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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
45,238
119,170
Oh and I have to say I like Mortal Shell more than any of the souls games. Hope they make Mortal Shell 2.
My favorites of the genre are Bloodborne and Mortal Shell because of the dark, gritty atmosphere. Dark Souls and Elden Ring remind me too much of D&D.
 

LeafErikson

Lifer
Dec 7, 2021
2,274
20,022
Oregon
I have been absolutely obsessed with this baseball game called Super Mega Baseball 4. It's has arcade-style presentation and simulation-style gameplay. The teams and players aren't based on real teams or players and lots of the players have hilarious names like Irene Fast, Walker Runs, and... Dick Burger :ROFLMAO: . I'm in my third season of a franchise, which has been incredibly fun. I customized my league so seasons are 24 games, playoff series are best of 3, and games are 7 innings long. In the elimination game 3 of the conference finals at the end of season 2, my catcher muffed a perfectly good pitch with a runner on third in the bottom of the 6th inning and I lost the game 2-1. Absolutely brutal. My team is still looking for its first championship.
 

antbrains

Lurker
Sep 23, 2020
5
2
antbrains.com
Persona 5 is such a fun choice too; the turn-based gameplay and story really pull you in, right? Diablo III may be older, but it’s timeless, I still find myself hopping back in for the loot and fast-paced action.

I’m currently rotating between a few games, but lately, I’ve been into Apex Legends. It’s intense, and having a good squad can make all the difference. If you’re ever interested in checking it out, there are some apex cheats that can help smooth out the learning curve if you’re new to competitive shooters.
 
Jun 27, 2016
1,280
127
RIP Battlefield3 Online!!! (Except for PC.)
Welp, it's done, folks. Servers shut down at around 6:15 EST this morning November 7th, 2024, a very sad day! Gameplay was great through the end, & I even had a pretty epic match during the last day, went 24-1 with three Sniper Rifle Ribbons & three Accuracy Ribbons, where usually I'm trying hard to get one of each for a round. Also spent time doing other fun stuff like setting up C4 buggies & going after tanks, & driving the helicopter gunship around with a gunny & going after the attack helis, flying around in the airplanes, & sometimes just going into an empty Operation Firestorm server to practice that long shot some more. Unfortunately I never had a chance to actually try & hit anyone with that 1800m long bomb in-game on my current account, but I've done it before & that battle was one of my favorite memories of playing.

One thing that I know a lot of people might be upset about, is that they've wiped the stats out. My account on Battlelog.com has no more stats, but I snapped a couple pics in-game before the shutdown with a few basic stats.

IMG_6609.JPG
My typical loadout & attire:
IMG_6614.JPG

There were at least a dozen camo skins available, but I liked to run the blues because I felt that they helped me blend better into the shadows & clutter.
IMG_6616.JPG
My basic goal was to usually try & get one of each of these per round:
IMG_6611.JPG
IMG_6610.JPG
Hardware after you get enough ribbons:
IMG_6613.JPG
IMG_6612.JPG

I ended up with ten more kills after taking the pic, & was eight away from getting one more M40A5 Service Star, when the servers shut down. (I think I called it an M40A1 in my earlier post, I meant M40A5.)

I ran some numbers & had to slightly estimate my final shot & accuracy totals for this account, but I ended up with 5492 M40A5 kills, 4558 headshots, approximately 22600 shots fired. M40A5 hit percentage was approximately 46%. M40A5 headshot accuracy was approximately 83%. I earned 10 Sniper Medals, 9 Accuracy Medals, and 54 M40A5 Service Stars. I forgot to write down how many Recon Class Service Stars that I earned.

If I add in my stats from my first account, I ended up with 15,472 M40A5 kills, 12,472 M40A5 headshots, out of 70,351 M40A5 shots fired. My M40A5 hit percentage accuracy worked out to about 43%, & my M40A5 headshot kill percentage ended up somewhere between 82.2 & 82.4%. I'm surprised that I was able to carry those numbers basically the whole time I was sniping, which I didn't really start getting into that aspect of BF3 gameplay until around 2017.
Finished out with 29 Sniper Rifle Ribbons, 36 Accuracy Ribbons, & 150 M40A5 service stars across both accounts.

I'll wait here for the reboot...
IMG_6584.JPG
 

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Lifer
Dec 24, 2014
2,283
15,873
Tucson Az
Finally was able to get Baldurs Gate 3 only can play it on the steam deck but its awesome. I need to invest in dock for that as BG3 eats battery life.
 

