Selling old games has become rather lucrative in the last few years.

 

Just discovered there is 20 odd Nier:A fics on AO3. I had initially thought there were none looking on FF.net

Definitely going to be writing in this fandom when I finish all of the endings.

 

Danganronpa 1&2 out on the PS4 store, very close to picking it up over Mass Effect when I noticed.

 

Huh, got most of those(including all of the big-ticket ones, except for Secret of Evermore) sitting in the hall closet. Well, also other 'high-value' ones like FF3(6) and Chrono Trigger, among others.

On the one hand, I can recognize that they are valuable, and I'll likely never play them again(or I can just whip out an emulator if I did want to anyway). On the other hand, I've had them for over twenty years and they still work. Including the console sitting there with them.

 

A game I found suprisingly valuable was Conkers Bad Fur Day. Average cost is $200AU. I love my copy and wouldn't part with it, but I didn't think of it as rare (No pun intended.)

The bloke who ran the stall said it wasn't that hard to find, just that people who owned a copy don't really want to sell.

I already own Chrono but would of loved a copy of FFVI, unfortunately they had none at the time, that and Castlevania. He said just check in his always getting copies they just don't hang around for long.

 

Dude, NieR is fucking hard. It's so brutal that the first level doesn't have a save point for so long.

 

You need to learn to counter (r2). The window is pretty generous, so nothing seriously punishing.

unless you're playing on the hardest difficulty. Fuck that noise.

 

I was burning through potions early on until I got used to the combat. I'm around 25 hours in now and having a blast.

 

Fuck thin men.

Seriously. Fuck 'em.

 

XCOM?

If so, on a related note, just got back into XCOM 2, playing the Long War mod for this version of the game. Had some fun with the Long War mod for XCOM/Enemy Within, and noticed that they had released the version for 2.

Went several months into a campaign, then decided to start over with Ironman. Have to suffer properly, right? Also, I admit that I was abusing reloads far too often with my other campaign. Maybe I'll hit a middle ground, like how Invisible Inc. has difficulties which include how many one-turn rewinds you can do on a per-mission basis(1/3/5), and being able to restart entire missions on the easiest difficulty.
It would have to be self enforced in XCOM 2's case, but yeah.

On my fifth or sixth ironman campaign at the moment, after several false starts resulted in way too many losses in the first several missions. This one is almost two months in, and while a bit rough(lost six or seven rookies so far, but three were sacrificed for a good cause, at least), it's coming along decently-ish enough.

 

Yeah, EU. Finally chilling on my second viable Ironman Classic. Just passed a flawless base defense in mid-May. Casualties are now piling up a bit, and it vexes that I accidentally pressed 'esc' when France's terror mission came up, cause I'm so used to skipping cutscenes. I was a little behind satellite schedule for a perfect run, and now I'm going to lose England and Germany as well because Europe's my worst continent and I'm gunning for OTS.

Oh well. I'll play my first LW after I beat this run. Lost 3 vets before base defense hit, another ~4 mid-rankers in just one week after. Core majors and colonels are intact but bench is a little brittle and very imbalanced. Time to train up more rookies with LPRs on covert ops.

 

I've been making an effort to play through the backlog of games I've buying off of steam. Given that I only paid 6.99, Im having all sorts of fun with the Mad Max video game... its a shame that it got buried by the release of of Metal Gear Solid 5

 

I've been playing Elite: Dangerous, after finishing everything I wanted to do with ME:A. It's pretty fun, though it feels like it has a pretty steep learning curve, and I'm still unsure as to the purpose of a lot of elements in the game.

 

What is it you're still confused about?

I know Jon and Teyrn play, and I've dabbled, even if I haven't been on it much recently.

I did quite like the open world feel to it - I spent the first few hours just wandering around, blowing up bounties, getting blown up by bounties (and not having re-buy, because I hadn't figured out how to cash in bounties), and swearing at the really stupid official tutorials on youtube. I did find ObsidianAnt to be really helpful though.

EDIT

When you say "elements", I thought you meant parts, not the trading items.

Basically none of them have purpose for you, other than as trade stock. You buy what you can afford, and sell it for the most profit. I've found manually figuring out trade values (pen, paper, and time) more fun than using online resources, but they are out there.

You can mine them (I've never done it, but I know you can), then sell them (either in system, or travel a bit for a better price). Or you can purchase them from stations.

Also, materials (different from elements) can be used for crafting. There's not much you can craft currently (I think it's mostly ammo and the like), but it's still in progress. Also, the engineers, but don't worry about them yet.




As for progression, I'd strongly recommend playing through all the in-game tutorials, and altering the standard control scheme.

Try flying for a few bounties, trading a bit, and doing a few missions. Where possible, try to mission stack (and make sure you can still friendship drive to that system with a full hold) and then fill up the remaining slots in your hold too. A slot with zero in it gets you zero profit.


I use mouse for pitch and yaw, QE for roll, WS for up/down, AD for left/right, and RF for forwards/back. I've then mapped the thumb buttons on my mouse to throttle up/down, as opposed to the short boost from thrusters.

