What video games are you playing?

[erwins]

Possible spoilers follow.



You have to have a high paragon score probably >80 to get the defusing paragon dialog choice to resolve the fight without losing loyalty from either party. You have to have probably around 100% paragon to get the dialog option to repair the lost loyalty afterwards. My first play through I lost Miranda's loyalty and didn't get it back.

My second play through, I waited to complete the second of the two (Miranda or Jack) loyalty missions* until my paragon score was close to maxed out--i.e., I did it last before going after the IFF. That gave me the paragon option to defuse the situation.

*Completing the second of the two loyalty missions triggers the fight.

[JoeBentley]

Yeah I had to do a slight cheat on Samara's loyalty mission to build up enough Paragon points to keep them both loyal.

[erwins]

Just to be clear, there's also a renegade option that you should be able to do if your renegade points are high enough as well. You just need either of those to be high enough to get the dialog option.

[Gavida]

I am still hooked to SWTOR, but I tried the ME3 Demo.
Now I hate Bioware and EA!

I really want ME3 now and I "know" that I will play through ME1 and ME2 before starting ME3, but HOW should I do that with already being addicted to another Bioware game?

*sinks to his knees* Damn you! Damn you to hell, Bioware!

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by erwins

You have to have a high paragon score probably >80 to get the defusing paragon dialog choice to resolve the fight without losing loyalty from either party. You have to have probably around 100% paragon to get the dialog option to repair the lost loyalty afterwards. My first play through I lost Miranda's loyalty and didn't get it back.

Yeah, I've beaten the game numerous times (but lost most of those due to a memory corruption issue with my 360, causing me to finally switch over to PS3) and I had roughly 90% Paragon when I completed Miranda's loyalty mission. It's just that this time and this time only it didn't give me the Paragon options for defusing the situation. The rest of my post was just me mocking how weak Miranda's reason for not staying loyal was.

[Cure the Blues]

Fired up some CK2 and decided to go with a quick game as Eleanor of Aquitaine. This would end when she died as her heir was Richard and I would not be getting control of him. So I start off choosing her ambition which was to see her husband Henry II dead. This naturally did not please Henry, who warned her to stop this nefarious activity of wishing him dead. Mind, she wasn't actually trying to kill him, more like a deep-seated desire to outlive him. Obviously it was the thought that counted. Eleanor tried to get Richard to share in her life's desire, reasoning that Richard didn't like Henry either, and Richard always was her best-beloved and currently the reigning Duke of Aquitaine. Sadly, Richard wouldn't even consider the request, breaking his aging mother's heart. So she tried her last resort, John. John surely would be more than willing to join in. Surprisingly he also denied any wish to join his mother in seeing Henry among the departed. Then he immediately proceeded to rebel against his father, taking part of Cornwall and half of Ireland with him. Henry mobilized the whole realm against John and I thought this was overkill since John's armies were pathetically small. I was marvelling at how the AI controlling John thought this was a good idea until I noticed the trebuchets popping up in Normandy. Turns out John allied with the French king Philippe Capet and he was steamrollering Henry's armies. It was clear that Henry was losing badly, so Eleanor finally sent in some assassins so Richard could take the kingdom before it was in tatters. It took three tries but finally Henry succumbed and Richard ascended the throne. Instead of returning to status quo ante, however, John/Philippe's war of Meathian independence kept trundling forward. Eleanor remarried to a Danish prince half her age who apparently was not intimidated by the dysfunctional morass that was the Plantagenet family. He should have been.

Everything that had happened before was a mere prelude to the chaos that now erupted as a slew of counties in southern France rebelled against Richard. Eleanor, emboldened by her success against Henry, tried to assassinate a minor lordling of La Marche. I probably should have checked Hugues de Lusignan's Intrigue rating beforehand, because he survived multiple assassination attempts while Eleanor's Piety rating went deep into the red zone. I'm not sure if the Danish princeling Eleanor married had had depression pre-marriage, but if not, I can easily see him sinking into melancholy as he realizes he's married into the Worst Family Ever. Richard had gotten married during all this, but his attempts to get a royal bride were all rejected and he could only get consent to marry a courtier. All the rebellions meant he was at constant war and digital Richard was not nearly as talented at war as IRL Richard. He put at least one noble under house arrest, gained the title of "the Cruel" and put the Count of Salisbury in charge of the duchy of Aquitaine (of course, he would be married to an Alianore).

