What's a word that means "profuse thanks" and "dammit!" all at once? I need it. I already blew the last of my monthly Kickstarter budget on this (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seventhstarpress/the-writers-workshop-of-science-fiction-and-fantas), and had resolved not to look at any more cool stuff for at least two weeks. But this... well, there's no way that I won't be buying something with that pedigree.
Ah well, another month in the red. Guess I'll just turn Steam off, load up Planescape and Arcanum, and not feel the need to spend anything on the daily deals.
ETA: Oh, gods damn it, there's a new Broken Sword adventure (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure/), too. *sigh*
Goddamnit, I managed to resist the Reaper one you linked, but not this.
(Although "makers of Arcanum" nearly saved me; not a fan, alas. And I had such high expectations for it, too.)
Edit: the thing I really like about getting a game this way is not being charged the stupid inflated "we gouge you because you're in Australia" price that usually happens even with digital download. So I'm saving more money than the US funders here :-)
What you need at that point is a north american address for Steam.
Alternately: When you want a game, drop me a line. I will happily buy it for you on my account, "gift" or "trade" it to you on your account, and accept moneys. in return. Arbitrage: It's not just for banks.
Be warned: Quid pro quo arrangements that get around Steam's regional pricing bugfuckery are considered violations of the subscriber agreement (1 (http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003#nottrade), 2 (http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6262-QXCN-0755#sellgifts)), and they will ban your account if they find evidence that you have done so.
Every now and then there's vague rumblings of discontent about bringing some sort of class action over this, but it usually dissipates when it's pointed out that there would first have to be some legal resolution as to whether or not you actually own the games you paid good money for (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/).
For the record, I like a lot of things about Steam, but their complete lack of accountability worries me. (That, and their "will probably work unless you really need it to" offline mode. Non-intrusive DRM can still fuck you over.)
Of the three times I've needed it to work, it's failed twice. Both times it told me it couldn't connect to the Steam servers to authorize my login.
Steam's standard solution is "re-install Steam and login again", which is not particularly helpful. Granted, it did solve the problem once I had network connectivity again...
I have never, ever managed to get it to fail when testing it. It's the technician's curse (the device will work perfectly until you disconnect the test equipment and send it back to the client).
That said, those failures were a couple of years ago, and there have been many updates to the client since. We'll see how it goes when I next move house.
Thank you, I will keep this in mind! (subject to thornae's warning above).
But I'm trying to avoid spending too much time on games lately - I'm not good at the "moderation" thing, and after going cold turkey from heavy WoW raiding I'm still short on free time these days. This one will be an exception.
It doesn't specifically mention, but given that I know for a fact that four out of those five theweaselking listed had the option, I would be both shocked and deeply annoyed[1] if they didn't. --- [1] Seriously. Like, grumbling-about-it-six-years-later annoyed. I am looking right at your sorry ass, here, Fable.
Planescape's main character was required to be male, but that's partly because of the way the game was set up - you were stepping into the role of a specific pre-created character with multiple novels worth of predetermined discoverable backstory..
I always vaguely wondered if there was a reason for that, and am not surprised to learn there was. Against the other games I was playing around that time--the Baldur's Gate stuff let you pick a gender, too, IIRC, and Fallout went so far as writing the Vault Dweller's memoirs in Fallout 2 to allow for them being either male or female--it always seemed a bit odd.
Also if you are looking for a game that allows for a female main character, I would just like to note that Fallout: New Vegas does do this, and I hear it allows for a fairly wide range of options in handling various challenges. (I say "I hear" because I personally am inordinately fond of dialogue options[1] and sniping, and haven't really explored how it deals with other tactics.) --- [1] Except for when dealing with Legion members.
I didn't care much for the UI, but I also was continuously bothered by the camera perspective - I always felt my vision was completely skewed. The other thing that bothered me was that while the game appeared to be designed as "open world, go wherever you want to" it actually didn't really work out that way. Unlike a game such as ME or DA, where the strength of the creatures was based on your own level, here you could run into areas where death was certain completely unsuspecting - not to mention I ran into quests I couldn't complete because of not being high enough level to have the appropriate skillset and so forth.
