Luseth

I am happy with Mafia II, that could well be another platinum trophy for me (I did the remaster of the first game not all that long ago I don't think).

I have read that it is basically Avatar Cry but with some cool added elements like the flying and such. I think it is going to be one of those games that does ok but will be heavily riding on the people playing it being into Avatar in the first place and would appreciate exploring the world and such.

I think as James say's it risks excluding a couple of people. Very much depends on who could attend I suppose. I like the idea of being DM but I think we all need to know what we are doing so maybe I'll give it a go after a couple of these shorter games? Elliott is very good at it seems so I think any of us would be struggling to achieve his level of dungeon masteryness.

So the second part is to be played this coming Sunday 🙂 I am quite looking forward to dying.... On a serious note I did enjoy the first part though I think we were very much finding our feet. I don't know about the other guy's but it definately stoked my interest and I like the idea of having a regular group playing (how that pans out with home life though is probably the issue). My wife has also shown interest and it has led us onto a new hobby in which we have been creating, buying and painting various models such as D&D and warhammer. My wife is definately better at painting than I am but I have done 1 or 2 and have a set still to build and paint. But yeah I am quite looking forward to this Sunday ^_^ If it goes well I'd definately be up for future sessions, maybe even doing them in person as well seeing as a few of us don't live all that far apart. We just need to convince Elliot to carry on being DM or see if any of us would be willing to give it a go! Also I have 4 sets of D&D dice already, I feel like that is a bit of a rabbit hole if I'm being honest....

I kept meaning to listening to this and have never gotten round to it, I can tell you now I have the first episode (about origins game fair 2022) playing on my headphones while I work ^_^

We had a go the other day and played some co-op, what was great which might interest anyone with younger children. My wife and I was playing but we added my daughter in as a 3rd player, being only 4 she didn't really know what she was doing but we could take most of it at our own pace so we could slow down enough so she could at least see which way she was walking / running. It was great fun!

I am playing through at the moment, I am not quite so gripped as the previous 2 games, I do think it looks incredible mind and really does look next gen. Combat is still similar with a few new gadgets and such and they have obviously branched out with the skills trees and such. Story seem's good so far, I am only really getting going with it I think so still discovering who the villain is and what they are up to type of thing. I did come across a bug last night which led to me turning the game off, one npc got stuck the wrong side of a wall and I have no idea how but it meant I could not progress the mission, I imagine I'll jump on again last night and go back to the autosave point. As far as the 2 spidermen go, so far I am much more enjoying Miles arc, his abilities are much more fun to play with and I think his story arc is more interesting as so far he has more of a personal stake in it. I imagine I will go for the platinum on this as well but I am flitting between this and Baldurs Gate 3 at the moment, 2 different but rather large games ^_^ So imagine it will take me a while to get the plat.

Sorry I missed the map, how did you go about making this? Do you draw anyway? (It's really quite cool 🙂 )

I have done in the past, I used to be quite a big fan of fantasy novels and such, I have quite a few series of books and though we are trying to get rid of stuff out of the house I can't bare to part with them ^_^ That enjoyment of them has led me to writing up ideas if you like for my own fantasy novels, that has included world building, character creation and such. It tend's to be that when I write (or type) something the words tend to flow, even now when I type this I don't really know what I am going to write until I do it! But yeah it was always the way when I used to write in that I never sat down and came up with ideas in the sense, ah I want 7 houses and they are at war and there are these alliances, I would write like I was following a group i.e. akin to the lord of the rings stories or the Eragon books so I would be creating and experiencing the adventure / world as a someone wholly new to it would experience it. Whether that translates to good creative writing or not I have no idea! I think my issue with keeping it going and actually creating a full length novel has always been time and that has only become much more reduced with little un's. It is one of those things I have always wanted to do is release a novel, I know Elliot's book is an entirely different category but I do have some respect to him for making it happen. I have never really had the confidence to go out and explore how to make something like that happen. That said James, if you are starting to get into it now, I know DnD dungeon masters benefit from creative writing in that being able to come up with their own scenarios and such, hint hint 😉

My missus offered to order this last night after I showed it her, assuming she was serious about it I will be reminding her this evening and ordering it ^_^ It looks like something we could play together but the kids might also enjoy something so colourful on screen ^_^ Some of the clips I have seen of it suggest it looks quite good 🙂

We retired his shirt for a reason..... We could genuinely be watching the next England legend and it's all due to his youth development, you're welcome 😉

It's on my list, this and COD are likely to be my next 2 games, the first 2 of these were fantastic.

So I just put some brief thoughts in the whatsapp but generally it is just amalgamation of just previous games, ui from the last game, perks from the one before and maps from 10 years ago (albeit snazzied up a bit). I think it sums up though the problem with these titles in that they have gotten comfortable with call of duty, it's a bit like fifa, no need to try something new or innovate really, people will continue to buy the game why create anything new. Let's just take things from previous games and release it as a full title, I find that really shitty to be honest. That aside, yeah it's fine and plays like a typical COD. I think the only reason I am contemplating picking it up is because I have a group of friends that play zombies and they are contemplating getting this one and I would quite like to play more games with them again (I used to play a lot of battlefield with them). If it was just for the multiplayer element I am not really sure I would bother with it and find it a little absurd that it will probably sell quite well for that alone.

