I finally bought Goat Simulator. Iāve spent most of my time so far running down people.
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Hereās RPS:
This bit is particularly good:
Wolfenstein: The New Order for Ā£7.49/$9.99 ā A comatose soldier wakes up in a panic, but is quickly reassured by a nearby doctor, who tells him everything is alt right
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If someone else can run it, I would love a chance to play.
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Currently on hold due to the recent exodus of players (disappearing entirely from the BBS rather than specifically dropping out of the game) from the other place.
If we can get some replacement players, Iād be happy to restart it and relocate it here.
Ranar (@DaakSyde) and Thwip (@William_George) are here already; Hawk, Jibril and de Courcy have vanished. New players could take over one of the those three, or create a new character for themselves.
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Just give me some time to read through 700+ posts when I am not supposed to be working, so I can catch up, then I would love it if you let me in.
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Bwaaaahahahahahahahā¦
Sorry.
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See below.
Or above me.
Itās confusing.
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No, thatās exactly my point. Microsoft doesnāt exactly make it easy/cheap to be legit.
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For starters:
Most of the world is late-medieval; small parts are early-Renaissance, other bits are Bronze age to Stone age. No electronics, no steam engines, no gunpowder, minimal clockwork. There are parts of the world in which magic supplants technology to a significant degree, however.
To give an idea of the cultural background:
The magical catastrophe known as the Banestorm brought countless amounts of people and creatures to Yrth, including humans from Medieval Earth. And as humans tend to do, they soon expanded to take over most of the continent of Ytarria, displacing the native elves and orcs (the dwarves remained safe in their mountain fortresses). One thousand years later, Ytarria is dominated by the East-Coast Empire of Megalos (Catholic, powerful, sorcerous, old and corrupt), surrounded by various nations on all other sides. A significant minority of the Megalan population are goblins, of the green-skinned small-but-clever trickster variety.
South of Megalos lies the independent country of Cardiel (probably the most cosmopolitan society of Ytarria; as well as a nearly 50/50 Catholic/Muslim population, they also have small groups of centaurs and halflings and are one of the only places in Ytarria with openly Huguenot communities). Cardiel was formerly a Megalan province, and before that it was the mixed Islamic nation of al-Kard. West of Cardiel are the Sunnis of al-Wazif (ruled by a Caliph, and tolerant of magic: think Arabian Nights) and the Shiites of al-Haz (the nation guarding the Holy City of Geb-al-Din, controlled by the clergy, and intolerant of magic: think Saudi Arabia).
Technology in Megalos and the Islamic nations is medieval, while the semi-autonomous Megalan archipelago of Araterre in the far South is slightly more advanced (swashbucklers and foppish nobles duelling with fencing weapons, but still no gunpowder). Nearby is Bilit Island; Aztec society crossed with a Sinbad ecosystem. The Nomad Lands to the North of Megalos (Celt/Viking/Mongol: ābarbariansā of all sorts) are closer to a Late Iron Age tech level.
West of Megalos is another ex-province, now the country of Caithness, where an unusual local interference with magic defends it against Megalan reconquest (and provides for a more Arthurian ambience than the magically-saturated Megalan culture). South of Caithness is the elf-infested Great Forest, while the mountains to the North hold the dwarf nation of Zarak. Further West the lizardmen of the Great Desert provide a buffer against the tribes of the Orclands on the west coast.
The nations of Ytarria are mostly at peace, but the last Megalan crusade was less than two decades ago, and a civil war has wracked Caithness for years.
Races available are humans (from assorted cultures and religions, ranging from stone age to early Renaissance), elves/dwarves/halflings (all fairly Tolkeinesque; elves are aloof and innately magical, dwarves are miners and tough fighters, halflings are good sneaks), goblins (similar to humans, but a bit smaller, trickier and more prone to magic), gnomes (kind of above-ground dwarves, not as militaristic), orcs (barbarian bad guys, killed on sight in most human lands), ogres (bigger dumber orcs, occasionally used as slave-soldiers in human armies) and reptile men (big and tough but also mostly seen as kill-on-sight monsters).
The campaign began in Cardiel, one of the more cosmopolitan and tolerant of the human nations. Humans or goblins of any culture would fit there, as would elves/dwarves/halflings/gnomes. An orc might get away with it if theyāre careful to keep their identity hidden; ogres or reptile men are in trouble unless theyāre part of a powerful nobleās bodyguard or somesuch.
The party is currently just over the border into al-Wazif, exploring a dungeon.
