Maybe it's because I'm only playing on normal difficulty, but I've really not had a shortage of critical hits. ED-E let me detect enemies long before I saw them, letting me get plenty of sneak crits. And up close 1st recon beret(raises crit chance and perception, not luck), Finesse, and That Gun got me plenty of crits. Throw in Better Criticals once I got it and I didn't come across much that needed a second crit. Anything that survived either got zapped by ED-E or punched by Veronica.

As for lowering strength, that isn't gonna happen. 5 strength plus implant and weapon handling lets me use the anti materiel rifle, and there's no way I'm passing that up.



Circumstances don't permit me to get even a mediocre gaming pc. And to be honest, I'm not all that interested. Consoles are far more convenient:

I buy a game for my console, I know that game will run on my console, no need to check specs to make sure.
No getting frustrated because a game I'm interested in is only available via Steam(which is an automatic no sale).
There's no shortage of places to buy console games(I'd rather buy physical copies of games from actual stores than buy online), the pre-owned games market here is huge, so I can pick console games up cheap, and trade in games when I'm finished with them, letting me save money on both ends.
Having been gaming on consoles since the N64, I'm more comfortable with controllers than keyboards and mice, removing one of the PCs advantages.


And finally, the only games I'd be interested in playing on PC are strategy games that typically aren't released on consoles. So it isn't even worth it.

I'll stick to my console.

Well, since the low difficulty was beginning to sap the fun a little, I blitzed the game to get to the Yes Man ending. Finished up at only level 20. Lanius was an outright monster. Had to use a stealthboy and take his head off at a distance with an AMR generously donated by his centurions

Now that I've gotten the hang of the game, and seen the final battle, I can get down to finding more ways to have fun, without power armour. I got hold of some ranger combat armour and fully repaired it for a test run, and it was only five points less DT than T-51b.

On the glitch front, very little to report. Nothing game-breaking, the only persistent one was a bit peculiar. For some reason the game decided that ED-E had gotten his laser upgraded. Or at least I assume that's what happened, from the way the projectile changed, both in appearance and apparent power. Well, that and Veronica's insistence on using an incinerator she was carrying, even though she was set to melee and didn't actually have it equipped. Both popped up at the same time, but I sorted Veronica out easily enough.

What about the "Mysterious Stranger's" 44 magnum; can you console give it to the Player like you can in FO3?







When I am first getting to know a game, I'll go the easy-normal route at first till I get more comfortable with the game mechanics; then usually by no later than the 5th level I've boosted it to a harder level just to keep it from getting too stale.

One thing I really like about the Fallout games is their "Hardcore" mode. It isn't good to learn the game on, but in subsequent playthroughs it is great for roleplay!

Yes, you can easily add it with the console just as in FO3.

In FNV you can get the Mysterious Magnum from the Mysterious Stranger's son but this version of the weapon of course isn't as insanely powerful as the version which the MS uses in actual combat. Still, it's a nice touch.

I've only "fought" Lanius once, that was on my 1st playthrough and funnily enough, I didn't even fight him because my character had his Speech maxed so it was possible to avoid the battle with Lanius altogether. I don't remember the details, I'd have to check the Wiki to refresh my memory, but it's somehow possible to convince him that the Legion is losing, and he leaves the battlefield.

Then a surprise followed - I was ambushed by Lee Oliver and NCR soldiers but since I sided with Yes Man, there was an option to order Yes Man to throw Oliver over the Dam, which was hilarious. So I didn't experience any final fight at all because as soon as Yes Man threw Oliver over the Dam, the game ended. I really liked this "peaceful" ending.


FNV was never that glitchy for me, though I often read about its problems. The worst one which happens in every game, is radscorpions (though it happens for other creatures too) walking upright but it gets sorted when getting closer.

And a great weapon to have. My holdout weapon of choice.



You can throw Oliver off the Dam? I already deleted my saves! I'm gonna have to youtube that

I tried to talk him out of it, but I only had 70 speech That sword of his is terrifying. In one attempt , during VATS, I had to watch him send Veronica's head flying through the air in slow motion as I shot at him. Damn thing could kill me in like two hits, and according to a notification, demolish my armour in the process.

And the first time I got past Lanius, I lost Veronica in the fight, didn't save, and then the fight with Oliver started. I took Oliver's head off with the Mysterious Magnum, but then all the veteran rangers went for me at once. T-51b lasts for about three seconds on normal when being fired at by four brush guns at close range.



