Hangout March 16: It’s Over!

By Shamus Posted Sunday Mar 16, 2014

Filed under: Notices 33 comments

Josh is streaming right now. We’re playing Elder Scrolls Online. We’ll probably be talking about everything BUT ESO, according to tradition and / or prophesy.

EDIT:

It’s Over. If you’re wondering, here’s what you missed:


Varewulf, Jarenth, Josh, Glitch, Woogles, Krellen and myself (Shamus this time) hung out for a couple of hours while Josh played Elder Scrolls Online.

It was mildly amusing at first, but as the session wore on our quasi-positive talk degraded into complaining, then into outright criticism. Then Josh fell in the water, and was devoured by the auto-kill fish designed to wall you into the gameworld. Then he got stuck at a loading screen and couldn’t respawn.

We tried to play Dark Souls, but for whatever reason (I suspect Games for Windows Live overlay) he couldn’t stream the game and the audience was left with a black rectangle.

So then we played a couple of hours of Titanfall.

Supposedly you should be able to see a recording of the whole session on our Twitch page, although “supposed to” and “will” are not as congruous as you might hope when it comes to Twitch.

Thanks for watching.

 


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33 thoughts on “Hangout March 16: It’s Over!

  1. LafinJack says:

    The Twitch embed autoplays… even in RSS readers… are you able to edit that, please? :)

  2. urs says:

    “We're playing Elder Scrolls Online”
    Uhm, huh? No, you don’t

    edit: No complaints, however!!!
    Current mood: Titanfall.

  3. Bubble181 says:

    Darn. I’m on line at the right time, but for some reason, my work has twitch.tv blocked.
    Don’t see why, most blocked sites are game-related – YouTube is perfectly accessible.
    Anyone happen to be hosting a mirror where I can see things? :-)

    1. Thearpox says:

      My school security has broken down, and decided to kick all students off the Guest [School Name] Network for some reason.

      In the next two days, all the laptop population has converted to Tor, which is working just fine.

      So that’s my answer to you I suppose; Tor is pretty much the ultimate proxy.

  4. Kana says:

    So Josh died to fish in ESO and then got stuck in an infinite load screen. Dark Souls didn’t want to work so it went to Titanfall. There were a few questions in the chat, so if anyone here has any questions about the game I can answer them here!

    1. Doomcat says:

      Quite simple one; Is Titanfall really worth $60? As much as I want to play it, it seems a bit steep…

      1. Kana says:

        Personally, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Campaign Multiplayer is awful, but we’d be here for hours if I went into details. Suffice to say: it’s not interesting.

        The basic multi-player though is a blast. You alternate between high-speed parkour as a Pilot and much slower, limited movement (though much more powerful) as a Titan.

        There’s 15 maps but only a few game modes. Last Titan Standing is pretty gimmicky and doesn’t seem very fun. CTF is, well, CTF. Hardpoint Domination is capture-hold, which can get interesting on some maps with Titans.

        Personally (and from the stream I know Shamus hates this one) I love Attrition. It plays sort of like Deathmatch, however you’re trying to meet a point total instead of kill count. Grunts and Spectres (the AI units that run around the map) count for 1 point, Pilots are only 3. You can win Attrition and be top of the score board with 2 Pilot kills and 40+ minion kills.

        If that sounds like fun, it’s certainly worth the price tag. I know multi-player only is a bit of a turn off for some, so if that’s not enough you can always wait for a sale. (And it is CoD-style leveling, but honestly two of the best guns are default, 3 if you count Grunt farming with Smart Pistol), You’ll never really be that far behind in terms of equipment.

        If campaign was handled better, I’d say it is absolutely worth $60. As is, you can always wait on a sale if that is too much. You won’t be gimped for it in terms of gear. I’m enjoying it, money well spent for me, but I’ve always had a thing for competitive multiplayer anyways.

        1. Doomcat says:

          Thanks for the opinion ^.^ Yeah, I’m going to hold off on it.

          I’ve personally never experienced the sort of “CoD” style shooter, never that interested but…the parkour stuff, not so much the giant robots, is what really makes me want to try this game.

