This week I’m playing more Lethal Company. My thoughts on it haven’t really changed; I like it, and the gameplay loop hasn’t gotten old yet. I’m still finding new things even almost forty hours in.
What are you guys playing?
One of the top questions in Star Wars The Old Republic, or any other MMORPG, by people playing the game for the first time or returning to the game is, “Is crafting still important?” In SWTOR, the answer is “it depends.” Bioware and EA, and now Broadsword, haven’t expanded the crafting tiers to match each expansion. Almost no additional crafting-unique items have been added since the game launched (like mounts and toys). A new tier was added for the “Onslaught” expansion, but it is comprised almost entirely of the ability to craft rare currency that can be exchanged for expensive and hard-to-obtain items. A lot of the required materials are only available in PvP and multiplayer content. For solo players, crafting still effectively stops at the original limit.
However, within those limits you can craft some items that have constant demand on the Galactic Trade Market; SWTOR’s implementation of an Auction House. I haven’t actually counted, but I think about half of the gear dyes available in the game can be crafted…the other half are only available for real money (or as a reward if you engage in Galactic Seasons content, about half of which you’re doing ANYWAY if you’re just playing the game.) While most actual gear has been established through vendors, one piece of equipment is still in the crafting domain: augments, and the “kits” used to add them to gear. I can actually craft some of that high-level currency I mentioned, but I’m still at the point that I’ll be using it for myself first.
And of course, you CAN engage in crafting gear for yourself as you level. This is mostly pointless, as you’ll get drops better than what you can craft pretty regularly. But some gear drops less-often than other pieces…so you can at least craft some of this to raise your stats. I have four Imperial-side characters at the moment. I was motivated to finish out the four base classes solely so I could have access to the four crafting skills needed to create the parts needed to create the parts needed to create the parts needed (no, you read that right, and I wrote it right) to create a “Dark Project” item. Three of these and a few million credits can be exchanged for a “Commanders Compendium” on the fleet space station. A Commanders Compendium can be used to upgrade a companion all the way to maximum influence level: 50. Not necessarily needed if your first companion is the one you use constantly…hell, my Sith Warrior Lord Zeele has his first companion, Vette, nearly to influence level 40 at character level 49. She will be at 50 before I finish the base game.
Which brings me to the entire point of this post. When I’m spending hours crafting on the fleet space station; I watch movies. And I’ve been on a monster movie kick lately.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Monster Movies at 50”
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster LVI: He’s Going to Tell”
No Sims post this week, the latest update to the game corrupted my save. I’m going to troubleshoot, everyone cross your fingers and toes that the finale to the story here isn’t going to be ‘and then an earthquake hit the house and undid decades of work’. (:
I don’t know what I’ll actually do if it’s unsalvageable, but hopefully we won’t need to find out.
This week I’ve done pretty much nothing, I’m in between games right now and I’m not sure what I’m going to play next.
What are you guys playing?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster LV: Does That Seem Right to You?”
It’s to the surprise of no one that the theoretical plan of replacing the French doors with a single door made from half of the original is a messy, impossible task. On paper it looked lovely. In practice, filling the wall is impossible, the door doesn’t line up right, nothing looks good and our family is frustrated. They begin calling the dismantled door the ‘fre do’, (half of french door) which is hilarious to them in their pushed to the edge states.
There is wordless grunting, helpless pointing, and a lot of shouting about the ‘fre do’. One family member holds up the door, another tries to line up the holes in the wall, and the third directs in what devolves quickly into a bad and inexplicable French accent.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Nch Ors”
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
Sometimes in-game secrets are fun and sometimes they're lame. Here's why.
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
I'm not surprised a fighting game has an absurd story. I just can't figure out why they bothered with the story at all.
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
A video Let's Play series I collaborated on from 2009 to 2017.
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
T w e n t y S i d e d