I didn't much care for the graphics, either - I didn't mind the grittiness, but the face models and bodies were just plain ugly, especially the females.
All of the above just got too darn frustrating for me after a while.
I always played it first-person and adjusted the FOV - and I bet I know EXACTLY where you went first: North, and you ignored or skipped past all the warnings that the place you were headed towards (the Quarry) can dangerous even for extremely high level characters.
But yes - one of the things about the Fallout games has always been that while enemies *do* level with you, some enemies are always way more difficult than others, and some areas spawn higher-level enemies. The muggers in the outskirts of New Vegas, for example, will always be wimpy - and the Deathclaws of the Quarry will always deliver hits that take off 30-40% of your health, regardless of raw numbers, regardless of armor.
Quests you can't complete: I'd be curious to know which ones. For most quests, a high skill set is one way through them, but there's a bunch of other ways to resolve them. It depends.
Ugly people: Yeah, kinda.
Still, it's one of the best games in years. I think it might be worthwhile to download a texture pack or two and give it another shot - if you still hate it, no worries, but it might improve on a second viewing?
Oh no, not at all - I didn't go near the Quarry at first. But even the big scorpion things just wandering around near the first town are nasty at lower levels. And it was the strange camera position over the shoulder that drove me absolutely insane. I don't tend to like actual first person (meaning you don't see the character body at all, you only see the hands).
I am always hesitant to mod a game (unless it's something put out officially by the company) because I'm not a big computer expert and don't want to completely screw up the game.
I can't remember which quests, other than I remember one to potentially recruit a companion that I couldn't do because I wasn't high enough level to complete the pre-reqs (the female wearing the hat)
If you hate both first AND third-over-the-shoulder person views, yeah, you're going to hate all the games using that engine. There's not much that can be fixed, there.
Radscorpions: You still went North if you found the ones your starting Varmint Rifle couldn't handle. And yeah, they're really dangerous - they're part of the "don't go here it's DANGEROUS" warning system.
Mods: Fallout, Oblivion, and Skyrim all use the same engine, which makes modding really easy - you drop the mod in the folder and tell the game to load it, or not, when you start the game. But that's neither here nor there.
Recruiting Cassidy: She's actually pretty hard to recruit, and requires that you run all over hell's half acre, twice. But it shouldn't have been too hard to *get* her quest, even if it takes forever to complete because you can't fast-travel to any of the required locations yet.
Oh, well. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. It's not a big deal, I was just hoping it was something I might be able to help find a fix for, since it's a great game if it DOESN'T drive you batty.
I haven't minded ME's camera view, or DA's - but something about the Fallout's one absolutely drove me bonkers. The angle felt completely cock-eyed to me.
The radscorpions I found were the ones near the big tall hill with the graveyard (it sends you there for a quest early on)? They were literally just down on the other side.
Yeah, I know the place. And yes, if you go off the far side of that cliff you will run into radscorpion territory, and that's dangerous. It shouldn't be *instantly* fatal, but it's dangerous and it gets more so the further into the badlands you go.
I was lucky to miss those, I guess; I hit the Yang-tze Memorial pretty early on, but the bloatflies were a PITA for me[1] and I ended up heading in a different direction.
(Will try and remember to look up POV mods, at the least. I have no idea how common that is.) --- [1] My skill wasn't high enough to have a good percentage chance to hit in VATS, and at that time my combat skills outside VATS when dealing with an enemy that could hit me generally consisted of that all-time favourite, "click frantically on the attack button and holding down the 'S' key while making a high-pitched 'eeeek' noise and praying the companion will manage the situation." Sucked, because I didn't have a companion.
I'm terrible at the combat part of the game, though, and I take that as a given in *any* game.
Yang-tze is more NE than N. It's also the big visible landmark, directly towards the lights of New Vegas - a really common way to go.
If you go north off the hill into the lower area, you get some boring terrain, some LOS blocks, and the radscorpion nests. It's not a good place to be.
at that time my combat skills outside VATS when dealing with an enemy that could hit me generally consisted of that all-time favourite, "click frantically on the attack button and holding down the 'S' key while making a high-pitched 'eeeek' noise and praying the companion will manage the situation."
