No worries, if we have to then we can mostly cover Gemstone and do another session more focused on FFXIV when it opens up!
2 Likes
Mitchell sent me this article that I donāt fully understand, but it sounds like thereās gonna be a new feature that allows one to travel between data centers, that might help:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenrant.com/ffxiv-data-center-travel-starts-when-date-patch/amp/
yeah Iāve been making jokes that were gonna get datacenter travel before congestion ends
BUT YEAH THATS TRUE MORE TIME FOR GEMSTONE I gotta install LICH this weekend
1 Like
Hey I played Mirrorās Edge like this too! I muted the music as well, so it was just ambient sounds. A beautiful experience
8 Likes
Oh yeah, Iāve been replaying Diablo 1, did you know that the music has the exact same tempo as the sound of your footsteps? The footsteps kind of serve as an intermittent closed hi-hat beat that gets mixed in with the music, its kind of aesthetically perfect
20 Likes
Mirrorās Edge without voices wouldāve been perfect if the music was mixed/composed with respect to the natural rhythms of running and jumping
9 Likes
In the end the broken, beautiful Mirrorās Edge really did turn out to be as important as it deserved. I think it was hugely influential on the FPS turn towards more involved traversal (wall running, fast mantling, even wall-jumping) and thereās no shortage of small Steam titles that just want to implement first-person Mirrorās Edge running in a purer form.
Itās such a shame that they only almost pulled the aesthetics together. The focus on bare concrete and primary-color light bounce is perfect but the overamped military police contribute to the game structure problems and the stop-start nature of their challenges.
They couldnāt get chasing and being chased to be player-performable within complex, semi-linear level design and restart threats. Shooters seem to have slotted it in easily within the sliced, restart-heavy nature of multiplayer, where failure just changes routing or results in a meaningful death.
It remains incredible how their sequel half-imagined a couple good ideas (an open world that would allow for lesser failure penalties and long-term route learning, a toned-down threat level to make it make sense) and whiffed everything else.
13 Likes
Thereās tons of audio customization options in Horizon FW, so it looks like my plan is viable
Also I wish my brain also had a āturn off tinnutus soundsā option
12 Likes
holy shit audio options in a game actually based on peak decibels and not just an ambiguous visual slider???
9 Likes
Honestly the accessibility stuff is next level. Like I saidāif you can buy it with dollars, itās great, if it requires some kind of vision or leadership, itās a non-starter. Thankfully accessibility these days is mostly a matter of dollars for consultants and programmer time
3 Likes
I love the atmosphere of D1 a lot. I played it last year a good deal but had to quit because I thought it was going to give me a repetitive strain injury. I donāt think the GOG release allowed you to just hold down MB1 to keep attacking, I had to click click click click the whole time.
4 Likes
Diablo 1 is extremely strong aesthetically and I wish I couldāve cleared it when I tried playing it last year, but I hit a point in like floor 18 where it felt like I was really underleveled and to my knowledge the only way to respawn mobs was to reroll the entire dungeon which I did not have it in me.
3 Likes
Just staying true to the character at his roots. āDid you say nerd?ā
3 Likes
Finished Dark Souls. Looked at Deathās Door. Loaded up Red Dead Online and road my horse across the map to New Orleans. That game is really really nice to look at but the amount of button prompts and learning shit and retaining stuff and the load times made me at least delete it for now. Crisp Drugshirt can ride a different day with a different 111 gigs.
Finished Road to Guangdong. Made one family upset when they wanted me to help their daughter slaughter her favorite chicken. I lost Chinese Family Values points for not teaching the child to respect her food. A few lines throughout feels like it was forcing/expecting me to instantly recognize and accept Chinese Family Values that my Western brain could not accept. Still a nice experience.
Started Truberbrook which deserves more words, but I find it excellent and wonderful in every way so far. After playing a couple of bad adventure game demos this is a joy. My main example is you click on an overturned boat and the description is āItās best days are behind it.ā Itās all in German ESL which fine by me. Iāve always adored the Germans I know spoken English.
7 Likes
i played Diablo mod The Hell 2 which is very much a Diablo mod released in 2022. Itās too hard for me but I got to play as a necromancer for an hour in Diablo so, worth it I guess?
2 Likes
I am glad to hear this, itās on deck for being played in the next week or two.
1 Like
been playing a bunch of Hollow Knight lately, after my ex who used to play it on my Switch talked about getting back into it
itās intensely compelling but also thereās so much stuff that i may have had my fill before i reached the ending
10 Likes
Been playing a lot of the FFXIV content I skipped in my mad dash run to get to Endwalker and I am so enchanted by the way the most intense patch contentāshit like Alliance Raids, hugely flashy and important storiesāis all hidden inside mundane-looking sidequests. Exploring side content in this game is so rewarding. Sometimes itās just a cute story but other times youāre wandering around doing low stakes shit and they hit you with the freaking Nier Automata dungeon out of nowhere. Incredible. I love it.
Getting my last push through that FFXIV content done so I can dive into Elden Ring tonight!
7 Likes
The secret is them blue+ quests. Gotta hit em up whenever you see em!
i like want to have a crack at the endwalker raids before my sub runs out but i donāt think i can be arsed right nowā¦ i think between my tendons getting sore and the oceania server reminding me that the server all my friends play on is actually way leggier than the gameās designed for (plus to actually play with the friends means i need to abandon any pretence of diurnality) has put a bit of a damper on it for me. v glad youāre all having fun though
3 Likes