What Games are you playing 2015?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

ASoIaF for CK2 is really weird and has to be approached totally differently. Like, your personal demesne has to be uncharacteristically small. I keep trying to get into it but it feels like a large percentage of the time is spent "doing nothing", but then again, I keep playing as relatively minor powers.

Yeah, you really need to play as one of the suggested characters to get the full experience.  Partly because you spend a bunch of time dicking around otherwise and partly because there's a large number of events coded for those people.

[Meeplelard]

Plague of Shadows: Fought Mole Knight and Treasure Knight, and well...



That is all.

[Grefter]

I am fairly sure that no matter what you say to him re: morality , Milton is playing devil's advocate (huh huh) and can always refute your points. That's IMO because there can be any absolute answer to theorical morality questions, and I might be wrong but I don't think the game actually offers that option. It has been fairly good otherwise re: that kind of stuff.

[Captain K]

I'll trade my wood for your bricks.

[Ranmilia]

Do you have wood for sheep?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Has anyone picked up Legend of Legacy? I've been curious about it since I see on Japanese shelves all the time and I heard it just came out in the states. And it seems like a new SaGa game (minus actual corporate Squeenix involvement) would be something the DL would be excited about?

No one's picked up Disgaea 5 either, I guess, but that's less surprising (and somewhat more depressing personally...)

[Cmdr_King]

Well if anyone but Ciddy (I think) had a PS4...

I picked up Legend of Legacy but haven't really checked it out at all.

[Sierra]

I possess a copy of Disgaea 5. Haven't had a chance to do much with it yet, though.

[Captain K]

Blade and Soul:  The neat thing when starting a new MMO is seeing everyone else's characters.  I saw a Silmeria Valkyrie, and then there's this guy:

http://i.imgur.com/TEfL8aO.png

Don't make eye contact.

Up to level 26 now.  Being able to spec and respect your skills is a big deal, and really lets you play the way you like.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Has anyone picked up Legend of Legacy? I've been curious about it since I see on Japanese shelves all the time and I heard it just came out in the states. And it seems like a new SaGa game (minus actual corporate Squeenix involvement) would be something the DL would be excited about?

We've ordered it.

[NotMiki]

I bought it but I've been playing Undertale and Downwell instead.  Pretty box though!

[Reiska]

I'd love to pick up Disgaea 5, but NIS won't put it on a console I own, so no dice.

[Veryslightlymad]

Shadows of Mordor:
Got to the second area, decided to stop for now, because everything is in a shitty spot and I hate traveling in this game.

Final Fantasy XII:
Started this up. First thoughts: WOW, the controls are really fucking weird. Camera is awful, controls take a lot of getting used to so you can heal before you are dead.

Played for about 3 hours. First impressions:
Reks: Got reksed, son

ACTUAL CHARACTERS:
Vaan: ...so far is inoffensive. Standard street rat type. Probably shouldn't mouth off to big guys in armor when he's a skinny turd in a belly shirt with a rusty old sword.
Penelo: Vaan, man, the flowers were a nice idea, but you probably didn't need them anyhow. I thought it was funny that she joined dealing more damage than me, despite having a dinky little dagger. Supposedly, she had cure, but I didn't own it. Also, she has Liefield feet and it bothers me.
Balthier: Said his lines. Is Balthier. I like this guy.
Fran: Hey, suddenly I -do- own cure. And fire. And she uses bows. So... uh... you can be the leader character for the time being.

So far I haven't leveled anyone on the license grid, because I haven't seen a point. I have exactly one item from the dungeon that I could equip if I put a level into swords. Which is conveniently next to Vaan's starting weapon spot and---HEY WAIT A MINUTE, this fucking game is trying to GUIDE me down a path instead of letting me dick around and grow my characters chaotically, as I am wont to do.

I have no idea how a nuffle-worshipper like myself can still build randomly in a game like this. I'm still trying to come up with a decent method that doesn't gimp me, but also makes me somewhat interesting. I'm welcome to ideas.

I kind of want to play a patched version of the class system remake of this game, just so I actually DO have something to randomize.

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Xillia 2: ...you know, I'm overdue for one of these and this game feels appropriate for it so...

MORE MEEPLE RPG ABRIDGED!!! And yes, you may get whatever items necessary to murder me on the spot. 

Narrator: When we last left our hero...
Jude: Uh...last left?  We never even started!
Narrator: Ok, FINE! Context.  Ludger is some kid whose brother is this awesome soldier guy named Julius.  He failed an exam, is now a chef, got on a train to his first job that happened to get him stuck with this girl and the main character of the previous game...
Jude: ...I have a name...
Narrator: Ok, geez, Jude.  Said train had stuff happen, people died, Ludger got into a huge medical debt of 20 million...no seriously...and now he's a wanted man with the only way to clear his name is to find his brother.  There, HAPPY!?
Elle: Can you repeat that?
Ludger: No.