For the record, yes she really does this and yes it is as adorable as it sounds.
Sucked, because I didn't have a companion.
There's a reason I said "Go back to Novac, do the other quests there before proceeding, trust me". And was I wrong? No, I was not wrong.
Hey, my frantic backpedalling skills are improving! I survived and shot about seven assorted ghouls in Point Lookout through judicious application of my run-away-backwards-while-totally-not-screaming tactic.
The original Fallouts also had different options based on your sex; men could sell their NPC wives into prostitution (I think women could do the same, but not sure), and there was a part where I wasn't allowed to join some specific faction because I was playing a woman. Apparently the apocalypse didn't seem to help out the feminist movement all that much...
Yep, female PCs had the same options as male ones; could sell their wife or husband into slavery, or have them work at the Golden Globes. (And yes, that's PCs of either gender could marry Miria or Davin.)
I am pretty sure you had more trouble joining the Legion in New Vegas if you were a woman, but since they were puppy-kicking Nazis in league with aliens that just happened to have institutionalized rape, I confess I was too busy shooting them all to check.
I haven't played New Vegas yet; I think the faction was in... Reno in Fallout 2? Something like that. And yeah, it was one of the two major crime families there, IIRC.
I'm pretty sure you could become a Made Man (yes, even as a female) for both the Mordinos and the Bishops (as well as the Salvatores and the Wrights). Do you remember anything about when/why you were being barred from joining?
I do not, just that they said it was because I was a woman. I was in the "I've just arrived in town and am now talking to everyone at least once" mode, though, and had no real interest in pressing the issue, so I didn't go looking for a workaround/alternate sponsor or anything like that.
That's weird; I talked to everyone, and although I think I only became a Made Man once, I'd swear I never got blocked out of any of the groups. Will keep an eye out when I get there, although between Borderlands 2 and replays of New Vegas and 3, it may be a while. I've just hit Klamath.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-16 10:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-16 10:24 pm (UTC)But this... well, there's no way that I won't be buying something with that pedigree.
Ah well, another month in the red. Guess I'll just turn Steam off, load up Planescape and Arcanum, and not feel the need to spend anything on the daily deals.
ETA: Oh, gods damn it, there's a new Broken Sword adventure (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure/), too. *sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-16 10:27 pm (UTC)(Although "makers of Arcanum" nearly saved me; not a fan, alas. And I had such high expectations for it, too.)
Edit: the thing I really like about getting a game this way is not being charged the stupid inflated "we gouge you because you're in Australia" price that usually happens even with digital download. So I'm saving more money than the US funders here :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-16 11:58 pm (UTC)Alternately: When you want a game, drop me a line. I will happily buy it for you on my account, "gift" or "trade" it to you on your account, and accept moneys. in return. Arbitrage: It's not just for banks.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 07:33 am (UTC)Every now and then there's vague rumblings of discontent about bringing some sort of class action over this, but it usually dissipates when it's pointed out that there would first have to be some legal resolution as to whether or not you actually own the games you paid good money for (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/).
For the record, I like a lot of things about Steam, but their complete lack of accountability worries me. (That, and their "will probably work unless you really need it to" offline mode. Non-intrusive DRM can still fuck you over.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 06:58 pm (UTC)I believe other people when they tell me it's happened - but I've still never seen it, and I don't know what's different.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 10:56 pm (UTC)Both times it told me it couldn't connect to the Steam servers to authorize my login.
Steam's standard solution is "re-install Steam and login again", which is not particularly helpful.
Granted, it did solve the problem once I had network connectivity again...
I have never, ever managed to get it to fail when testing it. It's the technician's curse (the device will work perfectly until you disconnect the test equipment and send it back to the client).
That said, those failures were a couple of years ago, and there have been many updates to the client since. We'll see how it goes when I next move house.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-20 05:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 09:17 am (UTC)But I'm trying to avoid spending too much time on games lately - I'm not good at the "moderation" thing, and after going cold turkey from heavy WoW raiding I'm still short on free time these days. This one will be an exception.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 11:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 01:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 04:14 pm (UTC)---
[1] Seriously. Like, grumbling-about-it-six-years-later annoyed. I am looking right at your sorry ass, here, Fable.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 05:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 05:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 05:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 05:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 05:53 pm (UTC)---
[1] Except for when dealing with Legion members.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 06:55 pm (UTC)(What didn't you like about it? Was it the UI, the bugs, the story...?)
