Gaming [Computers]

[Elven]

Anyone out there a gamer? I thought it might be cool to have a place to discuss and/or recommend anything we've played recently.

I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore gamer or anything but I have really enjoyed playing the following in recent years.

LOTRO
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Half-life 2, Ep 1+2
Portal
Team Fortress 2
Left 4 Dead
Fable 2
Rock Band 2/Guitar Hero and the like

[Niniel]

Can't say I'm a hardcore gamer either, but I do enjoy it alot. I mostly play xbox though.

Fav games:
Lotro
Fable 2
Sly Cooper 1,2 & 3:p
Sam & Max
Portal
And I do like Oblivion, but haven't played it much.

[Emmie]

I'm not much of a gamer myself. My first game was Warcraft III (and that was only because there was a demo that came on the CD accompanying some magazine I bought). Then World of Warcraft for a few years, and most recently LOTRO, though I will probably take a break from that after this month.

[jimmyboy]

One of my all-time favorite games is Jedi Outcast. It's an older game, which came out in 2002 I believe, but it's a very well-done Star Wars game. You play a reluctant former Jedi named Kyle Katarn, who was at one time a Jedi student of Luke Skywalker. He became disillusioned but never became a dark-sider, like you would expect in a typical Star Wars story. Instead he just walks away from it all and goes and lives a life doing something totally different.

In this game, some bad things happen (I won't give away the story, which is pretty good), and you have to run Kyle through it all, rebuilding his Force skills (Dark-side or Light-side skills; it's your choice), and re-acquiring his old lightsaber. You develop your Force skills as you go along, whichever ones you choose to develop. YOu have something like twenty different Force skills to choose to develop, such as Force jump, run, push, pull, mind trick, grip, lightning, etc. It's all very fun!

It also has a very immersive environment, if you're a Star Wars fan. For me, the sounds, the designs, the lighting, the music, it all made me feel like I was actually wandering around in the Star Wars universe. Plus, certain aspects of the story really touched my heart. It's actually the sequel to Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, so it's actually Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. For the record, the game that came before it is just as good, with lots of full-motion video, which Jedi Outcast does not have. Only reasons I prefer Outcast is because the graphics are a lot better, and the story elements are more touching to me.

[Nilfy]

I'm together with a super gamer, so if I want to, I always have chance to try out new games.
We play World of warcraft together a lot though (we actually met through the game, haha), and I play my DS whenever I can.
I also like Heroes of might and magic, and Morrowind:Elder scrolls 3.

[Lanyare]

I'm a bit of a gamer, though I don't have nearly as much spare time to dedicate to it as I would like.

I have very fond memories of Diablo II and am eargerly looking forward to Diablo III, which has been announced for a while now. Never actually played it online, but I spent hours and hours and hours on there. Back in the days when I still had more spare time, lol.

Currently, I'm alternating between just two games, really. Guild Wars and LotRO. I noticed that more people on here play that game. How surprising. :p
If anyone here plays on the European server Eldar, please do let me know, if you wish. Would like to add you on my friendslist in that case.

LotRO is the first game ever that I spent subscription fees on, so to speak. Most likely, it's also going to be the ONLY subscription game, because of my lack of time.

I have played other games over the years, when I was younger, but I've been having this Guild Wars addiction every since 2005 and not counting LotRO, I haven't played anything else since.

[MithrilBox]

I was really interested in Guild wars for a while (though I've never played) because I kept seeing all these cool-looking screenshots. I probably won't play now, its a bit late to start, but I might try Guild Wars 2 depending on how it ends up shaping up.

Diablo III also looks interesting to me, though I've never played Diablo II.

[Emmie]

I was going to ask what class/level you were and then I saw your post in the LOTRO thread. :)

I wish there were more fantasy games in development that I was excited about. I can think of a ton of things I'd like to see in a game that no one has tried to do, and I have a feeling it may be another ten years or more before we start to see them.