          I like alot of the ideas, and after watching the stream and a few other videos out on it, it seems very fun…its just, ugh, $60..

          I guess I’ll play planetside to scratch this itch, maybe if the price drops down to $30…

          1. Kana says:

            Oh yeah, the wallrunning is amazing. Levels are huge compared to CoD just because of the 3D environment. Still, always streams or /r/Titanfall to keep amused until a sale. Whenever (or if ever) you get it, hope you enjoy yourself!

            1. Volfram says:

              OK, so Titanfall is wallrunning. And also another generic mech shooter? That’s got multiplayer deathmatch and a bad multiplayer campaign(which is a problem in itself, because nothing makes my friends and me rage at each other like having to cooperate.)

              What is Titanfall? Because that’s all I’ve got right now, after watching 15 minutes of it in the hangout last night.

              1. Kana says:

                *shrug* If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It’s a competetive shooter with robots and wall running. If you watched 15 minutes of the stream, that should have been enough for a round or two. That’s Titanfall. If you don’t like that, nobody says you have to buy it.

                1. Volfram says:

                  Yeah… sorry… I noticed I was getting a little too aggressive.

                  Just because I don’t like the game doesn’t mean everyone else has to hate it.

                  I find it interesting that the first I heard of any parkour aspects was in your post earlier in this post chain. I didn’t see ANY of that during the hangout, either.

                  If I’d seen it featured in any of the trailers for the game, I might have expressed interest. As-is, it looked like just another generic shooter with nothing to differentiate it from, say, Mechwarrior Online.

                  I guess I can’t fault their advertising department too much, though. They critically failed at catching my interest, but seem to have done pretty well with the rest of the world.

                  (Don’t play Mechwarrior Online. The developers for that game should be ashamed of themselves.)

                  1. Kana says:

                    You may kinda-sorta find that as Josh’s playstyle/level (not to blame him, though), and the fact he was really low-level when the stream started (when I finished both campaigns, I was ~25. Josh was level 7 I think?) and it really does take awhile to get used to the verticality.

                    Generally, when you start, your instinct is to stay on the ground. Occasionally “woo-double jump!” but that’s about it. The more you play the higher up you’ll go. Beta was only 2 maps and after a couple hours you got good at them. Really good players could cross the entire Angel City map without ever touching the ground with just wallrunning and jumping.

                    The shooting is pretty much “generic.” The more interesting weapons are either Titan (Lightning Rifle and plasma-railgun-sniper rifle) or Anti-Titan (Electronic-seeker grenade launcher, Arc Grenades that screw with your screen). The other guns are pretty vanilla, just guns. LMG, SMG, Snipers, the basics.

                    I would say that Titanfall isn’t a generic mech game, but that’s also a point of contention with a lot of people. Titans don’t play like giant tanks or, say, a Mad Cat or Atlas (Mechwarrior) and more like a bigger more armored version of you, minus parkour. I’ve seen a lot of people hate that.

                    Also, I’d like to agree the marketing department missed the mark on the game. The launch trailer was a bunch of doods (and girls!) running around on the ground dodging Titan shots. Actually playing the game, that’s a really good way to die. They should have highlighted the parkour and Titan specials a lot more.

                    The game has a lot of faults, I’ll be the first to admit it. I’ve been enjoying it a lot, but not every game resonates with everyone. Here’s the map I mentioned, if you want to see some of the wallrunning. All maps are not created equal, though. Angel City is beautiful for this. There is one in a beach/cove that is abyssmal, very little to run on.

                    1. Volfram says:

                      Alright, NOW I will have to wait for it to come down in price and then take another look at it.

                      The publisher should fire the marketing team and hire you to replace them. ;p

                      [edit]
                      Huh. The launch trailer had some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it wallrunning, but other than that, there was basically nothing in it that made me want to play the game. The long speech at the beginning did the opposite, actually. I’ll keep in mind that it’s non-indicative.

                      The second link in your post doesn’t seem to be working for me.

                    2. Kana says:

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbZ-knCvVa4

                      Must have messed up the hyperlink and didn’t notice. (I wasn’t playing Titanfall after making that post, honest. >_>;) That’s the video link I posted showing a few routes on Angel City. Some maps are way more fun to run around on (Lagoon is utterly abyssmal, it’s more a Titan map imo) than others.

