I'm stuck at home as well, but, alas, I have no money for new games. So, I'm searching on Steam, and looking at what's free elsewhere, or playing what I have sunk costs in...
What games do you play? Are you into RPG (Fallout/TES, Witcher, Jedi Fallen Order, KCD), sandbox (Space Engineers, Gary's Mod, Minecraft), simulation (Farming 19, Cities Skylines), action (GTA, Saints Row), or adventure (Tomb Raider)?
Since you're on a limited budget, does affordability range between $10 to $30? If on the lower end, consider 3rd gen HD games the likes of Fallout New Vegas and GTA IV. These are heavily discounted on Steam to date. If on the upper $30 end, consider something like Fallout 4.
Also do you play on PC v. Console? If PC, you're in luck for thousands of hours in free, professionally developed mod DLC. The PC modding community at Nexusmods will keep you preoccupied for eons to come. Just like it has The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) and Fallout (FO3, New Vegas and FO4) communities the for more than a decade.
IMO the goal isn't to keep buying games to keep up with the latest game the YT Joneses are promoting/reviewing on the web. It's about getting the best bang for your buck. Which is why playing a mod friendly franchise (the likes of TES, Witcher, Fallout, GTA, KCD etc) is always the best gaming entertainment strategy in the long run. The free mod content (which you can 100% customize) that the modding community readily provides the fan base, always supersedes any loot box/marco transaction, server grindfest online MVP any AAA dev could conceive IMO.
I did play GTAO regularly. But I absolutely refused to buy R* shark cards to enjoy the game (and still do on the principle of R* greed). Also being a former single player, immersion RPG minded fan boi (coming off the likes of VC, SA/GTA III & GTA IV era), the grindfest to acquire business/properties/assets was actually an enjoyable, natural progression by which I could finally get the SA experience denied to me in single player GTA V. That was until the black hat modders, #yoloswag cheaters and griefers turned the fun that free roam used to be into a living hell shortly after. And the cheating progressed from duping cash, to vehicles, to exploits that let players store illegal vehicles like tanks in their garages etc. Which clean players like me either ignored by playing Invite Only,
But since you couldn't operate your business in Solo/private sessions, PvE players like me were forced to play in public lobbies. Where you were always at a disadvantage because your were being forced to play with cheaters/griefers. Who used their glitched billions to acquire overpowered WMD weapons/vehicles to harass players and ruin their online game experience. So you were always being forced out of your PvE play style, because you being made some PvP player or griefer's free online content. You had to constantly defend yourself/business operations from the toxic nuisance of griefers. And this got worse when the cheating spread to competitive player missions/activities like racing and death matches. Cheaters were using game exploits and their glitched billions to rapidly level up and unlock upgrades like vehicle mods etc. which gave them an unfair advantage against clean players.
It was right around the peak of this billionaire cheater playa era that R* finally got off their butts. They were getting ready to banhammer/sweep cheater accounts for the first time when the inevitable finally happened. At that point, the modders and cheaters were in a panic. And desperate to get rid of their over bloated, illegally glitched billion dollar bank accounts. And my character fell victim to one of the chrome adder clowns. He was involuntarily gifted a couple hundred billion in cheater cash by some desperate modder. Who had jumped onto my server so he could dump billions of glitched money onto other unsuspecting players like myself in the lobby. And then immediately jumped lobbies to rinse and repeat the process.
I was really disgusted by this selfish, immature behavior. Because my character had spent hundreds of hours acquiring and building up his business, buying vehicles, clothing etc. to that point. But fortunately, I had been recording my play session (this was in the days before discovering how to lag yourself out into a private lobby) at the time in case of this event. So opened a support ticket with R* and uploaded the supporting video evidence. R* removed the glitched money a day or so later. And then gifted me an additional 500K GTA$ for all the trouble. That's when I discovered how to lag myself into a private lobby where I could finally run my business and play the game in peace. But despite R* removing some 360 billion in glitched cash, my player stats (in terms of earning) remain permanently ruined to date.