I was amazed how few issues I had this time around. Did tend to freeze in the Hidden Bunker though. I'm hoping subsequent runs will be similarly glitch free. I'm gonna do an NCR run, a House run, but I'll pass on the Legion.

I have yet to create a character that'll actually deserve to get the Mysterious Magnum since none of mine so far completed the Drifter's quest. Of course the Drifter could be killed and the Magnum stolen but so far this hasn't happened, neither it sounds appealing.


I don't remember whether this actually happens in the game or you see him being thrown over in the ending slideshow. You have to use the "correct" conversation path to get an option from Yes Man to throw him over, though.


I'll probably never face Lanius since the main quest interests me only up to the point to get a revenge on Benny.

In FNV, the toughest enemy for me was Ulysses and I faced him with a high-leveled character with maxed Energy and Melee yet she barely made it out alive on DiD. Not only he regenerates health but he's assisted by several robots and Marked Men, making the fight even more difficult. It's possible to disable bots or turn them against him but your Science and/or Repair have to be maxed too.


I did the Legion once years ago, forgot most of it but I remember that you get orders for the final quest from Lanius in his tent. Then you fight against Oliver inside the Dam. When he dies or you convince him to leave, Lanius arrives and congratulates you. I was hoping for him to take his mask off but it doesn't happen.

Oh thanks for the info!


Yes Man throws General Oliver off Hoover Dam:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVLMjXjwtA

The one time I fought Lanius was with Annie Ley Oak, and he died so fast I didn't even realize it was him. He never even had a chance to hit me. I thought it was just another Legion grunt. She had a pretty decent gun - an M4 Carbine from a mod - but I had cut down the stats on it so it was not uber. Many of the vanilla weapons were more powerful.

Ulysees was also my most difficult fight. For the reasons Lopov stated. He has not only a boatload of health, but regenerates, has good armor, and a lot of mooks.

Most difficult fight for me would be Joshua Graham. I know, I know, he isn't supposed to be fought but still, curiosity and gamer bloodlust bid me to shoot him the moment I exited his dialogue in that cave of his.

He has 50 DT, a boatload amount of health, and his .45 auto simply STUNG and it was rapid.

My Legion centurion had half of his health blown off during the first barrage and I had to continuously pump stimpaks throughout the fight. I died, but it was still epic though.

BWAAHAA! I haven't done that DLC yet, but I usually try every quest at least once if there is a choice (like in Shivering Isles) just to see what would happen if you went the other direction.

They have a different quest you do if you are able to kill Joshua Graham - Chaos in Zion. It would be interesting to see which one you like best, lol.

I have always wanted to try the Legion once, but can never bring myself to turn on the NCR; and in the end always end up wiping out Caesar's camp after infiltrating them. The Boomers too, can never turn against them either.

But it really bothered me to turn against the Legion, I liked my time in the camp with them.

Also, I really wish they had options on that chip you put into the computer in the Legate camp bunker where you could actually command that army of robots for your own purposes for at least one mission; it would be kind of fun to activate them and have them wipe out Caesar's Legion for you while you watch; or go secure the strip for you, etc.

They could just have like four options of places you could send them to clean house for you; and they would only do one before self destructing or something.

It kind of sucks that you only see them in action standing behind Yes Man and doing nothing; while you do all the tough work.

Persephone and Team Deadwalker just retook Ranger Citadel and nuked the Cochise AI into Oblivion. Persephone made the ultimate sacrifice and stayed behind to trigger the nuke while Serana, Lucia, and Sofie escaped. Well, as ultimate as it gets for an undead Ranger...

This time around playing Wasteland 2 the final battle seemed different. I think it is because there have been a few patches since the last time I played, and they changed some things. A lot more NPCs showed up at the end to help fight the Cochise AI (the Big Bad), and they stayed with Team Deadwalker the entire way. I think the last time I did it those who did show, only helped to fight outside. This time they went down into the base itself and slugged it out with me to the bitter end.

There were a lot of them too! I must have had over twenty NPCs along for the ride. The last big battle took forever because of there being so many people to cycle through each turn. But I have to say, it was really thrilling to be leading a real Army of Light into the Ultimate Battle Against Evil.

I also think there were more slides in the show at the end explaining what happened to all the towns and people Team Deadwalker had interacted with through the game. One thing I really like about this game is that your actions really do shape the fates of not only individual people, but also entire communities. They live and thrive, or are utterly annihilated, because of what you do.