If you want to fiddle with the control scheme, I've found playing around in the CQC part works nicely - you're in a nippy little ship, and it all feels much more responsive. There's also no problems from crashing into things, as you don't need insurance.

 

Is it possible to install a game twice on the same computer? I want a fresh install so I can give Project Brazil a try for Fallout: New Vegas, but I am in love with my current mod list.

Alternate question: how buggy is the profile system in Nexus Mod Manager?

 

With Steam, you just need to change the install directory IIRC. Steam -> Settings Downloads -> Steam library folders. If you delete your default folder and put a new one in there, you can get a second install, and then you should just need to swap back and forth between directories to switch installs.

I'm not 100% sure it'll work, as I haven't tested two installs of the same game myself, but theoretically, it should.

 

I didn't mean specifically any elements. I mean actual elements of game play. For example, I'm still not sure as to the purpose of various factions and reputations. In game it says that I will unlock more missions with better rewards, which makes sense, but with a galaxy as large as this one, focusing on one tiny faction amongst it doesn't seem worth it (though I am unsure as to how widespread some of the factions are. some seem limited to just their system).

Another thing about the size of the galaxy - will I really end up at the other side at some point? It seems like it's a thousand systems away.

Mostly right now I'm just doing transport missions. Ended up buying a Lakon-6 transporter for 1.5 million credits or thereabouts. Has 96 cargo slots which is a lot. Ended up swapping one of them out for a passenger bay and tried a few passenger missions just to see what that was about, because I saw a couple that rewarded over 10 million credits if you had the right requirements (I didn't).

Ultimately, I'm not sure what the point is. the next available ship is like 50 million credits, but only fits on large docking bays - will that limit what stations I can go to, or do all of them have every size and I would maybe just have to wait a few minutes for it to open up?

I tried doing a few bounties with the original ship, but any situation that turned into a 2 on 1 or more was really tough. I couldn't even beat the one tutorial mission where you had to beat 3 of them. I was probably doing something wrong, idk.

 

Large docking bays are only on the bigger space stations, not the little ones. And yes, if you're playing in an area with loads of other players, then you may have to wait for a large bay.

The big thing with E is the freedom.

So yes, the galaxy really is that big. You really can travel to every star. But if you're not being an explorer, then there's not much point - the vastness of space is mostly empty of other humans (beyond 400LY from the bubble, it's basically just you). You won't be able to trade as much, you won't have to fear from pirates (whilst you're out there), and you can meander across the galaxy, refilling from nearby stars.

But if you don't fancy exploring, then don't. You'll be missing some views, but you won't be missing (much) gameplay wise.



Unlocking factions:

You might have either a home system, or a few systems you tend to stick close to.

But really, it's not a massive long term thing for you (yet). working with a faction you like the idea of means they can (eventually) take over the system. If they're allied with one of the mega factions (not Empire/Feds/Alliance, but the individual parts of that, see Powerplay) and you boost them, you get actual bonuses - discounted ships, different weapons and the like. But that's high end play, so don't worry too much about it.

For the most part, the local factions aren't important. You need to have them like you to do the mega-faction promotions (Federation and Empire) to get the unique ships, and having them like you also helps with better missions, but if you're trading, then it isn't a major thing.



As to combat...

Make sure to do a full scan on your bounty before attacking. This way, you can check if they're in a wing or not. Also, make sure to check the threat ratings of everyone in a wing, because even a sidewinder can be annoying when it's at Elite.

What you can do is make friends with the top local faction. Then go to the buoy by the local star, and scan for bounties there. System police will turn up after enough violence, and because they're friendly to you, will start shooting ships that fire on you.

They're not fantastic, but it's nice to have a bit of back-up.

Also, I'd go with an eagle for early bounties. It's small, fast, and nippy, which is a god-send. It also has three hardpoints (wingx2, and centrepiece), all with a decent FoV.

I tend to have gimballed weapons, but you can have manual or turrets.

Manual weapons do more damage than gimballed, which do more than turrets. But you have to be a better pilot to make them work, so YMMV.

Also, try fiddling with Flight Assist. Toggling it on and off can really help with tight spins in combat, but can be REALLY irritating the rest of the time. Again, I'd recommend CQC/arena (or the tutorials) to practice.



As a final few notes on combat - are you distributing power, and have you bought better shields? That can make a world of difference.
Also, if your throttle is in the blue bit, your manuevarbility goes WAY up. Again, useful in combat.

But don't try and do combat in a heavy hauler. It's not a pleasant experience.

 

Some details of the upcoming Breath of the Wild DLC have been released. The sight of Link in a Tingle outfit makes me as uncomfortable as prolonged eye contact with the other dude in a devil's threeway.

 

I finally got around to playing Witcher 3 (yes I know, 2 years late) and goddamn, it's good. I haven't played a game this immersive since, idk, maybe Dragon Age Origins? My history with the Witcher franchise isn't that impressive either. I never played the first one, and I downloaded the second one and maybe played 5 hours of it before I grew frustrated because it ran like shit on my laptop on lowest settings.