It's that sort of selfish, toxic online player behavior which is why I'm such an avid anti PvP and pro Solo/offline player. The online cheaters/modders ruined the GTAO economy, game play, and R* former vision for how GTAO was designed to work. By glitching/sharing billions in counterfeit GTAO dollars into their character and friend bank accounts, they destroyed vital future features. Perfect example is a feature the likes of BAWSAQ, which was critical to the success of establishing a dynamic, player based driven economy in GTAO.
Despite this, R* did NOTHING in those early days of GTAO. Where they could have effectively checked player exploitation of the game mechanics that was destroying the franchise. R* continued to ignore and milk this exploitation for all it was worth. Because they knew the cheaters and griefers either pushed honest players into buying shark cards. Or keeping their broken, buggy servers busy by grinding harder. Just so they could acquire what they wanted and enjoy the game. IMO R* executive management was too obsessed with making billions on Wall Street. So thanks to R* indulgence and toxic players like the cheaters/modders, the GTAO economy remains completely broken to date. With the likes of absurdly inflated 30K+ GTA$ clothing and overpriced business/properties/vehicles etc.
I suspect the minority of fan bois who quit GTAO completely wasn't enough incentive to make R* change their EA eye gouging ways. And to date, I've come to suspect R* has happily resigned themselves to the reality the online component is . Added insult to injury for the clean player base, through their weak PR spin using permabans to address the cheater pandemic to date. When they know fully well that said cheaters will simply buy another copy of the game that--by default of the game's 6 yr maturity-- is heavily discounted around $30 to date.
I semi retired when the modders/cheaters finally spread their toxicity to dumping illegally glitched money onto unsuspecting players during missions. Just so they could get clean and honest players banned. Missions/heists were the one feature where you could play fairly and competitively with other players. I've become disillusioned with R* because of their complacency. They COULD make the game more supportive for clean players by simply TURNING ON THE BUSINESS FEATURES in Solo and Invite lobbies. Yet they continue refuse doing so to date. Because they want to remain profiting from player impatience which drive shark card sales. And profiting indirectly from YT personalities (the likes of the infamous man-child MrBossFTW). Who they KNOW will continue making them millions in free marketing from views of the latest game exploits on the web.
TL DR
I don't care for the cancerous cheat fest that the GTA franchise has sadly devolved to date, I now play it sporadically. And since I own all the business (except the joke that is the Arena DLC), I only go online when special business events like double crates/bunker sales make it worth my time. Or to check out, play and/or acquire the latest drip feed DLC if it interests me. Assuming R* servers even permit logging into the game anymore, without getting you stuck in the server cloud purgatory screen that is....
Ah, i understand you very well. Fortunately in the early days i didn't have much businesses and so i didn't need to go into public. I went into public a few times only to get killed the moment i spawned or get killed by someone clearly running cheats, so i gave up. Later on i returned after discovering how to make public solo lobbies (and invite with daughter) so i'm fine. All the activities of public without the people. Its perfect.
I'm hoping with GTA6 Rockstar make it so that you can just do solo game with all the activities of public. I wouldn't care if they were separate saves or whatever. However, i suspect Rockstar have the multiplayer fever and need to turn everything multiplayer only.
CoD Modern Warfare Battle Royal mode is out and pretty sure you can play it for free as well. I`m not in to BR at all but the base CoD MW is fun so might give it a try later.
What games do you play? Are you into RPG (Fallout/TES, Witcher, Jedi Fallen Order, KCD), sandbox (Space Engineers, Gary's Mod, Minecraft), simulation (Farming 19, Cities Skylines), action (GTA, Saints Row), or adventure (Tomb Raider)?
Since you're on a limited budget, does affordability range between $10 to $30? If on the lower end, consider 3rd gen HD games the likes of Fallout New Vegas and GTA IV. These are heavily discounted on Steam to date. If on the upper $30 end, consider something like Fallout 4.
Also do you play on PC v. Console? If PC, you're in luck for thousands of hours in free, professionally developed mod DLC. The PC modding community at Nexusmods will keep you preoccupied for eons to come. Just like it has The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) and Fallout (FO3, New Vegas and FO4) communities the for more than a decade.