Eleanor and the Lusignan count kept trading attempts to assassinate each other. Danish hubby sank further into depression. Then Hugues de Lusignan finally poisoned Eleanor. Game over. I have brought ruination to half of France.

[chillas]

Picked up Deus Ex: Human Revolution from a Steam sales over the weekend. I'm finding the AI a bit frustrating. Sometime the enemies will spot me when I'm very clearly concealed, and other times I feel like I could be dancing a tarantella in clogs on their head and they wouldn't notice me.

Otherwise the gameplay is pretty solid and the atmosphere is nice. I'm only on the second mission so I don't know if it changes later, but it feels a lot more confined that the original game (I never played the second one because it got such bad reviews). I'm a bit shocked at how poor and dated the visuals are considering the game is only a few months old.

[Beachlife!]

I tried to play DragonAge, but the dialogue was so long and tedious that I gave up after 15 minutes. I tried Skyrim instead and now I'm lost in that world, in a good way.

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

I tried to play DragonAge, but the dialogue was so long and tedious that I gave up after 15 minutes. I tried Skyrim instead and now I'm lost in that world, in a good way.

Turn subtitles on, and when you're done reading it, you can skip it. Same thing with Skyrim.

[Cure the Blues]

I decided to play CK2 with Bleddyn ap Cynfyn of House Mathrafal, who had the Lustful trait. He then started an affair....with his niece!!! I couldn't even stop it since Bleddyn had made up his own digital mind that this affair would happen. He had 2 illegitimate daughters and his wife was enraged. I don't remember this sort of thing happening in CK1. Bleddyn converted to Catharism late in life which gave all good Catholics casus belli against Wales and he got crushed in tandem invasions by William the Conqueror and King Malcolm of Scotland.

This game is just screaming for a Game of Thrones mod.

[Richard W]

What is CK2? It sounds fun. It sounds like a sequel to the Total War games, and I used to like those (until the point I gave up PC gaming as too much hassle).

[bluestocking]

I also would like to know the full name of "CK2." I've been hooked on The Sims Medieval lately, but it doesn't have genuine historical characters or international intrigue. Please share!

Is it Crusader Kings 2?

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Turn subtitles on, and when you're done reading it, you can skip it. Same thing with Skyrim.

Thank you, that should help a lot.

[1958Fury]

Originally Posted by bluestocking

I've been hooked on The Sims Medieval lately, but it doesn't have genuine historical characters or international intrigue.

I'm also hooked on Sims Medieval, but I do wish they'd taken it further in one direction or the other. Either make it more Sims-ish (like letting us design our own castles and buildings), or making it more RPG-ish (letting us go on actual quests in dungeons and such). Either way would have pleased me. I'm still having a great time, but it just feels sort of limited.

[bluestocking]

I've never played any of the other Sims games, so I didn't know what I was missing until I started reading other people's complaints on the EA forums.

[Richard W]

I just downloaded the Lost Archives DLC for Assassin's Creed: Revelations, mostly because it had cheekily added its achievements to the game a week before it was available, and I don't like having unachievable achievements.

Based solely on the description I might not have bothered. It's about Subject 16 (apparently), who didn't come across as terribly likeable in any of the others. I could live without knowing much about him.

To be fair I've only been playing for about ten minutes, but so far, it's possibly the dullest video game ever. It uses the same mechanic as Desmond's dull sequences in AC: Revelations, which are a little as though somebody heard about Portal, missed the entire point, humour, interest and puzzles, and decided that it was all about empty concrete spaces into which you could put geometric shapes. If anything, they've made it even duller for this one.