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Wound up getting Project CARS after all. Still waiting for the downloadā¦
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Except when your country tries to get everyone on Linuxā¦
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Well, I have an idea for someone new to bring in (been looking at the game so far and I donāt know that Iād be comfortable taking over someone elseās character). I can give a background to you and answer the questionnaire, if thatāll help.I just donāt want to take over this thread to do it.
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Either PM me or post to:
The party is close to exiting the dungeon, so it shouldnāt be too hard to introduce new PCs.
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Update on this oneā¦ Iāve played 4 hours so far, and have definitely been getting my moneyās worth from it (at the current price thatās a low bar, but stillā¦). If a cross between an action RPG and a choose-your-own-adventure book sounds intriguing, then Iād definitely recommend it.
My only new complaint is that there seems to be a very fine line between blowing through a fight without getting a scratch, and getting completely trashed by the enemies. But, the checkpoint system so far has meant that dying only sets me back for the single battle that I was in at the time, so itās not a huge deal (though, if I were trying for the achievement to get through an entire level without damage, it would be an entirely different can of worms).
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GURPS players now back up to three, which is enough to go with. But the more the merrier; if anyone else wants to step in, nowās the time.
All it requires is a couple of posts per week; if you want to step back out, itās easy enough to arrange a heroic death.
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It sounds interesting to me but I have zero experience or knowledge of how it works. And Iād hate to drag down the experience for everyone else because i donāt know wtf Iām doing. Is it the kind of thing where I can read along and maybe join the next round once I feel less clueless?
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Sure.
There are no āroundsā as such, but new players can be added in whenever itās plausible to do so (i.e. easy to do in the city, problematic when mid dungeon bash unless you can set them up as rescued prisoners or somesuch).
Have a look at the player posts on the narrative thread; an occasional post like that is all thatās required.
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I finally finished Persona 5 last weekend. After putting over 100 hours into it, my verdict is ā yeah itās pretty damn good.
Great presentation, great real-world setting (Tokyo! with stunning accuracy), gameplay, very accessible, cliched but still fun story, great characters, great dungeon crawling, wonderful music ā all hallmarks of the Persona series. Iām already gearing up for a NG+ playthrough to work through all of the stuff I missed before and to try out the extras that were added to that mode. Definitely deserved of its high Metacritic score.
But, and of course thereās a but, I just didnāt like it quite as much as Persona 4: The Golden. Let me get this out of the way, Iām a huge fan of the Persona series. Iāve played Persona 1 on the PSP, Iāve played through Persona 3 three times ā including O.G., FES, and P3P versions, Iāve played Persona 4 three times as well, twice on O.G., and once on The Golden (where I finally managed a playthrough maxing out every social link, and yes I am not ashamed to say I leaned on a walkthrough to make it happen). Iāve also played most the Persona 4 gaiden games ā Arena, Ultimax, and Dancing All Night.
P5 has so much going for it ā some of the most streamlined gameplay Iāve ever seen in a Persona title, wonderful menus and UX with so much style even the loading screens are great, and of course wonderful characters to get to know. But I just never felt the same connection with the characters that I did with Persona 4ās cast and that was a real bummer. I was also somewhat disappointed that there wasnāt more of a break from formula ā I mean you basically had the same JRPG archetypes in every game ever. Yes, the character stories were great as always, but there wasnāt much in the way of surprise. Character arcs more or less started and ended exactly like I expected them to. Thatās not to say the stories werenāt great, just that there werenāt many surprises.
This is especially disappointing given that Persona 4 had some very atypical character arcs including a male character struggling with his sexuality, and a female that presented herself as male in order to be taken seriously in her profession (I wouldnāt go as far as to say she was portrayed as a trans man but thereās some debate on this). In JRPGs, LGBT roles are often played for comedy or laughs; P4 played this (no pun intended) largely straight.
Sadly, P5 does revert to type by portraying a pair of homosexual men as flamboyant deviants that hit on Protag and his male friends a few times throughout the story. Thereās also several portrayals typical anime-level harassment that left me feeling very uncomfortable, but they were thankfully few and far between.
The final disappointment is in the localization. ATLUS is well renowned for doing amazing localization for their games and P5, while certainly not bad, is just not as good as Iām accustomed to. More about that aspect here: http://www.personaproblems.com/. While there was nothing incomprehensible (this wasnāt Zero Wing or anything) or game breaking, I did notice this, and it was a letdown.
Anyway I canāt recommend this title highly enough if youāre into JRPGs. Despite my criticisms, itās still a very, very good game. One of the best Iāve played in a very long time and I canāt wait to delve into a second playthrough. Despite the ā5ā after the name, thereās no need to have played the other titles as they are all self-contained other than being in a shared universe and there being some occasional referential Easter eggs.
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