IMO the goal isn't to keep buying games to keep up with the latest game the YT Joneses are promoting/reviewing on the web. It's about getting the best bang for your buck. Which is why playing a mod friendly franchise (the likes of TES, Witcher, Fallout, GTA, KCD etc) is always the best gaming entertainment strategy in the long run. The free mod content (which you can 100% customize) that the modding community readily provides the fan base, always supersedes any loot box/marco transaction, server grindfest online MVP any AAA dev could conceive IMO.
I play on PC. AAA games are not a big thing for me. I'm an old, old school wargamer and pen-and-paper RPG player. Single player, offline games are my preference. Turn-based, not RTS.
IMO the goal isn't to keep buying games to keep up with the latest game the YT Joneses are promoting/reviewing on the web. It's about getting the best bang for your buck. Which is why playing a mod friendly franchise (the likes of TES, Witcher, Fallout, GTA, KCD etc) is always the best gaming entertainment strategy in the long run. The free mod content (which you can 100% customize) that the modding community readily provides the fan base, always supersedes any loot box/marco transaction, server grindfest online MVP any AAA dev could conceive IMO.
Agreed. This is the reason I can probably never go back to console gaming, no matter how out of date my PC is or unaffordable an upgrade is at any given time. I spent probably 30 hours over the last week playing heavily modded versions of the original Doom, and it's some of the best gaming to be had.
PS - what is KCD?
I play on PC. AAA games are not a big thing for me. I'm an old, old school wargamer and pen-and-paper RPG player. Single player, offline games are my preference. Turn-based, not RTS.
then consider Fallout 1 & 2 made by Obsidian, the founding fathers of the Fallout universe. You should be able to run these on DOS Box. Also Atom which is a well designed, Russian themed version of Fallout that you can get on Steam. Both of these games are from old school late 1990s isometric perspective. And so closest thing to old skool pen n paper D&D
ps also believe you can downlad TES I Arena and TES II Daggerfall for free off the TES USEP Wiki site. This is the oldest TES fansite on the web and so is the most comprehensive fan site regarding game and franchise lore to date
Agreed. This is the reason I can probably never go back to console gaming, no matter how out of date my PC is or unaffordable an upgrade is at any given time. I spent probably 30 hours over the last week playing heavily modded versions of the original Doom, and it's some of the best gaming to be had.
PS - what is KCD?
One of the best, most historically accurate medieval RPGs on the market to date. Complete with swordplay on foot/horseback and large scale NPC battles. And specifically because KCD was made by the same guy who designed Mafia2
One of the best, most historically accurate medieval RPGs on the market to date. Complete with swordplay on foot/horseback and large scale NPC battles. And specifically because KCD was made by the same guy who designed Mafia2
Oh. Neat. I've heard of it and kinda ignored it at launch because it was reported as being extremely buggy. I didn't realize it had a robust modding community - will have to give it a try at some point.
Oh. Neat. I've heard of it and kinda ignored it at launch because it was reported as being extremely buggy. I didn't realize it had a robust modding community - will have to give it a try at some point.
Being one of the record breaking 100,000+ Steam gamers who downloaded it on release day (and man did this new, unknown AA dev shatter Steam records), I can validate that yes, it was very buggy on release. Lol. But Daniel Varva and his White Horse Studio dev team worked arduously to reduce and eliminate the chronic game breaking bugs that made KCD a deal breaker for many ppl. I personally decided to rest this title about a month after release to let the dev and modding community fix the bugs. Since then, WHS has released all the DLC for the game AND the long awaited modding tool kit. Just as they promised in their Kickstarter roadmap. And the PC modding community at Nexusmods have since answered the call in generating some really great mod content since then. So I'm definitely looking forward to revisiting medieval Hungary with a brand new game soon.
ps I keep wondering how much more immersion inspiring KCD could've been had Varva had a $200M+ Kickstarter budget from the KCD fan base. This isn't a slam on SC in any way. But the fact that Varva and WHS delivered ALL of their game deliverables to their Kickstarter backers -- ON TIME AND SCHEDULE. That accomplishment is still mind boggling to me. Especially given the fact they were 1) a small, brand new AA dev, which 2) came under extremely hostile fire from the Woke PC agenda that has been trying to destroy the gaming industry. I'm always going to be left wondering what immersive world building the WHS team would've managed to accomplish with a bigger budget.