Jude: So we can go to Helioborg or...
Ludger: Helioborg.
Jude: Wait, you didn't even listen to the second option, don't you think it's best we weigh our options?
Ludger: No.
Jude: Well, I guess since you're the main character, I have to follow you, right?
Ludger: Yes.
Elle: But how can we get there!?
Ludger: Train.
Elle: But you have to pay off your debt to get to that spot later!
Jude: Well, in my last adventure, we did actually hike literally from Trigleph, which is where we are now, to Helioborg, so we could just do that.  It's not that long and probably take less time than it takes to pay off the next benchma-...
Ludger: Train.
Jude: ...ok, fine, we'll take the train.

*Ludger gets 7000 Gald*
Nova: Hiyo! Just here as your friendly neighborhood PAY UP NOW OR WE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN ^_^. 
Ludger: *sigh, pays up*
Nova: That's some awesome BMs you got there!  BM by the way stands for Bank Maximum...because you know...it's totally an in thing we say...even though I made it up...GOOD LUCK WITH PAYING OFF YOUR IMPOSSIBLY LARGE DEBT ^_^!
Ludger: Grrr...
Elle: Being a loneshark is mean, why would people do that!?
Jude: Because...you see...there's thing called money and...
Ludger: No.
Jude: Huh?
Ludger: No.
Jude: Ok, saves me an explanation.
Elle: But I want to know now
Ludger: Hate.

*one Helioborg trip later*
Ludger: Here.
Jude: So what's going on here?
Red Headed Guy: YOU CAN'T COME HERE! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY! THAT MEANS ONLY DOCTORS AND SUCH!
Jude: ...but I am a Doctor...I WORK here even sometimes...heck, I'm the lead researcher on the stuff that goes here!
Red Headed Guy: Bah, that's Jude Matthis' job and you're totally not him!  I mean, sure you look exactly like him and have his voice and are claim-...oh...
Jude: Yes, now, can you explain to me what's going on?
RHG: Yeah, see, Exodus happened, people from Rieze Maxia who were here on a good will trip being shown around by Balan were stuck in there...and so is he...
Jude: And great, we have business with Balan!
TOTALLY NOT A BLATANTLY FAMILIAR VOICE: I'll take it from here!
Jude: Alvin! What are you doing here?
Alvin: ...good question, and since I don't have a good answer...my cousin works here so family business?
Jude: ...whose paying you?
Alvin: Sharp as ever I see!
Elle: Is he your friend, Jude?
Alvin: Tough to say; I use to work for Exodus, do you really think you can trust me!?
Ludger: Yes.
Alvin: ...yeah, you're totally Jude's friend.
Jude: And much as you won't admit it, you're mine.
Elle: He's a bad ugly man!
Ludger: Ignore her.
Alvin: Way ahead of you!

*Alvin joins the team!*

Will the team of 3 dudes and annoying brat get to the bottom of this!? Will Ludger pay off his debt to an annoying Not!Mafia?  Will Jude ever notice he's wearing a plushie of himself on his shoulder?  Will Elle ever say anything meaningful?  And will Ludger's cat ever get acknowledged in this parody!?  TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR...

TALES OF ENCOUNT!!!!

[InfinityDragon]

Europa Universalis IV - Meissner Porcelain Achievement Run

Completed the main achievement in 1720.  Last guy to have the Chinaware I needed was some random Korean island you can barely see.  Silly Korea, trying to hide that from me...enjoy your full annexation.

State of the world as it stands at the end of the achievement:  https://imgur.com/VlAwz5i (revel in those spiderweb borders!)

Now, I had noticed earlier that I had forgotten to click the final HRE reform button during my Austria game (because going full Greyskin sucks compared to having 50+ vassals) and that save is no longer compatible.  Sooo, as soon as I grabbed that last piece of Chinaware for Meissner Porcelain, I also clicked the button and went full Greyskin for the "A Kaiser Not Just in Name" achievement.  Yay, two for the price of one.  Even more cool: I'm standing at exactly 50% of the EUIV achievements unlocked.

My total firepower went down significantly (not that it matters at this point, I still have a standing army equal to my force limit of 640K...well enough to DoW the world and win...oh, and now I make 120 ducats a month), but oh well.  Looking at what I can do in another 110 years or so, I think I'll keep playing a bit before shelving this particular save file.  A quick glance at stuff I can still unlock pretty easy with this save:

Master of India - Own and have cores on all of India as a European Nation.
At Every Continent - Own one province on each continent (why do I not have this yet!?)
The Rising Sun - Own and have cores on all of Japan as a European Nation.
City of Cities - Own a core province with at least 60 development (I have the points to burn, and some of my Chinese provinces are already in the mid-40s for development)
Subsidize my Love - Subsidize at least 3 allies with at least 50% of their income (Got the money to burn).
A Decent Reserve - Have a maximum manpower reserve of at least 1 million (currently at about 600K...easy enough to get by taking Quantity Ideas).

