Next Community Game

[Corenat Rovarnus]

It's come to my attention that we haven't been doing anything as a community lately, and in my experience when a community doesn't do things together for a while they tend to cease to be a 'community'. Now, we're not Moon Records/Rule Breaker level of dead yet but this little weeb haven has certainly seen better days.

With that in mind, let's consciously choose our next big video game fad to get us all back into the metaphorical gigasaddle together. For the first time in, well, it's not the first time, the Administration is open to any suggestions, although we've developed some general principles to use as guidelines:

• Flexible player count - to accommodate for when not everyone can be there. Alternatively the average 'match' time can be very short so that if there are excess players they can switch out/alternate.
  
• Economic Accessibility - Should either be free, have a "free demo" , or most of us already own it.
  
• Optimized Performance - Runs smoothly, or at all on a low-end PC.
  

You don't actually have to keep these in mind all the time, just shout out some names and I'll probably research it myself.

[Kaede]

Battletech would be one, but that might melt your gpu. Titan Quest is $3.99 atm if you wanna have diablo-like fun. Stardew valley also just released multiplayer, but that may just be a game i'm only interested in. Also Destiny 2 is 12 bucks atm, but it is godawful.

As for f2p games, well there are tons of free mmo's out there, though only ones im playing atm is SWTOR and STO. Don;t really know about other games.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Before anyone else gets discouraged, these verdicts are not saying these games are bad (besides destiny 2), but they aren't suited for community play. As in, I'm (and maybe my co-admin) going to rabidly shill this game to everyone every day until we're all playing it, so we'd better know what we're shilling.

Evaluation - Battletech: Nope. Doesn't really meet any of the 3 criteria. Multiplayer consists of duels, and if it's anything like XCOM the matches will take forever. The minimum requirements is basically the GPU I have there's no way Vroop will be able to run it.
Whose servers does it use for multiplayer? I am of course asking for a friend who might want to try the "free demo".

Evaluation - Titan Quest: Postponed. I think @Interovegas or someone might have tried this in the past so I'll have to ask them about their experience. I might grab it since it's on sale now but that might be over by the time we make a decision.

Evaluation - Stardew Valley: Not yet. Looks promising but I can't recommend something that's still in beta, which the multiplayer is.

Evaluation - Destiny 2: No.

[Kaede]

I believe it uses it's publisher ,paradox, for servers and you can get a copy from gog if you don't like steam drm.

There is also Mechwarrior online if you want a casual version of the old mechwarrior games, as well as Mechwarrior 4 mercs that was released for free some time ago if you want the full simulator experience (you can change the controls to somewhat match a fps though)

[SilkScarf]

Some ideas off the top of my head:

Minecraft or Minecraft alternatives (https://opensource.com/alternatives/minecraft)

- We had a pretty good Minecraft run on Dave's servers in the past; it's a tried and true sandbox crafting game with a one-time payment of $20.00 $26.95 (price creep)

- It's received quite a few updates since we last played as a group, so I'm not sure if the system requirements have changed


League of Legends has been ol' reliable for almost a decade now

- Main flaw is the time commitment and strict player-count requirements

- Otherwise, it's free (aside from aesthetics) and runs OK on most computers


@The Lord Kelvin mentioned Evolve - https://evolvegame.com/agegate/ I'll let him talk more about that


and of course: WEIQI

- MASSIVELY FLEXIBLE MULTIPLAYER THROUGH TOURNAMENT AND LADDER PLAY 

-  100% COMPLETELY FREE THROUGH REGISTRATION ON ONLINE-GO.COM

- LIGHTWEIGHT GAME ENGINE; RUNS STRAIGHT FROM YOUR BROWSER

[Kaede]

Actually a few games did come to me, one of them is Pokemon Insurgence. Besides having a full single player game that is harder than the original games (hope you like grinding out those ev's), and alternate type mons before the official games made it cool, it has full multiplayer so that means vs modes.