Now that my time in Arizona Wasteland is done, I think I might be moving to another stretch of the wasteland farther east...

Have left Destiny for the time being- the emphasis on multiplayer (which I should have known about prior to purchase) means it is not for me. (I tend to not "play well with others".) Even the "collectible" aspect of the game does not trigger my OCD enough to keep me interested in repeating missions just to get better weapons and armor. There is a story here- it just takes longer to unfold than my limited time allows me to accept.

So- Fallout 3- hi-ho! See other thread for brief summary.

So the final boss in W2 is in fact some sort of a computer? This reminds me of Fallout: Tactics where the final enemy was a super-intelligent computer called the Calculator but in fact you didn't fight against it at the end but against some Paladin whose body took the Calculator over.

Maybe Persephone will come to the Mojave as well...

That is exactly it. The main bad guys are robots and cyborgs. At the very end the real boss steps up and reveals itself, and it turns out to be an AI that has been manipulating events from behind the scenes. What is really cool is that it is the same AI that is the Big Bad from Wasteland 1, who was thought to be destroyed in that game. The last big fight even happens in the same place as the final battle of Wasteland 1.

I am not playing SWTOR as I would normally do right now, because I've received a 7 day suspension for... cheating! Those idiots added an item you can buy for 1 credit and sell for 100, and some guys in my guild talked about it so I thought, hey, sure, you can make a few bucks, nothing extraordinary, just a few 100k.

So then they talk about how that's an exploit and it can get you suspended. After I got my few 100k.

Seriously, what the heckler&koch?

It's not like I'm cheating at PvP, or getting some unfair advantage against other players, or doing gold-selling or any such crap? 7 day suspension for a minor, first-time offense? I guess they don't want me as a paying customer anymore...?

Is this normal? And is it normal that 95% of people in SWTOR online forums think this is normal?

I'm not familiar with SWTOR, but is the in-game currency as useless as it is in the Elder Scrolls, where you can't use more than a certain amount anyway? Or does that extra income let you kit yourself in uber gear and rule the roost?

Even then, you haven't cheated until you spend it. I doubt that throwing coins at anyone is a feasible form of combat.

You can buy more fancy armor or rides, but those don't do anything. The stuff you can use against other players, PvP gear, you can't get for money really, you need commendations for that. And I'm not even playing on a PvP server.

I've worried about something like this happening when you use those add-ons; I mean what if I'm using one and suddenly someone says it is cheating? Like the uber cuirass add-on - I was afraid to get it. But I have used some helpful map add-ons.

Played a bit of the Gears of War Ultimate Edition beta. It's exactly what you'd expect, if you were expecting a carbon copy of GoW1. I don't see the need to remake an Xbox 360 game, but people are almost definitely going to lap it up. *sigh*


Sorry to hear about your problem starge. 7 days seems a bit ridiculous since it's entirely the devs fault for making such an economically unbalanced item.

Yeah I canceled my subscription - problem solved!

Really sorry about that, you shouldn't have had to be put in that position to have to quit a subscription for a game you liked.

If the developers left an exploit open, they shouldn't punish you because you found it and tried it; they should fix the problem so it can't be used again and at the very worst remove the money gained in the glitch - but to punish you for their own lack of diligence and foresight in the development of their own game - kind of sucks.

There have been exploits found on ESO, people have taken advantage of them; and as soon as Bethesda gets wind of it the exploits are patched out and whenever possible the funds leveled back to where they were before the exploit was used - no one got suspended.

The Players on the forums who felt like the person was unfairly richer by the glitch were the worst about calling for more action to be taken against the people that used the exploit, Bethesda was just concerned about stopping it from being used again and then as much as possible leveling their money back to what it was before.

Now that's what I call a level-headed reaction by Beth. Those guys asking for blood are really the worst. I don't know what's going on in their heads. It's as if cheating is like breaking some sort of religious taboo. But I guess it's just one of those holier-than-though things, a chance to berate others for their supposed wrong-doings.

Perhaps I'll give TESO another spin.

Agreed with all of this. Beth acted without over reacting; and those Players who were going bonkers over it were wanting every single penny accounted for and removed, then punishments - it is like the exploits somehow effected their own game, which it couldn't. Even if someone with more money could buy better armor, they can still only buy what the game provides for everyone.

I've noticed in ESO that I have to make choices on what I want to spend gold on, it always boils down to more storage space/filled soul gems/and lockpicks. You can't buy legendary armor, you can only make it through plenty of practice smithing or woodcrafting, so their extra money really hurt no one.

