LikeaMetaphor

I just beat the game on NG+. Are you prepared for the differences in the story?

I enjoyed getting my Crusader up to 70, but as I throw myself at Adventure Mode on Master, I feel like he just doesn't do enough damage to really deal with anything. Granted, most things won't kill me, but it takes me an upwards of 3 minutes of just bashing on the rift bosses to finally kill them. And it's been like that for most of my experience - I'll never die, but it takes so damn long for anything else to that it's bumming me out. Not sure if it's my gear or my skill loadout, as I've been trying to rely on high-damage cooldowns since the normal wrath consumers feel underwhelming in terms of damage. Maybe that's the point since he's the tank of the crowd, but as someone who mostly solos content, it's making for a frustrating experience.

@starvinggamer said:

Brothers. The rapid-fire way they doled out fantasy tropes made the entire game feel more like an amusement park than an actual world. Once I reached it the end, it became clear that the entire game was built to deliver one admittedly clever moment. The cynicism of design that I felt drained any sort of emotional weight from the experience.

Also the fact that a bugged out, untextured model of the bird showed up and stayed on screen for the entire tree sequence sort of pulled me out of what probably should have been a very sad scene. I ended up having to drag the brother's body through the bird in order to bury him.

I didn't have that egregious of a bug - at least not one during that moment - but I had enough minor bugs that I assumed the "Whoa bro the controls!" moment was just yet another glitch. But I definitely agree: didn't find much of it to be interesting or unique outside of one moment.

I preferred it when Big Bro literally flew through a Goddamn mountain and died for me. That was cooler.

I desperately hope 400 Days doesn't determine who shows up in Season 2, because if that's the case, I lost Vince and I'm not going to be using my save for Season 2. And if that's the case, I kind of don't want to play Season 2.

If the determining factor for Vince is really if he shoots Danny, that's complete and utter bullshit. That's entirely arbitrary - how does that affect his trust of outside groups?

I'd have to disagree about the Open Palm/Closed Fist morality system. It can, for the most part, be played as evil or good; unfortunately, some of the decisions in the game get too grandiose, like the Water Dragon example, that it becomes mostly "SAVE KITTEN" versus "MURDER KITTEN."

There are a few moments, however, that made it stand out a bit more - or, at least, conversation options that give it the appearance of depth. There are a few quests where you can proceed along the Open Palm option for quite a time, only to subvert it at the last moment to get more Close Fist points for more closely approaching self-interest/survival of the fittest than you would through a straight-up evil option.

One side quest has you saving prisoners from the Death's Hand (or whatever the evil dude faction is). You can just kill them all in the beginning for some evil points... or you can lead them outside and then force them to fight you/each other for their survival. The former is evil; the latter is instituting the survival of the fittest philosophy that the Way of the Closed Fist to a greater degree.

Options like that, where you can have "evil" options outside of just killing everyone or being a bad dude, endear the game to me. Unfortunately, the Open Palm+ options are usually just, "Nah, I don't need a reward, 'cus I'm hella virtuous." But I agree on all your other points.

A lot of real non-answers, here. I appreciate all the questions asked, but it still kind of bugs me that some things weren't answered explicitly, such as offline functionality. Sure, people will probably be connected, and thecloudhas some cool stuff, but he didn't answer the question of offline. I live in an area with terrible Internet connectivity and play single-player games; I desperately wanted to know the answer to how this connectivity malarkey affects that experience.

I'd be cool giving you money, Microsoft, but you're not doing much to make me feel like giving you money. :(

I've gotten at least halfway through act 2, and am enjoying it greatly. I love Diablo-esque games, but after never getting into Torchlight 2 or Path of Exile, this is fitting that niche nicely. The whole powerup system, where you spend rage to give your abilities a unique effect, breathes some life into the fairly limited tech trees.

At this point, I maxed out a shotgun skill. I more or less one shot everything. If that isn't fun, I don't know what is! :D

This seems cool - I'd like to join in! I'll put some progress through April (I don't anticipate buying anything more or beating any games within the next week).

January:

February:

March:

April:

I don't have a subscription service, and don't plan on getting one in the foreseeable future. Almost all of my music has been coming from Bandcamp, lately. There's a pretty diverse selection of artists on there, and from what I understand of their payment models, more of my money goes to artists.

Plus, I've the ability to give just $1 to folks when I can. It's become the best solution to my difficulties/wants buying music: being a poor college student, listening to only what I want to with the ability to freely seek out other artists, and giving more of my money to artists without having to work through a billion different band homepages.

I always enjoy Worth Reading, but the bolded quote font is making me gloss over what appears to be interesting quotes. I've no idea what they say, as I can only read maybe a quarter of the blocks of white.

Anywho! Glad to see you're getting better, Patrick, and I'll be looking forward to seeing you more on the site again.