PipeIT

Lifer
Nov 14, 2020
5,218
30,832
Hawaii
Well to recap…

At heart I’ve been an online FPS gamer for years, and Apex Legends I played around 3300 hours, but the cheating in online gaming has gotten out of hand. So I walked away from the game a few months ago, but I constantly look at the news to see if any positive changes are happening.

Next I bought Star Citizen earlier this year. It certainly has a lot of bugs, but the insane size of this game and happening too in real time, is just mind boggling, and the graphics are amazing too. So, I’m hoping the 4.0 release will be good, and better to play.

Next, I was really hoping Starfield was going to be good, but I didn’t buy it.

Now I’ve been hoping next on Star Wars Outlaws, but the reviews aren’t looking so hot.

So, pretty much all my gaming this year, has actually been modding in Skyrim Special Edition, and it’s been a massive amount of work getting the game to look modern next gen realistic in high resolution graphics.

Here’s my character in Skyrim and a screen shot at Riverwood.

MyNPC.jpg

Riverwood.jpg
 
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Sigmund

Lifer
Sep 17, 2023
3,140
30,328
France
I never had the patience for the endless puzzles in RPG's. Im also a FPS player. I prefer a game where you can jump in for an hour or so and jump out with plenty of involvment.
 
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Peter Turbo

Lifer
Oct 18, 2021
1,471
11,558
CT, USA
Eagerly awaiting Path of Exile 2 after the most recent live stream, amazing. December 6th could not come soon enough, its kind of killed my enthusiasm to play anything else.
 

PipeIT

Lifer
Nov 14, 2020
5,218
30,832
Hawaii
I never had the patience for the endless puzzles in RPG's. Im also a FPS player. I prefer a game where you can jump in for an hour or so and jump out with plenty of involvment.

Have you ever played Fortnite Zero Build? There’s no building in it, hence the name, it’s just an FPS Battle Royale.


I know it is all kiddie looking, but in all seriousness, there is a lot of variety to it. Various vehicles, various weapons, and the list goes on.

If you can look past the kiddie looks to it, it’s really great.

There can be cheaters, so the best times to play are early weekdays, or any days, but just earlier to avoid the cheaters and sweats later in the evening hours.
 

jdlander

Lurker
Jul 6, 2024
46
93
Salem, OR
So, pretty much all my gaming this year, has actually been modding in Skyrim Special Edition, and it’s been a massive amount of work getting the game to look modern next gen realistic in high resolution graphics.

Here’s my character in Skyrim and a screen shot at Riverwood.

View attachment 351082
Wow. I'm going to have to play Skyrim. I have always wanted to, but never got around to it. I heard the new graphics mod makes it look amazing. One of the reasons I didn't play is because the characters always looked so clunky.

What mods do you recommend?
 

PipeIT

Lifer
Nov 14, 2020
5,218
30,832
Hawaii
Wow. I'm going to have to play Skyrim. I have always wanted to, but never got around to it. I heard the new graphics mod makes it look amazing. One of the reasons I didn't play is because the characters always looked so clunky.

What mods do you recommend?


Well, not to disappoint or make you sad, but those two screenshots were possibly a few thousand hours and several years of work.

There are many aspects to it, but to start, you lay the Foundation, updates, patches, bug fixes, then you get into the graphics on many different levels, buildings, terrain, mountains, grass trees, foliage, etc…

Then if you want more realism for distance views, seeing the world far off realistic, meaning seeing trees and grass like in real life, as far as the natural eye can see, then you need to get into xLODGen, TexGen, DynDOLOD.

Then there is the lighting, indoor and outdoor, water, roadways, animals..

The characters, including yours, armor, clothing, skin, hair, eyes, makeup, etc, and I did my character in High Poly, so the character‘s face has normal realistic contours.

Then there are just a mass amount of many other things to add in, at so many different levels, like Parallax, to give things a 3D look, like making the roads, rocks, the terrain, buildings, etc., appear as if the textures are more 3D realistic.

Then when your mod list starts getting big, hundreds of mods, you have to constantly juggle the order of the installation of the mods, because there is a Priority Order, so you have to give certain mods priority over others, based on either personal preferences, or issues you run into. Juggling the priority of mods at times can be a constant struggle, as you add more. Because adding more, can always create conflicts and issues. I’ve spent at times weeks, and month sometimes juggling around, then six months down the road, and 50 more mods added in, or updated, etc, and sometimes back to juggling again. Mod Priority sometimes never ends, it’s just how it is.

To be honest I’ve hardly played the game. Most people that heavily mod, spend an extreme amount of time just doing this, as an end unto itself.

