What are you playing these days?

[RaistlinMC]

Oh, they exist, surely, but I've never paid a penny for any of it. It's like Hearthstone: you can spend a ton of money if you want to, but you never have to or need to in order to be competitive. I'm in a top-ranked guild, I'm an active player, I like the game and win more than I lose and I've done it all for free, so it's very much doable, Tiger, as long as you don't mind being patient and not paying for short cuts.

[Rellott]

What are you playing these days?

Oh, they exist, surely, but I've never paid a penny for any of it. It's like Hearthstone: you can spend a ton of money if you want to, but you never have to or need to in order to be competitive. I'm in a top-ranked guild, I'm an active player, I like the game and win more than I lose and I've done it all for free, so it's very much doable, Tiger, as long as you don't mind being patient and not paying for short cuts.

I tried playing it for a while shortly after it came out. It got to the point where it was either pay to win or grind for what seemed like eternity, so I deleted the game. It was not worth either investment.

[Tiger]

I tried playing it for a while shortly after it came out. It got to the point where it was either pay to win or grind for what seemed like eternity, so I deleted the game. It was not worth either investment.

As usual with a mobile game. That entire market is rotten to the core.

[No Body]

I'll have to check spellbreak out but alas, as predicted, my game time has been mostly consumed with cold war. It's pure nostalgia mind, not particularly something that'd make someone who doesn't like fps/COD/shooter genre switch I don't think. I think a lot of work was put into upgrading the campaign experience which sadly I haven't really made head space to enjoy it. But if you've fond memories, it's a fresh coat of paint on a solid fps so far. The multi-player community proved itself still fairly toxic the one time I admittedly forgot to mute it but the mute all feature does still works so... Not much of a resounding recommendation but it's what I'm playing.

[Blackfox42]

I'll have to check spellbreak out but alas, as predicted, my game time has been mostly consumed with cold war. It's pure nostalgia mind, not particularly something that'd make someone who doesn't like fps/COD/shooter genre switch I don't think. I think a lot of work was put into upgrading the campaign experience which sadly I haven't really made head space to enjoy it. But if you've fond memories, it's a fresh coat of paint on a solid fps so far. The multi-player community proved itself still fairly toxic the one time I admittedly forgot to mute it but the mute all feature does still works so... Not much of a resounding recommendation but it's what I'm playing.

And the Zombies is PURE nostalgia with a few fresh touches. Its been a while since Zombies has felt this good.

[RaistlinMC]

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is currently 90% off on Switch (was thirty bucks and is now only three) and is pretty much right up the alley of everyone who plays PbP. It's essentially a single-player DnD campaign/choose your own adventure thing with grid-based combat and lots to explore. It isn't perfect, but it'll scratch the right itches and for three bucks, how can you go wrong?

[RaistlinMC]

After somehow missing it for twenty years, thanks to my lovely wife's Christmas present to me I played Planescape last night for the first time in my life.

Man...talk about an RPG that lives up to its considerable hype. What a gem

[Blackfox42]

After somehow missing it for twenty years, thanks to my lovely wife's Christmas present to me I played Planescape last night for the first time in my life.

Man...talk about an RPG that lives up to its considerable hype. What a gem

Sir.... planescape is fantastic. How can you not have played it? Glad to hear you are finally getting to it.

I’m playing too many things now. Got a new gaming PC for Christmas, and so I’m trying out all the things on the highest settings. Haha

[RaistlinMC]

I genuinely don't know how I allowed myself to miss this game, Fox. I knew it was famous and awesome, but somehow life just slipped by and it never happened. I'm glad I've finally found it though. I've spent hours just wandering around The Hive, making allies, taking quests and killing random thugs. There's a whole multiverse out there and I'm captivated by the opening town alone!

[RaistlinMC]

The ultimate geek move was selling Planescape and Icewind Dale in the same package. No doubt Planescape has the better story, but there's also something wildly enticing about venturing into the Vale of Shadows once more for some yeti-killin' good times. To be able to flip back and forth between these two games on my Switch without having to actually take a game cartridge out is a DnD fanboy's dream come true.

[RaistlinMC]

I must've been nuts when I decided to play Icewind Dale through on Heart of Fury mode.

Not to get all Danny Glover on you all, but honest-to-gods, I'm starting to think I might be getting too old for that shit. Maybe, as I approach my 40s, it might be time to knock the difficulty down to normal mode, eh?