                      The speech and fun cutscenes are Campaign mode, which is… well, it’s pretty bad (and mostly involves people yammering at you during a match). What makes it worse is that Styrder and Ogre chasis is locked behind it (you have to do BOTH for Ogre, only one for Styrder). You can play either with a default load-out, but unless you unlock them you can’t make a custom set. Really, really stupid. Unless you like the Atlas model, in which case ignore it utterly and have fun. :P

                      Replying to myself because I think the comment chain got too deep and I can’t see a reply to you button. :(

                    3. Volfram says:

                      That got…crazy. It looks like your double-jump resets after making foot contact with any surface? That’s totally abuseable.

                      Whenever I see someone do a Titan takedown I keep thinking they’re about to jack it. Then I end up wishing you could do that.

                      Actually a reason why a cockpit door in the front of the mech makes more sense than in the back. It’s much riskier to assault the front if you want to steal it, and the door can be reinforced.

                      And yes, we got too chatty and can’t respond to each other anymore.

                    4. Kana says:

                      Yep! I should mention, you can’t just wallrun forever. Eventually you start to slip, and in a few seconds fall off. However, your wallrun duration resets when you leave a surface. The double-jump resets when you touch a surface. So while one or the other is limited by itself, you can chain the two forever.

                      (Yeah, if you find two surfaces close enough, you can wallrun/double-jump between them until your arms fall off. I do mean forever.)

                      And yeah, it’s super dangerous to attack a Titan from the front. Mostly because they can totally punch you, so trying to steal one is pretty much a death wish. :P

                      Titanfall is super mobile, and that’s one of the reasons I simply love to play it. I haven’t played a single match yet where I thought “I’ve done every run on this map.” Even after hours and hours of Angel City in the beta, there’s always a new path to be discovered.

                      You also get a crazy speed boost when you wallrun, so the game is only ever ‘slow’ when you’re standing still or running on the ground. It’s just kind of a rush, you know?

                      I can answer any other questions if you’ve got ’em. I could be biased, but I just like talking about Titanfall.

            2. Doomcat says:

              Heh, wow, just looking at that wallrunning makes me think of Prince of Persia: the sands of time, in a good way.

              (Total non-sequitur idea coming here) I would totally play a game based around those wallrunning, jetpack, and parkour mechanics if they fleshed it out a bit more, maybe a sandbox thief-y type game, where you run around stealing from people :P

              Is it bad that the only real reason I Want to play this game is for the parkour mechanics? It doesn’t really even look like their THAT central, but damn, I haven’t seen that kind of thing since PoP, and never done well first person.

              Sorry I keep bringing this up xD I just find it really cool.

              1. Volfram says:

                That does sound fun.

                Did you play Mirror’s Edge, by any chance?

                1. Doomcat says:

                  No, and I have no interest in it. Mirrors edge has two problems for me; You screw up, you die being the first. Precision jumping is really hard for me to pull off in first-person.

                  The second is its linearity, one key thing about this game I mention is sandbox. I’d rather be able to use my parkour mechanics to get into weird places and explore. It doesn’t sound quite as fun when your stuck going the way the game wants you to go.

                  Digressing a bit, PoP was good, and SUPER linear. But the mechanics and story were tight enough to keep the game flowing and fun.

                  Er…this post kind of got away from me; no I haven’t played Mirrors Edge, but I would if it had Jetpacks and maybe sprawley levels, if not a sandbox.

                  1. Volfram says:

                    I’m not sure about the “Screw up = die” thing in Mirror’s Edge. Most of my screwups resulted in me having to re-do a jumping puzzle, yes, but that was typically because I landed back where I started, not because I suddenly became intimate with the ground. Also, if you’re not a fan of precision first-person jumping, you’re going to have a bad day in any first-person parkour game, not just Mirror’s Edge. Actually, it sounds like you watched the Zero Punctuation review and said “Nope, not touching this!” in which case… didn’t you remember that he rips on good games and bad ones? I think Minecraft and Portal are the only games he didn’t severely berate.