It is a shame that things always seem to come to head in those MMO games. I guess game balance is all important, more so than in single player games and a glitch can be a disaster for all concerned. Patches are probably all I really care about in SP, which is far easier to control than millions of gamers online.

I am playing Shivering Isles at the moment. Never really cared for the dlc in the past as I loved the main game too damn much. I regret reaching that decision in the past as I can now see that it is verrry good.

Just finished the quest where you have to consume felldew. Crazy days are here!

That was a fun dungeon. My favorite thing about SI is Sheo's outfit, lol.

I always loved his voice. That accent was just perfect, the writers completely nailed it, and the guy did a great job voicing Sheogorath.

But my favourite thing about SI has to be the sky. That's just art.

I've really got to have a character go to the SI, the only time I've been through it was back before I was really creating characters.

Yeah! The voice actor does a great job with the accent, except on occasions when he hits a deep note and the 'Lucien Lachance' comes out again. I find that almost as trippy as the very cool dialogue they wrote for Sheo.

The same guy did both of them?



Since my sci-fi binge has come to a halt, and my fantasy binge is beginning anew, I'm firing up Dragon Age Origins again. Going for a human mage who'll romance Morrigan and then eventually be thrown into Witch Hunt, since I've never gone through it. At some point I'll have to get around to Golems of Amgarrak and Leliana's Song too, and take another stab at getting through Awakening...

I thought so too; he was believable in the role!










Holy Cow, did Wes Johnson do Sheo too? I did not know that!

He has always been one of my favorite voice actors, anyway, but realizing the range between LaChance/the Arena announcer/and Sheo, (which is coimpletely different) - that floors me! Wes Johnson is the best of the best!

played the demo of the preview version (using the Xbox Preview service) of The Long Dark. An indie survival game.

It was pretty fun, in a "Oh my god I'm going to freeze to death in the woods" kind of way

The demo took place in a snowy forest, and you have to survive whilst nature does it's very best to work against you. You have to deal with hunger, thirst, freezing temperatures, and wolves.

The system is pretty deep, with things like crafting, foraging, hunting and firelighting being absolutely necessary.

On my brief trial playthrough (i had an hour) I was lucky enough to find a lakeside hut to hide in, and managed to keep the stove going with foraged firewood while I went out to the frozen lake to fish. The only issue arose when I ran out of matches and had to go searching for more, and in order to craft things like bows and snares I'd likewise have to go searching for materials, which proved very challenging and exciting.

Looking forward to seeing more of the game's development.

That sounds interesting!

I was given ESO as an anniversary gift. It's a bit of an adjustment, mainly because of all the people. I started off playing alone, but seeing all these other people in my world is kinda throwing me off. And of course, it's not local co-op, so I'll need to find a friend to play with. I do love seeing all the cute little guars!

I also played the latest installment of Tales from the Borderlands. I really love that game. I think I've mentioned it before. If not, it's basically a choose your own adventure set in the Borderlands universe. It looks like it takes place around the same time as the Pre-Sequel's actual setting (where Athena is telling Lilith about the events of the Pre-Sequel). I saw a video this morning where it shows just how drastically one of the choices I had made in the previous chapter affected the current one. My only grip about this game is that the chapters take so long!

I have no idea about ESO but I am always interested how it turned out. Do give us a little review, Jackie. I am glad that BGS did not try to create an online game but created a different studio instead.


Wes did Sheo, Lucien, Arena announcer, Imperial Males and the Gray Fox. It seems like he got all the best lines to record and everybody else missed out. Lol.

I knew he did the guards, lol. He does that "Stop right there, criminal scum!" in almost every one of his vids Ior used to), lol.

Most of us here haveb been playing it completely solo - as if it was a single player game that just happens to have a lot of people populating the country, lol.

What I like best is on the weekends when the Nords get drunk and rowdy - and naked (loincloths)! And the partying/singing/dancing - I love the ability to show our personalities they have given the characters!

Misa has done some amatuer bard lute and flute playing, and has done some dancing.

Many of the players have their characters greet you in passing, which is awesome! (and I wish I knew how to do it quick enough!)

So in some ways, it really is Awesome for roleplay! I have been playing it a month, it is a blast!

That sounds awesome! Heaps better than the boringly repeated songs and out-of-sync animation that we have to put up with in Skyrim.