oh forgot to add: On a different RPG tack, please consider The Outer Worlds by Obsidian. Just like WHS, Obsidian is one of the few minority devs who design games with the intent for their player base to enjoy a challenging game. They are a shrinking minority of devs in the industry who don't believe in screwing over their fan base for monetary gain with cancerous macro transactions and loot boxes. And forcing players to mindlessly grind to ad nausea instead of enjoying the game. With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian proves they are still committed to developing amazing, deep RPG games with PLAYER CHOICE. Where your actions as the player always have consequences. And significantly affect how the world environment/NPCs react to you throughout the game.
But thanks to Sweney's bum nuggetry in tyring to hijack yet another highly anticipated title with his cancerous Epic Games Store, The Outer Worlds will be available on Steam sometime later this year. But you can play it for only $1 USD on PC as part of Microsoft's promotion to get players using their PC game pass. Plus and unlimited number of games in the store. The promo runs for a month and you can cancel at any time. If you opt to keep it, it's $5 USD monthly subscription charge. Also there is no additional charge to play online multiplayer with the PC pass. So you DON'T require a XBX1 live gold subscription to play.
Play over 100 games with friends on Windows PC with PC Game Pass.
www.xbox.com
If you're on a tight budget, I highly recommend going this route. I took advantage of this when The Outer Worlds came out. Completed the game and played a quite few other games I was interested in buying well ahead of the trial period expiration. Had quite a blast getting a bang for my 100 US pennies, all while happily flipping the middle finger to Sweeny and his ultra fascist cadaver EGS offspring.
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Also Empyrion Galactic (still in Early Access on Steam) is getting another significant and sizeable update to it's NPC AI. If the player is hostile or unfriendly status, attacking the NPC space station/POI will cause NPC base commander/owners to call in reinforcements. The size of the Calvary depends on the station/base size. The event is being made more interesting by including the probability no reinforcements arrive. Or the few hapless looking ships which do show up with paper thin armor, may just be the scouting party for the entire NPC's imperial warship fleet. So raiding and assaulting NPCs space stations and POIs apparently just got far more intruiging.
But thanks to Sweney's bum nuggetry in tyring to hijack yet another highly anticipated title with his cancerous Epic Games Store, The Outer Worlds will be available on Steam sometime later this year. But you can play it for only $1 USD on PC as part of Microsoft's promotion to get players using their PC game pass. Plus and unlimited number of games in the store. The promo runs for a month and you can cancel at any time. If you opt to keep it, it's $5 USD monthly subscription charge. Also there is no additional charge to play online multiplayer with the PC pass. So you DON'T require a XBX1 live gold subscription to play.
Play over 100 games with friends on Windows PC with PC Game Pass.
www.xbox.com
If you're on a tight budget, I highly recommend going this route. I took advantage of this when The Outer Worlds came out. Completed the game and played a quite few other games I was interested in buying well ahead of the trial period expiration. Had quite a blast getting a bang for my 100 US pennies, all while happily flipping the middle finger to Sweeny and his ultra fascist cadaver EGS offspring.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Good stuff, thanks. Went ahead and signed up for the $1 trial. Gonna give Outer Worlds a go first since I heard people complaining that it was "short," which in my universe just means I might actually be able to get through it before life events intervene and I forget all about it. (is is a mod-friendly game and if so do you recommend any mods for first playthrough?) May give KCD a try after that if there's enough room on my machine to install it.
Mod friendly: currently no, not based on the limitations of the game engine. Again, TOW is not based on the well known Bethesda engine (for all the proprietary and historic reasons). The Obsidian devs were aware of this during the game design and had really wanted to make it mod friendly. But were unable to do so due to limitations of budget and schedule constraints besides the inflexibility of game engine. However, they were able to make a last minute immersion design change in response to fan base feedback. They added a player eat/drink/sleep feature, which basically adds combat buffs for a limited time. Eating/drinking/sleeping is only mandatory in the hellish supernova difficulty mode. And details like drinking water v. alcohol will get you dehydrated fast. But besides hardcore survival, you have a choice to use this feature from an RPG perspective in the other 3 less difficulty modes.