[Lanyare]

Guild Wars is very straightforward and fairly easy to play. Grinding is only very optional in there as well, which is good for me as I hate the grinding that comes with most games. Apart from a few cosmetic things and a couple of skills here and there, you can complete it very easily without the grinding. The community sucks, though. It's a bunch of whiners on there, and helpful people that won't troll you are extremely rare. Usually I go solo, or with people I know, and try to avoid random pugs as much as possible. In a way, it's a pity, because teaming up with people is what can make online gaming so much fun. But not much to do about it I suppose.

From what I've heard, Guild Wars 2 is going to be fairly different. I'm quite curious to finally see the result, since they've first announced it a couple of years ago now. On the other hand, I don't mind if they still take a couple of years to finish it, since I've got tons of stuff to do still. I'd prefer to be able to do that before it comes out.

[Sam]

I play WOW (Leave me alone :P) mostly but I have other games on my steam account, my most played steam game at the moment is Empire: Total War.

[Emmie]

What race/class/level are you, Sam? :D I haven't played WoW in a while, but I still keep track of WoW-related news for some reason.

[Sam]

Blood Elf Paladin level 80, got my own guild with some friends and were currently raiding ToGC 10/25.

Great fun :D

[Lanyare]

I play WOW (Leave me alone :P) mostly .

Hehe, WoW is not really my kind of game, since from what I've heard, there's way too much grinding in there for me to like. I downloaded the trial a while ago but didn't play it very long. Never even finished the period, really.
But I'm not someone to judge you because you do like it, lol.

Oh, I just remembered another game I used to like quite a lot: Neverwinter Nights. Anyone played that one?

[Emmie]

Not sure about grinding in WoW - there are a lot of quests, and I didn't find it too different from LoTRO.

I think Neverwinter Nights was one of my very first experiences with computer games, except I never owned a copy, just went through the demo of it. How did you find it?

[Lanyare]

Well, I've sort of always have heard it said that there's lots and lots of grinding necessary in WoW if you want to have a good character. Seeing as I never really played it seriously, I wasn't able to find that one out for myself.

On the other hand, the quests I got to do in the trial were always the same ones: kill x amount of monster y. If I'd done that quest, the follow-up would be to kill even more amounts of monster z. But as I said, I never even completed the entire trial. Maybe I just didn't stick around long enough, lol.

The typical WoW graphics don't appeal too much to me either. I find them too cartoonesque. Not saying they're bad or anything, because I could see it's well done. They just don't fit my style I suppose.
Plus I don't really feel like having to pay for two subscription games anyways, and LotRO will always have my favour over WoW simply because it's based on Lord of the Rings. :D

As for Neverwinter Nights. I used to love that game to pieces as well. After Diablo II it must have been my second game addiction, lol. You could play an Elf, and it had a great story, and it looked good (well, for games of that time, I guess). That's all I ever need to like a game, lol. I'm a roleplay game addict, I suppose.
I quit maybe halfway though one of the expansions, having lost my entire gear to an evil chest and finding it hard to retrieve it. Guild Wars came along then, as well, and I lost my heart to that game.

Been playing Guild Wars exclusively virtually since 2005, until LotRO appeared. These days, Guild Wars and LotRO are the only games I play. I know there's probably a lot more out there that I would really like, but I'd like to actually finish these two for once, lol.

[Sam]

I have never grinded, me and my friends do 'Recruit a friend' and then I get a boost, takes me like 5 hours to get 60 and then a week of slow playing to reach 80.

[Lanyare]

Hehe, looks like the shouting about WoW equalling grinding, from the WoW-haters, are highly exaggerated then...
I've heard it isn't THAT bad from three different persons now, so there's got to be some truth in it, right? :p
Ah well... I had to make choices anyways, and they're made.

[Emmie]

Regarding the "kill x amount of monster y" quests - yeah, there are a good number of those, especially before the expansion content, but Lord of the Rings Online seemed to have the same thing to some extent.

I'm not sure what they meant by "if you want to have a good character." It sounds like they were talking about once you hit level 80. And you do have to go through a lot of dungeons multiple times to get good gear, but... I don't know, it never really felt too repetitive.

5 hours, Sam? Wow. I didn't know the recruit-a-friend thing gave such a large boost. It would take me 5+ hours to get to level 20 and I know the starting zones pretty well by now.