I’m still playing ESO. It’s been fun, and I’m surprised to find that I’m not usually bothered by the other players. Maybe it’s the times that I play, but I have only seen a few people acting like idiots so that I just left the area rather than be annoyed. Sometimes it’s actually fun or helpful to have random players around. Jerric started drunken dancing (he wasn’t drunk, that’s just how he dances) to a bard outside the city center building in Mournhold, then the next person who came out joined him and started playing a drum, then another person stopped and started playing a flute with them. NPCs just don’t do that sort of thing.

Yeah, you can type in /greeting and your character will greet another player - or maybe it is /hello - it could be both, because I've had players say "greetings" or "hello" at different times.

And each race has its own dance by default, but you can do another race's dance by using the command /dance_Redguard (or something similar, I'd have to look it up).

I have had my character wave at other players, and if I see one playing their lute/flute/or drum in the town squares I always have my character dance around, and a couple times I've had them stagger around drunk with the partiers on weekend nights.

Also, they can sit or sleep anywhere you choose; so if someone is playing music you can sit and listen if you don't feel like dancing.


.

That is one of my favorite things about playing with other people - spontaneity and fun personalities! It is a blast when they start partying, especially the Nord men (and a couple women) getting drunk and stripping down to their undies and running around laughing, lol.

So, due to a technical difficulty I've had to restart my game of Dragon Age: Origins.

And I decided to have some fun with the character creator this time, add a little chaos to things and see how randomness ended up.

So here he is:

http://i1274.photobucket.com/albums/y429/C...zpss3u6lqda.jpg

I get the feeling there's a lot more to this character than I was expecting...

That game has some great facial textures! I've neverb played it, but have seen other screens of it on Nexus.

I just wish Oblivion's character creator was this good.

Yes! I do too! I have used the "Singular Inversions" Facegen and made one fantastic Oblivion face of a friend of mine (but he had "SI" tattooed on his forehead); but without mods the faces are really hard to make look good.

You do a fantastic job with vanilla faces, much better than I've ever been able to do! Your Dunmer male is the best I've ever seen!

Thanks mALX

I've fallen into a pattern with the Oblivion facegen, makes things a lot simpler once you know what really needs to be worked on and what just needs to be tweaked. Heh, I could probably write a mini guide on it by this point. I've certainly had enough practice with it, at least as far as Altmer, Bretons, Dunmer, and Argonians go.

If you ever do write that guide, I sure hope you post it! I'd most def be interested in learning the trick to it!

A few years ago I downloaded a mod that was nothing but a vanilla save of a Dunmer male; but he was as good looking as yours are and had hundreds of downloads on Nexus. He was the Player character, and I was trying to use his face to make a good looking Dunmer follower/companion for Maxical.

Well, I figure Oblivion's been out a little too long to be writing guides about it, but I could say a little about it. Though I should point out that this is based on Altmer, Dunmer, and Bretons, I don't really play the other races. I might take a stab at making a good looking Orc at some point though...

Firstly, I've always found the faces to be too wide, presumably the beast races screw up the scale. So the first thing I do is to narrow the face a couple of notches.

Then I tweak the face a little, the spacing of the features, before working my way down from the forehead. Mostly this means little tweaks, usually no more than two or three nudges on any one slider. There are a lot of sliders I never touch; maybe half the ones for the mouth and nose, for example. Considering the way they affect each other, I figure the fewer sliders you use the better your control of the process.

There are two features I always find require the most work: The nose, and the chin/jaw. I tend to go narrow for the jaw and chin, with a concave jawline, and bring the chin forwards. The nose takes more time than any other feature, maybe more than any two combined. For Dunmer this is even more time consuming, the default setup for their nose is just ridiculous.

The forehead trick to sort out the skin can make things a bit tricky, but usually it's pretty manageable. Though the slider never seems to go back to where it was before I shoved it all the way up.

I used to spend a lot more time on the faces than I do these days, they don't require as much time or effort as you might think. There were times I'd spend half an hour working on a face for a character, not it takes less than a third of that. Sticking to an order for making changes makes it easier to keep track of things, and finding ones that look good give you benchmarks for modifications.

These are great tips, thank you so much! I might try to keep some of these in mind in ESO as well, because they also seem to have very wide faces. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out, I really appreciate it a lot!

Currently playing, and loving, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Brilliant stuff and such a shame that the company behind went out of business, I'd have loved to have had more of it...
...so I'm making this last as looooong as possible!

I'm playing Oblivion again because my husband won't buy Bioshock for me.