generation. Each new house is in charge of one specific trait and re-enforce through lvl3 candidate outside of my dynasty to keep their main trait going. After all the lines established, then every generation I shift the children around - round robin style and eventually it get to a point every house will produce nothing but top class children.

(Of course, every few generation I groom one high intrigue, sadistist ruler for the purpose of curating and filtering all the impurity that may pollute the various houses).


This way the inbreeding only happens at the 3rd or 4th generation level, so the chance of getting the actual inbreeding trait is pretty much non-existence. In another word, I went with the Japanese style instead of the Alabama style to re-enforce my bloodline. Seem to be a lot more stable than then trying to get pure-blood buff.

[GCU Grey Area]

Curious, again this is something I see other people talk about a lot, but is "pure blood" (not divine blood) something you do for the prestige rather than the practical benefit of it? It requires at least 4 generation of direct inbreeding (brother-sister) with a lot of stress and rng involves, not to mention the bodies of fail subject piling up. If the end result is to reliably getting good top trait, there are other method that's much easier.

Tend to agree about Pure Blood. Sounds good in principle but too much hassle to obtain. Generally do a fair bit of inbreeding but it's mostly at the cousin level rather than brother-sister.

In my longest save, I have so many bloodlines that can get lvl3 on the 3 main buff (Genuis/Beautiful/Hercules) reliably that I even export excess candidate to help the AI. It's no uncommon to run into a foreign dynastie with the blood mother/father in my game. What I do is by the 3rd generation I manage to consolidate the 3 good trait into my main line to get the blood-father buff, and you can even catch wanderers with all 3 lvl3 trait around the world.. Then I start splinting it into new house, adding one house per generation. Each new house is in charge of one specific trait and re-enforce through lvl3 candidate outside of my dynasty to keep their main trait going. After all the lines established, then every generation I shift the children around - round robin style and eventually it get to a point every house will produce nothing but top class children.

(Of course, every few generation I groom one high intrigue, sadistist ruler for the purpose of curating and filtering all the impurity that may pollute the various houses).


This way the inbreeding only happens at the 3rd or 4th generation level, so the chance of getting the actual inbreeding trait is pretty much non-existence. In another word, I went with the Japanese style instead of the Alabama style to re-enforce my bloodline. Seem to be a lot more stable than then trying to get pure-blood buff.

Sounds a lot more organised than the way I do it. I just rely on Polygamy to provide plenty of choice for who's going to the next ruler & choose wives which provide a spectrum of inbreeding potential (along with 1 wife who is generally unrelated, infertile & only there to provide good council stats, particularly Stewardship). A few of the kids end up with the Inbred trait but there's always plenty to choose from who don't.

However don't tend to export genetic traits much at all - sons marry for genetics, daughters marry matrilineally to bring in outside expertise for the council & the army (i.e. champions with high Prowess). May be why I don't see any wanderers with multiple level 3 traits, as you mentioned occurs in your game - the genetics just aren't spreading far beyond my dynasty. In my current game my dynasty seems to be the only one multiple high level traits.

[Mightysword]

Anyway, I "torpedo" that dynasty last night by trying to get the pure-blood trait. Of course I wanted to it properly, so passed a new religion where incest are accepted, I also passed the law to hold both man and woman at fault for any kind of indiscretion ... and well .. who know a dynasty that has been well run with little drama for dozens of generation can turn into a shit show overnight. Immediately in the following generation, everyone started marrying everyone - it feels like my entire dynasty had kept their desire of banging relative botched up for hundred of year, so it was hallelujah when the new religion came into effect. And because most of them are already set up with a proper marriage, most of the incestous were basically indiscretions, so of course I had to put them in prisons.

And so ... within 10 years, my kingdom which had never seen a rebellion for dozen of generations, saw it first. Wasn't a small one either, but a proper realm-divide style conflict. I managed to win. Then come the flood of children with inbreed ... ALL OVER THE PLACE. I thought it would just be me doing it in the main line, but all the other houses seem to fancy the same idea. So my beautifully crafted and carefully nurtured dynasty tree started look like Satan's very own family tree. And the thought of I have to put up with this for at least 4 generation ... yeah screw that.

Sounds a lot more organised than the way I do it. I just rely on Polygamy to provide plenty of choice for who's going to the next ruler & choose wives which provide a spectrum of inbreeding potential (along with 1 wife who is generally unrelated, infertile & only there to provide good council stats, particularly Stewardship). A few of the kids end up with the Inbred trait but there's always plenty to choose from who don't.

All the children in my dynasty from the main line and all the branch-lines have all 3 high level traits almost certainty. In fact, a child born into my dynasty with only 2 out of 3 or having more than 1 trait not at lvl 3 is consider to be a rare failure. So on average there were probably 30-40 super children born into the world at each generation. I'm a huge RPG buff so I always to do something with a "head-canon" like that context behind my play, and it that respect I gotta say CK3 offers a treasure trove of opportunity.


So after nuking the save I started a new one, and I'm trying to apply an extra layer of role playing on top of it. Now the houses will not just be to maintain the bloodline, but also a specific role in the kingdom. Basically I want several great houses that will provide my kingdom with top quality councilors. So far, it works well enough. This is the heir to the first house I created after splitting off my daughter, this heir was raised without my intervention and he turned out well. So unless he got murdered, he will become the diplomatic head for the next generation.

Head canon it as the House of diplomatic affair, the next one is to create the House of internal affair (stewardship) and so on. And I'll see if I can keep all the same great Houses to stand the test of time too. Being an RPG bluffs I want to shape the world in my game as well, not just the family I play. The idea here is I want a specific house to keep inheriting the same councilor position through generations, and not just randomly pick whoever have the highest in court

[Mightysword]

Yeah - CK3 truly does a masterful job of subverting what constitutes a "good" ruler

Missed this in the last response but I would like to follow up on it:

I don't think it's quite like that, because if the game is meant to make the good guy suffer hell, then it would feel forced. A lot of products (game and other medium) fall into that trap. As an anime jog I'm not a fan of high drama series, because for the most part the drama feels forced. Half of the time as I watch the event unfold in those shows my dominant thought is "well none of this crap would have to happen if everyone can string 2 sentences together without getting choked up with emotion".

What makes CK3 good so far for me it it handles things organically. I don't think the game set out to punish the good guy (despite the good guys usually end up in a ditch). What it punishes is the act of treating the game like a fairy book, disrespect the setting and/or approach it naively. Everything else happens is a consequence of that.