You start on Animus Island (a dull, empty island from AC: Revelations). It's from a first person perspective, so you can't see yourself. The only thing to do is to walk into a portal, which takes you to a dull, empty series of concrete corridors. Which you walk through, while a disembodied voice gives you the occasional random remark, apparently to do with Subject 16, although if not for the occasional label or description there'd be no way to know that. After a point, you finish Memory 1 and start Memory 2, and then you have to place blocks (again, as in AC: Revelations) and walk on moving platforms to get further into the dull, empty concrete corridor. Nothing happens and there's nothing interesting to look at.

As I say, I'm only ten minutes in, but I'm sincerely hoping it improves. There are several interesting-sounding achievements to be gained, after all. But talk about an underwhelming start.

(eta) I suppose, if nothing else, it does build a sense of tension. "Is something going to happen at some point? When?!"

[Richard W]

... Well, an hour later, and I really don't think anything significant is going to happen at all. It's just tediously building blocks to get to platforms, and the occasional bit of timing so that you can slowly walk past slowly-cycling laser beams. At least it doesn't seem to be very long. And it only cost 800 credits, which is... about £7 I think. Hm.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

Thank you, that should help a lot.

Just be careful when skipping dialog, because the same button also maps to selecting your own dialog (at least it does on the 360 and PS3).

[Cure the Blues]

CK2 indeed is Crusader Kings 2. There’s a demo that runs for 20 game years which sold me on the game; the demo had some wonkiness where the research didn’t seem to be functional, to the point where I thought I was doing something wrong but research works fine in the full game. IMO, it’s the most accessible of Paradox’s games, but then I also have a copy of Michael Psellus’ 14 Byzantine Rulers in the back of my car so I’m high on the medieval history geek scale. I also love Game of Thrones which is strongly influenced by 14th century medieval history with the scheming and back-stabbiness turned up to 11. With Europa Universalis 3 I was always a bit flummoxed as to what precisely I should be doing and this is never a problem in Crusader Kings since there’s always some crazy stuff going down. Either my ruler is committing adultery and his spurned wife is trying to kill him; or his children are upset that he’s not dead yet and try to hasten his end; or the whole Byzantine Empire goes up in flames when everyone rebels against reigning House Doukas. I’d arranged a marriage with a Franconian heiress into House Mathrafal and she later inherited the Duchy of Franconia and took Bleddyn’s second son Hunydd with her. Hunydd died off in Germany and his widow Duchess Adelheid went to war against her liege Emperor Odo-Lothar. Next thing I know, Bleddyn’s former daughter-in-law is Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. If only Hunydd had lived long enough he could have been Emperor-Consort. His children wouldn’t inherit, unfortunately, since the HRE succession is elective. I've so far made a career of finding entertaining ways to destroy my dynasty and finish last. Except for the Byzantines, where House Doukas nosed out minor House Babenberg. Apparently the Babenbergs are saddled with being the Dan Quayle of the Crusader Kings world.

[GenYus234]

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

Just be careful when skipping dialog, because the same button also maps to selecting your own dialog (at least it does on the 360 and PS3).

It is also the take/steal button, so too-fast skipping can result if you stealing something if the dialog ends.

Which reminds me of a rant/suggestion to developers. If your game's dialog runs in game time (IOW, the game world continues to run as you talk) you need to have a "is this really a good time" flag on your NPC-initiated conversations. For example, I was heading into battle against two frost trolls. I had killed one and was fighting the other when suddenly my viewpoint whipped around 180° and I was suddenly talking to a random person while the troll continued to whallop me. I had to bail out of that conversation so I could not be killed. Another time I had jumped off a pier into a lake. Just after my head went under, someone started talking to me. I had to quick-agree to what she wanted as I was underwater and running out of air. The game already has mechanics in place to prevent fast-travel or waiting/sleeping when enemies are near. Why not something like that for conversations initiated by the game?