On MQ length: I believe the average campaign (if you race through everything without bothering to smell the roses or getting to explore NPC characters/the world etc) is about 30 hrs. Took me more than double that. And that's before replaying it with a different character ie Idiot Savant/Village Idiot, psycho, nerd, jock roles etc. Stop worrying about what other ppl say about TOW. Most of the negative press comes from spiteful Fallout 76 fan bois who are still salty TOW did so well on release and won several awards. Unlike their baby F76 which is still struggling to get out the gate as a valid citizen of MMO land.
Also don't be put off by the disgruntled, post Fallout 1& 2 fan bois i.e. the younger gen single player Fallout fan bois for whom Fallout 4 was their first game. Some whom may have disciplined themselves to suffer playing the dated graphics of Fallout New Vegas (or even FO3). So they think Bethesda was the original creator of the Fallout universe. And that Fallout New Vegas was a Bethesda developed game. So they expected TOW to have an open world looter-shooter-explore & build/craft mechanic like FO3/FO4. And especially New Vegas for which Bethesda contracted Obsidian to make using the Bethesda FO3 game engine. Which are the main reasons behind the misguided anti Obsidian fan boi hate in TOW reviews.
Regardless, Bethesda sucks at story writing/character development and player choice. But have negligible peers in the industry where it comes to the mastery of world building. How they excel at designing vast scope/scaled open world environments. Which succeed in complete player immersion (Skyrim, FO3) becuse they excel at designing a 99.99% interactive world.
OTOH, Obsidian sucks at designing open sand box game play worlds. Which is why TOW isn't open world sandbox, a limitation that was was also due to lack of AA dev budget. But they have negligible peers in the industry where story line/MQ/side quest writing exists. And particularly where deep character development and dynamically evolving relationships between the player and NPCs exists.
So definitely play when you get the chance. Especially since the only game review opinion worthy of note will be coming from you. And don't forget you have the prerogative to write one at the exclusive monetary cost of $1 USD.
got Borderlands 3 today and rather enjoying it so far. Loved the first (zombie DLC is still my ALL time fave none car sim DLC), 2nd was even better, TPS was good in it's own way.....shame Scooter was killed off though, Ellie nowhere near as good a character.
Thanks to the timely infusion of new DLC, Steallaris got a big boost in returning player numbers. Enough to propel it back into the Top 100 on Steam. The Lithoids and recent Federations updates have a bit of an ED 2020 update PP vibe to them.Think I'll be getting these new DLC once they go on sale later
Oh. Neat. I've heard of it and kinda ignored it at launch because it was reported as being extremely buggy. I didn't realize it had a robust modding community - will have to give it a try at some point.
Yeah it was quite buggy at release... but they've been all but fixed now. It's a truly excellent & immersive medieval sim (and I'll call it a 'sim' as well as an RPG because of the realism it aims at). The studio released the entire devkit for the game, so it's possible to mod just about everything in it. Besides a few graphics mods, the only one I use really use is to give you the ability to save at any point without getting drunk.
I know it sold really well (deservedly so), so hopefully their next game will be able to use that money to make something even better. Considering the budget and contraints they were working under for KCD, it's an astonishing achievement.
Played CS : S for the first time in a looong time.
I used to be good at it.
I really suck at it now, I'm old and slow.
Still the best game ever made (after CS).
I'm slowly getting better at piloting a F/A-18C in DCS World, in VR no less. This is as close as I will be to my childhood dream of piloting a real fighter jet and I'm loving it despite a learning curve far more unforgiving than Elite's. When they release Mil Mi-24 (Hind) later this year (hopefully), my "pilot life" will be complete ;-)
Played CS : S for the first time in a looong time.
I used to be good at it.
I really suck at it now, I'm old and slow.
Still the best game ever made (after CS).