                    Mirror’s Edge 2 will apparently be open-world, but it’s also a reboot, which is…questionable?

                    The game’s a bit bi-polar. When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. My experience was that it was about 60% good and 30% bad, with the fight against RopeBurn being the worst of the DIAS gameplay. Granted, I haven’t finished it yet…

              2. Kana says:

                I’d say it is pretty central, but only because running around on the ground is a good way to get stepped on. :P

                The parkour is a lot of fun, and I wish there were more games with that kind of gameplay. I’d love a thief-style game where you have similar parkour and a little bigger maps. Preferably bigger as in taller, and a little bit more expansive. Breaking in from different floors, jumping over guards or running on walls just out of sight. Could be a ton of fun.

      2. Volfram says:

        I showed up just as they were starting Titanfall, probably watched for 15 minutes, got bored, and left. I can’t really justify $60 for a game…ever… much less one that’s effectively a multiplayer deathmatch arena.

        Probably doesn’t help that all I’ve heard about Titanfall for the past 6 months was the name. Only started learning anything beyond that in the past 2 weeks. What I’ve learned did not convince me the game was a worthwhile investment of time or money.

        Your opinion may differ.

  5. Adam says:

    Fricking twitch. I turn off adblock for Twenty Sided, and what do I get? A VIDEO AD OVER TOP OF THE STREAM. Serves me right. Off to twitch.tv, so I can reinstate my adblock without costing Shamus ad revenue.

    1. Shamus says:

      Sorry about that. I didn’t realize it would auto-play, or I wouldn’t have embeded it. Embedding auto-play vids is Always Bad.

      Next time I’ll either find a way to disable it, or not bother with the embed.

      1. Adam says:

        Make no mistake, my beef is not with you. It’s with twitch, for adding video ads that completely replace the video being played (OR STREAMED IN REAL TIME) with their “content”. Needless to say, there’s no longer an exception for them in my adblock. I’m surprised you guys ended up playing Titanfall, though. It seems like a very Un-Shamus-y game, being a washed out, gray-brown Modern Warfare shooter, plus giant robots. The latter doesn’t seem like it’d make up for the former.

      2. LafinJack says:

        No worries, it happens!

  6. Neko says:

    Sigh, I always manage to miss these somehow. Next time!

  7. Humanoid says:

    Not to be unappreciative or anything, but I have to say I don’t think the hangout format works too well with the competitive multiplayer games – the hosts tend to be understandably focused on playing competently and therefore the alternately insightful and entertaining commentary goes missing, which in turn gives the peanut gallery less to talk about as well. Perhaps counterintuitively, it makes for a less interactive experience.

    I generally feel the best hangouts have been the single-player games (or at least limited co-op multiplayer as seen in the SR3 hangout), with the co-hosts egging Josh on and reacting to the ensuing chaos.

    1. Phantos says:

      This is one reason why I’ve always kind of hoped to see them ditch the concept of being “topical”, and just play some really old games. You’re right that the competitive multiplayer games have so much going on at any moment, it requires too much attention to be able to play well AND provide commentary.

      Although I guess there are some exceptions. Left 4 Dead made for good streamin’, due to the downtime in versus mode for spawning as Special Infected. Gave the crew time to focus on what they were doing, but also little breaks for them to talk about stuff or whatever. So I guess it depends on what modern day competitive multiplayer game they choose.

      I’m still waiting for the day when they record themselves judging every move Josh makes in a game of Tetris.

  8. HeroOfHyla says:

    I’ve found that the best way to stream Dark Souls is to run it in windowed mode with the steam overlay disabled.

  9. RTBones says:

    I caught at least a portion of the live stream. From what I saw, the combat looks a little…dull…in ESO. Did not catch any of the Titanfall.

    I did get a bit annoyed with Twitch and their idiotic advertising, but I was glad to catch a bit of ESO in action.

  10. Irridium says:

    I’m loving Titanfall. Big robots and mechs are my weakness. Been playing only Titanfall for the past few days and loving every second. Even the seconds where I get thoroughly destroyed and during the not great campaign where victories don’t matter because story.

    It’s just a real blast, you guys.

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