[Magrus]

Getting older, I don't bother with anything higher than Normal difficulty. The coders don't code AI to be *smarter* or with better tactics as it's too difficult and time consuming. Instead, they buff and add cheats to the AI to simulate a more difficult experience which just ruins the experience for me whether I beat it or not. Unfun in an utterly biased contest where the enemy gets tons of things you don't.

I have been buried deep in a Civilization V: Lek Mod No Quitter MP run the last couple weeks. Hosting for the guys in the NQ group has eaten my free time lately. >.< I've been Xbowed, murdered with cavalry and arties, nuked, beaten to space by 1 turn, had my people rise up in rebellion due to the tourism of a single port city on the other side of the world and more. Lots of lobby sim, lag and "Same turn!" wonder losses to be had in such an old game. About 40 new civs and multiplayer rebalance with the Lek Mod and Map we use. Anyone with the base game and all DLC can use it, as the mod pulls art from the DLC's, all except the two map packs. If anyone was interested, I can link the stuff which is updated regularly. If anyone was too much time on their hands and wants to try against the folks who grind 40+ hours a week of civ, I could link the group as well. Hit me up. Competition can be fierce and without mercy with some of the folks in the group as you'd be playing with some of the best civ players in the world hard stop.

One of the mods is demanding I fill their lobby >.< There goes my evening.

[RaistlinMC]

Man, I sure do love those Civ games, Magrus. To helpfully show my age: I used to wake up an hour early for high school just to sneak in a turn or two of Civ I in before Band began. I credit that game for not only being awesome, but also for teaching me far more about phalanxes and ziggurats than my formal education ever did.

As for me right now: I'm knee-deep in the new Brigandine game for Switch. If you missed the first one 20 years ago on PS1, you're not alone; it wasn't popular but damn was it good. The same is true of the new one, but times a hundred. It is dense, deep, SRPG gaming at its best and it is endlessly replayable, as it's actually much more like a big-ass boardgame than it is a normal SRPG like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics.

Speaking of tactics games: as far as free-to-play mobile tactics games go, you could do a helluva lot worse than the new Dragon Quest Tact. It's actually challenging and has solid gameplay, despite its dubious company in the gacha realm of gaming. It's no Brigandine, don't get me wrong...but if you like DQ and tactics games, you'll end up liking it and smiling along with the game despite yourself, I swear.

[Magrus]

If you are ever interested in playing Civ5 with like 40 new civs, reworked for multiplayer balance: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...9EUEtpKvI/edit

That is the master doc for Lekmod and has links to the map used with it. New luxes, new civs, reworked policy trees, new religious options reinvent the game with much more replayability. Just requires Civ5+All DLC besides the two map pack options, as it pulls art and things from the various scenario expansions released to use for all of the new civs and such. Nowadays the game is like $25 on steam +$10 for all dlc, so one can grab it "new" for about $35 and then load the map/mod and look at all of the civs here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...YE4NLxjLyk/pub in case you want to play as Brunei or Askum or Prussia or the Boers or Phoenecia as just some of the examples of added civs.

I totally enjoy tactical games yeah. I run my dnd games with tactics and teamwork as the focus. I played FFT, the only FF game I could stomach to be honest. Ogre Battle back in the day was great for its time. I was a sega kid, so I played the Shining Force series till my controllers and the system broke down. >.< Still waiting for an easy english port for Shining Force 3 in its entirety as learning how to translate Japanese for a console game is absurd.

If you enjoy hardmode gritty strategy:

More "historical" medieval type: Battlebrothers is a great game that takes no prisoners and shows no mercy. I highly suggest this modpack from FilthyRobot and his mods/associates which grants quality of life mods that improve user enjoyment while reducing the grind to accomplish basic things.

Space age robots: Battletech using the Roguetech mod it's a doozy, and changes the vanilla BT game into a no mercy hardball game with so much depth of gritty combat with new sensors and weapons and engines and mechs that it makes the original look like a super ball compared to a stealth fighter in terms of added content. I think I linked RT earlier in this thread, but the mod squad update it regularly and their recent Treadnaught patch added playable tanks and vehicles. Instead of 3 bays of 4 mechs for 12 total, now it's 2 bays + 1 bay of "vehicles". So you can throw a rookie pilot into a helicopter to scout and another pilot into a missile carrier that rolls behind your mech company to strip armor off the enemy while the tank rolls up front to soak enemy fire. It's a neat change.

Both of these games are the kind where you die and curse and load back in to try to find a way around what killed you hard mode games, but for the strategy lover they are great. Much less so without the mods linked.

[Drew]

'Bout to start Miles Morales and I'm looking forward to it.