Did you ever try Neverwinter Nights 2, Lanyare?

I ought to try Guild Wars. Really wish there was a demo so I could get a feel of the graphics.

[Lanyare]

Aye, you're right, Emmy, there are quite a number of killing x amount of monsters-quests in LotRO too, but they didn't seem as many, to me, and there are also plenty enough of other sorts of quests for it to not bother me.
As for having a good character, I think they were indeed referring to the fact that you need the better gear for that.

Never did try Neverwinter Nights 2, no... Ever since Guild Wars, I hadn't really played anything else. My brother has declared me crazy for playing the same game all the time, lol. I suppose you could call that grinding as well, in a certain way. In Guild Wars, I have 16 different characters by now. What can I say? I just like choosing hair styles and stuff like that. :p

Speaking of Guild Wars, by the way... There is a trial version available right now, at the official website. Here's the link for you: Guild Wars Free Trial (http://www.guildwars.com/freetrial/)

[Emmie]

Oh, excellent! I'll have to look at that sometime soon. The last time I checked they didn't have one.

[Lanyare]

Hehe, it is indeed fairly new... I'm sort of waiting for a trial version of Aion, myself. For some reason, I'd like to get a feel of the game just to know what it's like. I might even buy it if I like it.

But so far, the game I'm most curious for, is still Diablo III. :D

[Sam]

Patch 3.3 Released and me and my guild already have downed the first wing! So easy, I cant wait to defeat Arthas.

[Emmie]

Lanyare: What have you heard about Aion? I don't know much about it. Being a fantasy MMORPG, I was somewhat interested in it, but the graphics look similar to WoW to me. Also, I'm still hoping to try that Guild Wars demo sometime soon. Maybe this weekend.

Sam: Wow, that's quick! Good job. You'll have to keep us updated about your adventures in Azeroth. :) To be honest, I am more interested in the changes coming with Cataclysm, but I'm still interested in reading about how they handle Arthas.

[Lanyare]

Emmie, I really don't know much about Aion either. It's the wings and flying, for the most part, that sort of interest me. A colleague of mine has been playing it and seems to like it well enough.
Seeing however that it's not free to play, I'd prefer to be able to actually try it out first to see if I do like it. I came very close to giving up on LotRO after spending a bunch of money on the collector's edition of the game, so I prefer to be more cautious now. Especially since I will have a loan to pay off very soon.

[Emmie]

So I finally tried the Guild Wars demo, for a day at least. :) It was interesting, and I like how you can pick more than one "profession" per character. And the graphics seemed pretty good. Although I didn't have time to figure out how everything works, and I only really went to two areas (the city near where you start and the land next to it).

In Guild Wars, I have 16 different characters by now. What can I say? I just like choosing hair styles and stuff like that. Have any screenshots handy? It'd be fun to see them (and to see more of the world that I didn't get to explore myself).

[Lanyare]

Hehe, do I have screenshots? I recently posted one of every character to my facebook... Though I did focus on just the characters, so much of the backgrounds has been cropped away. I do plan on posting more screens eventually, but there are way too many to choose from. Links are normally underneath.

So, what kind of a character did you create, actually?

Here are the links:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213694&l=9b19a1668b&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213695&l=5f50a9e81f&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213696&l=935ec8334b&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213697&l=64db611e14&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213698&l=c5f005b785&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213699&l=dd78051583&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213700&l=54cfb8842c&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213702&l=2764f0baea&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213703&l=b64009ad26&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213704&l=d863d64396&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213705&l=d67e34bdfe&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213706&l=46c8669cdf&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213707&l=0dcea8544c&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213708&l=6a596a2999&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213709&l=14ff4fefe3&id=1066639397

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31213710&l=aef4d96ed0&id=1066639397

[Emmie]

I created a Necromancer. Mostly because I'd been planning on it for a while if I ever tried the game (based on screenshots and information I read around when it first came out). They seem a bit different than anything I've tried in other games, and the class also sort of reminded me of a character in a book I read.

I was going to make her second profession be an Elementalist, but I never figured out where the tower I had to go to was.

Thanks for posting the screenshot links! I enjoyed looking at them.