So I am only going to talk briefly about clubs but talking to Lee yesterday he asked if I could run through things for the new game so just a bit of a summary of things I have noticed on the new clubs - - So the Volta store is still somewhat linked to clubs but has a little more content this time around, I wouldn't be surprised if they reuse assets from the previous game down the road and add a few more but as far as customisation goes there are a few more options in some of the categories such as facial hair options, new masks and you can wear glasses. - So building out your pro's attributes and skills, they have brought in playstyles, these are in addition to the archetype so might enhance your speed further, might improve your finesse shot or things like that. So you get silver playstyles and then golden onces which enhance those stats even further i.e. you can have rapid which improves sprint speed and dribbling and then rapid+ which improves it even more. - Levelling seem's to be taking a while, I am at an 81 rating at the moment despite being level 27 ^_^ - So the leagues have changed and I am still getting my head around it a little, so you play seasons like we traditionally would and when you win a set number of matches you then move up a league, it starts in division 5. How things differ on this game, you don't get a trophy for moving up a league. What happens is at a certain date, so the next one is 3rd November you then get put into play off's, this sort of takes the place of cups I think. This is where you get put in a mini league with 9 other teams from the same division as you. You then can play up to 10 games for that play off session in the week and you have to try and get maximum points and score higher than the other teams in your league. So based on how well you do in the play offs provides your club with a number of rewards, these can include volta coins for you to spend on pro customisation (which would suggest more things to come to the Volta store down the road?), a trophy if you achieve mid table or higher (bronze, silver, gold) and then "fans". The quantity of fans you club has affects your club customisation which I will go into next. So there are 10 levels of customisation and they unlock based on the quantity of fans you have. - Customisation of the club requires you to level up to unlock customisations and then you can apply tifo's, stadium bundles (themes), pitch trophy and selecting your home stadium. I imagine more stadium bundles might come down the road as that seems a little underwhelming at this point.

So I am sat here this morning looking at a computer screen and if I'm being honest I can't really be arsed 😄 So I thought I would ask what people do for work and what are your day to day tasks like? For me I design relatively simple mechanical building services for residential complexes, literally right now I am producing a schematic for the water supply around the building, working out sizes of pipes and the routes they will be taking, little snippet below - Generally my work day can be quite varied, some days design team meetings, others doing drawings like the above, others it's meeting suppliers or sub-contractors and coming up at the end of this month is the first 3d project we are doing internally (which as the others in the design team have no experience of Revit I will likely be leading). So yeah what do you get up to in your work day?

I don't really have many fears but the one thing that does scare me both for myself and my children is the way the planet's going. It has been reported that this year we are going to be 1.4 degrees C warmer than pre-industrial years, admittedly part of it is this El Nino event but it can't be all that. The weather forecasts are for between 24 and 27 degrees this coming weekend / next week in the UK, in October.... As someone who grows veg I don't see how that's not going to affect things, seeds that are typically dormant are going to start sprouting for example. Does it concern any of you? Are you choosing to ignore it / live in ignorance to the changes? The reality now is it is affecting today and not really a problem for tomorrow which for the past 10-20 years it was always considered to be. I know it's easy to say well there's nothing I can do about it but has anyone considered moving home because of the impact it might have on where you currently live or trying to make your household more self sustainable i.e. less reliant upon society?

So I've begun listening to a band that I listened to in my teenage years again ^_^ No one I knew my age at the time really listened to them but they were one of my guilty pleasures, I imagine Greboth might know who they are -

I did watch this yesterday, not overly interested in many of them, the one that did jump out at me though was Greedfall 2. I played the first one, I think something happened to my save so I did not complete it but I liked the setting and the story was quite good, graphically fine, I think the only thing that let it down was the combat was a little clunky but for a non triple A title it was quite ambitious and had some great ideas. I suspect I will pick the second game up when it turns up.

Ooooo, I will watch this once this meeting is over and let you know my thoughts, I seem to be having fun with games that are just below that Triple A budgets at the moment, I am playing through Elex 2 and really enjoying it ^_^

I feel like you don't get video games sometimes, it's always about the way you look, what colour guns you have, how crazy your hair style is etc. Forget playing the game and chatting to friends.

I think a lot of it was timing, it came out and the game is half decent and enjoyable but since then the likes of Starfield and Baldurs gate have been released. To keep the player count high while competing with arguably 2 of the biggest releases of the year is a tough ask.

I did suggest an xbox series S to him last night but he didn't sound keen. It would allow him to still jump on for fifa with us (I tried it with another friend the other day that was on xbox and it worked pretty well) and you can pick them up as cheap as £150 these days second hand 🙂

Yeah I am a fan of collecting my retro games and such but I'd be fine if we stopped producing them now, we have learnt enough in recent years to call it a day on physical games. That said I think my only gripe with going all digital is the lack of storefronts for a console and it would probably lead me to just gaming on pc only going forwards as at least there are some options. Sony having such a big market share already and then being able to put on whatever percentage they like on top does not sit well with me and is something I could see happening down the road because they have shown time and time again that it is a company that can get complacent, can get a little bit greedy.