We'll see how many of those I manage to plow through!

[Grefter]

Final Fantasy XII:
Started this up. doesn't talk about rouge tomato

maybe you should try not being shit at video games bro

[SnowFire]

So far I haven't leveled anyone on the license grid, because I haven't seen a point. I have exactly one item from the dungeon that I could equip if I put a level into swords. Which is conveniently next to Vaan's starting weapon spot and---HEY WAIT A MINUTE, this fucking game is trying to GUIDE me down a path instead of letting me dick around and grow my characters chaotically, as I am wont to do.

I have no idea how a nuffle-worshipper like myself can still build randomly in a game like this. I'm still trying to come up with a decent method that doesn't gimp me, but also makes me somewhat interesting. I'm welcome to ideas.

I kind of want to play a patched version of the class system remake of this game, just so I actually DO have something to randomize.

I forget, did you play Diablo3?  Know how you just unlock a bunch of talents just from D3 leveling up, and can switch between them whenever you want, but can only set 6 at once?  FF12 is vaguely like that.  You get enough LP that everybody can theoretically be a generalist, but of course you have to pick what you're actually equipping / using / gambiting.  There's no point in hard-pushing one particular area of the board because getting the ability to equip super-Light Armors early or cast mega-deadly Black Magic is irrelevant when you don't actually have access to the later equipment / magic / technick yet.

So yeah...  I got nothin'.  FF12 has variety but it isn't in character builds, it's just in all the options every character already has, e.g. lategame FF6 characters who get to pick which spell to do something broken with.  Just try out a bunch of different crazy weapons, spells, & techniks.  You can also have characters play "against type" at basically no cost; they have inherent stats but the differences are puny, so having spear-maiden Penelo & mage Basch is not a big deal.

If I had to recommend one thing you definitely should do (so therefore, you should NOT do to be perverse?!) is have at least 1 person with a gun at all times, maybe 2.  There are various annoying flying dudes lurking about and guns have range and 100% hit, so a lot less annoyance to shoot them down then to set up some kind of combo chain to disable the bird then attack it on the ground.

[SnowFire]

Speaking of which, since Meeple cruelly never stuck it up in the in-game rankings thread...  FF12 in-game rankings by performance!

Vaan - 6.5.  (Best stats!  And it doesn't matter!)
Penelo - 6
Balthier - 6
Fran - 5.5 (Worst stats!  And it doesn't matter!)
Ashe - 6.25 (2nd best stats!)
Basch - 6

That was easy.

[Niu]

Has anyone picked up Legend of Legacy? I've been curious about it since I see on Japanese shelves all the time and I heard it just came out in the states. And it seems like a new SaGa game (minus actual corporate Squeenix involvement) would be something the DL would be excited about?

No one's picked up Disgaea 5 either, I guess, but that's less surprising (and somewhat more depressing personally...)

The game is headed by Koizumi, who was Kawazu's right hand man and Saga's cheif battle engineer.
Aka, he is the man behind the SaGa's pain in the ass battle mechanic.

Legend of Legacy is a turn based dungeonc crawling game with some SaGa mechanic but even less plot than SaGa.
The game is small, so don't expect it'll have the same content as SaGa.
The game is mostly on SaGa mechanic nostalgy and awsome Hamauzu music.

[superaielman]

Europa Universalis IV - Meissner Porcelain Achievement Run

Completed the main achievement in 1720.  Last guy to have the Chinaware I needed was some random Korean island you can barely see.  Silly Korea, trying to hide that from me...enjoy your full annexation.

State of the world as it stands at the end of the achievement:  https://imgur.com/VlAwz5i (revel in those spiderweb borders!)

Now, I had noticed earlier that I had forgotten to click the final HRE reform button during my Austria game (because going full Greyskin sucks compared to having 50+ vassals) and that save is no longer compatible.  Sooo, as soon as I grabbed that last piece of Chinaware for Meissner Porcelain, I also clicked the button and went full Greyskin for the "A Kaiser Not Just in Name" achievement.  Yay, two for the price of one.  Even more cool: I'm standing at exactly 50% of the EUIV achievements unlocked.

My total firepower went down significantly (not that it matters at this point, I still have a standing army equal to my force limit of 640K...well enough to DoW the world and win...oh, and now I make 120 ducats a month), but oh well.  Looking at what I can do in another 110 years or so, I think I'll keep playing a bit before shelving this particular save file.  A quick glance at stuff I can still unlock pretty easy with this save:

Master of India - Own and have cores on all of India as a European Nation.
At Every Continent - Own one province on each continent (why do I not have this yet!?)
The Rising Sun - Own and have cores on all of Japan as a European Nation.
City of Cities - Own a core province with at least 60 development (I have the points to burn, and some of my Chinese provinces are already in the mid-40s for development)
Subsidize my Love - Subsidize at least 3 allies with at least 50% of their income (Got the money to burn).
A Decent Reserve - Have a maximum manpower reserve of at least 1 million (currently at about 600K...easy enough to get by taking Quantity Ideas).