But so far, I love it. I'm only about 10-15 hours in, level 10. I don't know how far that is, but I'm only on the zone after the royal palace place, and I read somewhere that it's about 100 hours long (though I don't know if that's just an average, or for a completionist).

Usually I have a problem with games that they never really hook me in enough, or they tend to get stale, and they end up unfinished. I've never finished the second Bioshock because I got tired of having to do an infinite amount of those little sister protection things. It took me three attempts to finish Oblivion because the combat sucked and I was tired of grinding through the oblivion portal missions (but I did eventually muster through and 100% the game). I never even finished Skyrim, since it was just super boring. It took me two tries to finish Mass Effect 2 because as a watered down rpg, it wasn't that interesting, and having to grind all the planet surveys (similar to how fucking annoying that was in ME1) really ruined it (though on my second try I said fuck that).

I haven't gotten bored of Witcher 3 yet. I could see maybe why it could happen in the future, with me wanting to clear every unexplored question mark off the map, but so far, those have actually been pretty exciting so far, since you don't know what exactly you're going to find.

I love the atmosphere of the game. It's dark, but not oppressively dark (though some might think that I guess). It's very magical as well, with every monster being steeped in lore. I did a quest yesterday where I had to go find a Baron's miscarried fetus daughter which had turned into a botchling, and then get the Baron to reconcile with the abandoned spirit to convert it into a guardian. Dark, but pretty cool.

Gameplay itself is excellent. The steel vs silver sword dynamic has been flawless for me so far. I like the night/day cycle, and I like how I can play at night without it being impossible for the player to see what they're doing.

Anyways, I could go on about the stuff I do like for days, but it's always the stuff I don't like or am not sure about that is more interesting to discuss.

The leveling and experience system has been inconsistent for me. Like, I felt like I was at level 1 for like three hours, and then I jumped from 1 to 4 in the span of 30 minutes. Same thing happened at level 6, felt like I was there forever, then an hour later I was level 10. The XP rewards don't seem that even either, as I only got 100 XP for doing the elven ruins quest with Kiera Metz, while later on I got 350 XP for doing pretty much nothing, despite the elven ruins being pretty long and difficult.

The character levelling panel itself doesn't seem that great to me. It doesn't really seem like the rewards for levelling up are all that great, and you can only have so many of your unlocks on at one time. After the first zone once I went around and collected the power shrines, I actually had more ability points than slots to put them in, so I had to wait until level 6 to be able to use another. I wish max health or something would increase every level, but it really doesn't seem like it does (could be wrong). Also, the mutation doesn't really seem to do anything. I've got a bunch, but they all seem to be super minor and most of them do the same things as each other, such as +50 vit. I guess they might get better later on, but it seems weird that there are multiple ones that do the same thing.

Continuing with the leveling idea, zone difficulty seems inconsistent. The recommended level for the zone was 5 I think, but the actual levels of the monsters are all over the place. Obviously you want the later parts of the zone to be more difficult, but there are no real "later parts" of the zone, everything is just kind of together. Like, I went from taking out a level 7 bandit camp, then 100 feet away is a level 14 basilisk that just pushed my shit it. And right next to the level 14 basilisk was a level 14 wyvern that I actually managed to kill (it was twice my level), but I'm not even sure the loot it gave me access too is even better. It's a level 6 steel sword that has a +7 higher top end damage, but it only has 2 sockets, and it attributes are worse than the level 4 sword I'm using. Furthermore, It wasn't even until I was like level 8 that I found a replacement for my starter level silver sword, and that was only because I found a blueprint to make one (and it's a level 1 sword. the others I can make are like level 12-15 which I can't use yet). Then, there's actual inventory management. It's not very intuitive, and I kept filling up real quick. I didn't discover that it was even possible to increase the carry cao until I was deep into the second zone, and did a horse race that gave me saddlebags to increase my inventory. Then, there's figuring out what actually weights an annoying amount, and what doesn't, and the answer is apparently animal pelts. And there's only a handful of vendors that actually buy them. I don't mind that part actually, as it's pretty flavorful that not every random guy will buy everything I have, or can even afford it. Just finding the right guys to get what I want can be a pretty tall task, as I mentioned before, getting a silver sword seemed hard and it took me forever to find a swordsmith, since it seemed like the armorsmiths couldn't make it? Not sure if that's correct, but that's what it seemed like - flavorful, but annoying at times. I actually ran out of food in the middle of the swamp and couldn't find any for sale, and none to steal, so that was annoying. Wealth management was pretty hard too, and in the beginning, it felt real hard to actually accumulate gold. Swords weren't selling for anything, and deconstructing them wasn't really worth it either, and then you just had to spend all that gold back on repairs, since your sword breaks way too easily.

Anyways, those are pretty minor details, which I can live with since the actual gameplay and plot is so great.