I do want to start playing again, after putting several years of modding into it, but there are still somethings I am waiting on Mod Authors to complete, and I continue working on making it as realistic as possible.

I have Skyrim looking very realistic and like a modern game that was just released this year.

Yes, if you have the hardware specs, it can be made to look very real. But do realize, creating this level of realism with hundreds of mods does require a pretty high end system.

I wouldn’t go any lower than a Ryzen 5 5600x, 32gb Ram, SSD, with a 3080 10gb, @1440p. But if you wanted to get into running a 4K monitor, I’d look at more like at a Ryzen 7 7800x3d and a 4090.

I have at present around 425 mods installed.

If you are serious about this, shoot me a PM…
 
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jdlander

Lurker
Jul 6, 2024
46
93
Salem, OR
Well, not to disappoint or make you sad, but those two screenshots were possibly a few thousand hours and several years of work.
Oh... never mind then. LOL.

I recently read that a new mod released (which is larger than the game itself) which updates all the textures in the game. It's called "Skyrim Every Single Texture Upscaled and Reworked." It looks pretty good.
 

PipeIT

Lifer
Nov 14, 2020
5,218
30,832
Hawaii
Oh... never mind then. LOL.

I recently read that a new mod released (which is larger than the game itself) which updates all the textures in the game. It's called "Skyrim Every Single Texture Upscaled and Reworked." It looks pretty good.

I don’t believe there is any road, where there isn’t some work involved if you want it to look like a modern game. I have not seen any mods that are all done for you 100%, but I may be wrong. I believe you will still have to put things together somewhat, with some effort.

This really gets down, to how hardcore of a gamer and lover of Skyrim you are. I’m a gaming geek, been one a long time, and love Skyrim. I was waiting years build a higher end system, just so I could mod and make this game look realistic, and I’ve loved doing this.

I can tell you, if you are a gaming geek, and you love Skyrim, it is so worth it, the end results are so mind blowing.

Oh yes, you can certainly go for one of these, all done setups…

I see it here on Nexusmods…


Reading over this, that is simply Upscaled Vanilla, meaning, it’s just nicer looking original Skyrim. This is not going to look like modern NextGen realism, like the two pictures I posted, no where near that.

So if you want the all in one done for realism, you’ll probably need to take the Wabbajack route.



I only gave a break down on doing it by hand, sure it seems like a lot, but what seriously at first doesn’t look like a lot, until you start doing it.

Once you mod for a while by hand you’ll get the grasp of things.

You also have to remember, if you run across issues, then you are tied down to that mod author waiting on fixes, but when you do things manually, you have more control.

I’m a hands on person, and you also look at the modding as a means unto itself; You Are The One Creating…

So do you simply want someone else‘s creation, or do you want to create your own?

I got into modding Skyrim, because I wanted to make it my own and in control.

Sure I still have to use the mods everyone else uses, but you can change things within them, but if they turn out to problematic, you replace it and look for something else, etc…

Modding Skyrim is really fun, and the satisfaction, when you look at what you are creating in a game as a gamer, it doesn’t get any better. :)

Just remember Modding is looked at like a type of Game Play.

What are you playing today? Skyrim Modding! LOL 😁
 
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Pooh-Bah

Can't Leave
Apr 21, 2023
433
4,428
32
Central Maryland
Wow. I'm going to have to play Skyrim. I have always wanted to, but never got around to it. I heard the new graphics mod makes it look amazing. One of the reasons I didn't play is because the characters always looked so clunky.

What mods do you recommend?
I'm a sucker for what they call "EnaiRim", myself. Bunch of gameplay expansion.
Probably Wintersun is my favorite of those - pick a patron deity for your character, get some bonuses from divine favor.
 

PipeIT

Lifer
Nov 14, 2020
5,218
30,832
Hawaii
I'm a sucker for what they call "EnaiRim", myself. Bunch of gameplay expansion.
Probably Wintersun is my favorite of those - pick a patron deity for your character, get some bonuses from divine favor.

Are you talking about this?


All my modding is pretty much 100% sticking to Vanilla Lore, and simply making the original Skyrim look like a new release is all.

I’m trying to keep it as original as possible, but I have to admit, there are a few Vanilla aspects that can certainly use touching up, and some mods that do this nicely, and are very Lore friendly.

Vanilla tree styles as an example, like Enhanced Vanilla Trees, or Happy Little Trees, just to naked and boring.

Now this isn’t quite Vanilla Lore, but If people have the hardware specs, Nature of the Wilds Lands is an amazing tree mod, this is a mod hard to pass up.