(Because the bugs are mostly fixed now and the UI is moddable, is what I'm getting at.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 04:47 pm (UTC)I didn't much care for the graphics, either - I didn't mind the grittiness, but the face models and bodies were just plain ugly, especially the females.
All of the above just got too darn frustrating for me after a while.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 05:35 pm (UTC)But yes - one of the things about the Fallout games has always been that while enemies *do* level with you, some enemies are always way more difficult than others, and some areas spawn higher-level enemies. The muggers in the outskirts of New Vegas, for example, will always be wimpy - and the Deathclaws of the Quarry will always deliver hits that take off 30-40% of your health, regardless of raw numbers, regardless of armor.
Quests you can't complete: I'd be curious to know which ones. For most quests, a high skill set is one way through them, but there's a bunch of other ways to resolve them. It depends.
Ugly people: Yeah, kinda.
Still, it's one of the best games in years. I think it might be worthwhile to download a texture pack or two and give it another shot - if you still hate it, no worries, but it might improve on a second viewing?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 08:05 pm (UTC)I am always hesitant to mod a game (unless it's something put out officially by the company) because I'm not a big computer expert and don't want to completely screw up the game.
I can't remember which quests, other than I remember one to potentially recruit a companion that I couldn't do because I wasn't high enough level to complete the pre-reqs (the female wearing the hat)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 08:18 pm (UTC)Radscorpions: You still went North if you found the ones your starting Varmint Rifle couldn't handle. And yeah, they're really dangerous - they're part of the "don't go here it's DANGEROUS" warning system.
Mods: Fallout, Oblivion, and Skyrim all use the same engine, which makes modding really easy - you drop the mod in the folder and tell the game to load it, or not, when you start the game. But that's neither here nor there.
Recruiting Cassidy: She's actually pretty hard to recruit, and requires that you run all over hell's half acre, twice. But it shouldn't have been too hard to *get* her quest, even if it takes forever to complete because you can't fast-travel to any of the required locations yet.
Oh, well. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. It's not a big deal, I was just hoping it was something I might be able to help find a fix for, since it's a great game if it DOESN'T drive you batty.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 10:38 am (UTC)The radscorpions I found were the ones near the big tall hill with the graveyard (it sends you there for a quest early on)? They were literally just down on the other side.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:14 pm (UTC)(Will try and remember to look up POV mods, at the least. I have no idea how common that is.)
---
[1] My skill wasn't high enough to have a good percentage chance to hit in VATS, and at that time my combat skills outside VATS when dealing with an enemy that could hit me generally consisted of that all-time favourite, "click frantically on the attack button and holding down the 'S' key while making a high-pitched 'eeeek' noise and praying the companion will manage the situation." Sucked, because I didn't have a companion.
I'm terrible at the combat part of the game, though, and I take that as a given in *any* game.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:48 pm (UTC)If you go north off the hill into the lower area, you get some boring terrain, some LOS blocks, and the radscorpion nests. It's not a good place to be.
at that time my combat skills outside VATS when dealing with an enemy that could hit me generally consisted of that all-time favourite, "click frantically on the attack button and holding down the 'S' key while making a high-pitched 'eeeek' noise and praying the companion will manage the situation."
For the record, yes she really does this and yes it is as adorable as it sounds.
Sucked, because I didn't have a companion.
There's a reason I said "Go back to Novac, do the other quests there before proceeding, trust me". And was I wrong? No, I was not wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:57 pm (UTC)And no, you were not wrong. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 04:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 10:04 am (UTC)I am pretty sure you had more trouble joining the Legion in New Vegas if you were a woman, but since they were puppy-kicking Nazis in league with aliens that just happened to have institutionalized rape, I confess I was too busy shooting them all to check.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 04:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:02 pm (UTC)I did win the boxing contests, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 05:27 pm (UTC)