We'll see how many of those I manage to plow through!

All three of the points feel relatively useful? Admin are the best of the three but yeah, you can always develop your provinces. I also like how you got to Japan, you didn't waste time on taking/coring nonneeded provinces.

You playing Common Sense EU4?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Has anyone picked up Legend of Legacy? I've been curious about it since I see on Japanese shelves all the time and I heard it just came out in the states. And it seems like a new SaGa game (minus actual corporate Squeenix involvement) would be something the DL would be excited about?

No one's picked up Disgaea 5 either, I guess, but that's less surprising (and somewhat more depressing personally...)

The game is headed by Koizumi, who was Kawazu's right hand man and Saga's cheif battle engineer.
Aka, he is the man behind the SaGa's pain in the ass battle mechanic.

Legend of Legacy is a turn based dungeonc crawling game with some SaGa mechanic but even less plot than SaGa.
The game is small, so don't expect it'll have the same content as SaGa.
The game is mostly on SaGa mechanic nostalgy and awsome Hamauzu music.

Is this supposed to deter me from Legend of Legacy? Honestly it worked more like a sales pitch...

[Veryslightlymad]

Final Fantasy XII
No rogue tomato mentions since my brother in law plays FFXIV, and I already saw a fight against, like, just a shit ton of vegetable people.

I settled for leveling up characters' licenses only as needed, and then semi-randomly from there. This involved levelling up Vaan into swords and white 1. (And I think First Aid?) and some other random crap for other characters.
Escaped from the dungeons, which involved fighting several bosses. None of which were THAT hard. The "random" encounters, though. Holy shit. Had to do this with Vaan and Fran solo for the most part.

Vaan: Oh, the flowers were for your dead brother? Less cool.
Balthier: Continues to be the man in charge. Just... absurdly awesome, too competent to deal with this shit.
Fran: Found a way out, was otherwise quiet. HOWEVER, she's my leader character, still, and clearly MVP at this point, since no one else has black magic, and only Vaan has white magic. I should have given him that earlier, in hindsight, but we'll see what wacky VSM leveling nets us in the future.
Basch: Yeah, Vaan. I get it. I wouldn't believe an "it was my twin brother!" excuse, either. Otherwise, he randomly found a sword and armor and instead of just equipping him and making him stronger, the game decided it would let him GAIN FOUR LEVELS. What the fuck? I want a sword-of-gain-four-levels. Why can't I get one of those? Where are they on the license grid?

[Dhyerwolf]

Final Fantasy XII:
Started this up.

maybe you should try not being shit at video games bro

Fixed.

[InfinityDragon]

All three of the points feel relatively useful? Admin are the best of the three but yeah, you can always develop your provinces. I also like how you got to Japan, you didn't waste time on taking/coring nonneeded provinces.

You playing Common Sense EU4?

All three have their uses...Admin just have the most general utility, since they are needed for everything important (keeping Stability at 0 or better; keeping inflation below 5; expansion via conquest; etc...).  That said, having a lack of Military hurts you more than a lack of Admin (even a 0.25 Tactics difference can make a huge difference, likewise with a Morale advantage).  So I'll definitely national focus Military if my ruler rolls a garbage Military score.  Falling behind in Military Tech is a bad, bad, thing.  Diplo points are just, meh (I guess you can develop your Silk/Spice/Ivory/Gold producing provinces).  Ever since they nerfed Diplo-Annexing, I just seem to run a stockpile of them except every 15 years when I tech up.

And, yeah, I'm running all DLC on 1.13.1. 

I'll probably revert back down to 1.9 if/when I go for Three Mountains.  With changes to coring range, all good openings are now gone.  No more No-CB on Champa to full Annex--they are now too far away to claim any provinces in the Peace deal (I suppose you could vassalize, then hope like hell they fabricate claims, then war on their behalf for 10 years).  I think the only targets in direct coring range are Japan (haha, no, not with one stupid port to build up the needed Galley navy to win) and Ming (uh, yeah).

[DjinnAndTonic]

I quite like FF12. There was a really high quality LP that highlighted all of its good points (mainly the non MMO inspired stuff) that quite raised my opinion of it. Enough that I decided to try out the IZJS version and found out that FF12 gameplay could be good too when it was tweaked to have meaningful Liscense Grid choices. I guess it's harder to find, but if VSM has the time, it is VERY much worth checking out the improved version of FF12 and I am praying that when FF12 gets an HD remaster we will see it in the west as the job system version.