There are also mods like open morrowind that makes it multiplayer, as well as the racing game coming soon FAST BEAT LOOP RACER GT, also if your like me and played tcgs in school there is also ygopro, and the pokemon tcg out there.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Evaluation - Minecraft: Yes? I feel like as a group we've kind of outgrown that game, but I can make it happen. It's still a goddam pixel game so it should run on everyone's machine, it's not like the updates added some super HD graphics or whatever. "Free demos" can be obtained for both client and server.
Since it is a sandbox we should have some specific activity in mind (Killing the Ender Dragon, PvP MMO shenanigans) before going in because it'd be very easy for everyone to just wander off and do their own thing, which eventually loses interest.

Evaluation - League of Legends: Unlikely. As with any MOBA there is a steep learning curve (and hordes of people shilling the competitors like DOTA2, HOTS etc.), although the new rune system means new players are no longer at an innate disadvantage. Plus there is the fact that we were already playing it a couple months ago, too recently to consider this a next new experience. I probably should have mentioned that, it should be something the majority of us haven't tried yet or done recently.

Evaluation - Evolve: No. Can your PC even handle this? Fixed player count, and I thought this game was dead.

Evaluation - WEIQI: No.

[Kaede]

Quick question, anyone have any handhelds or a PS4, I can offer up a couple of games if yes.

[Interovegas]

Stardew valley is still a maybe on my part. I have to look into what form the multiplayer takes (I've never heard of multiplayer Harvest Moon or others before).

I'll throw in some games for evaluation, but I've passed my binge-ing on them so I'm actually less inclined towards them:

2D Sandbox:
-Terraria: Looks like 2d minecraft, plays like sandbox RPG metroid/castlevania. It hasn't had an update to the vanilla client in years and offers a plethora of mod content. Early on it plays in a way familiar to minecraft but very quickly it becomes a boss gauntlet game. Not everyone's thing. Servers are privately hosted. Worth mentioning again how chalk full of mod content this game is.

-Starbound: Alt terraria. More aliens and space men and foo-ture technology. Combat is less crunchy and less the focus. You get personal space ships and jazz. I've only barely played this one.

Basically - if you wanted minecraft to have better combat and some more concrete optional goals and can compromise on 2d instead of 3d (which arguably makes the game able to function on computers with less resources)

ARPGS: All of these are free or easy to find around

-Titan Quest: As mentioned
-Path of Exile: Peinan's pride and joy
-Heroes of Hammerwatch: 2d ARPG, unsure about longevity myself

Worth pointing out that we've gone through Path before and usually you hit the issue that one or more players outpace the others.

MISC: Weird and singular

-Rocket League, can probably be 'found'
-Quake Champions, probably a no.

[SilkScarf]

Quick question, anyone have any handhelds or a PS4, I can offer up a couple of games if yes.

I don't think any of us own handhelds or a PS4

[Interovegas]

Sidegrade RPGS:
- Planetside 2 : Kuest's connection to the universe
- Warframe: Grindy casual teamplay that is mostly side grades after a basic intro point.

But really, is it going to be anything but minecraft?

[Kaede]

Why not civ 5 or 6? Seems like it would be easy enough to have a game with all of us, and if we can't finish it can always be saved for another day.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

I sort of regret opening the whole ARPG can of worms.

Terraria: Sure. Although the vegas is already tired of it, I'm slowly coming around. If only so Minecraft isn't the only Yes on my list.

Starbound: Even better, as I usually prefer the sci-fi variant. Needs a little more research though. It also costs twice as much.

Rocket League: Possible. It's pretty mainstream as games go. Might want to check performance on lower end machines.

Quake Champions: Nah. Looks pretty dope though.

PlanetSide 2: God dammit I so want this to be our thing. It's been my dream for months to lead a combined arms ProZ squad to glory, winning alerts and locking continents under our own power. As it happens though this game is probably rates lowest of the bunch performance wise, you might not be able to get a decent framerate even if you've a master race worthy PC.

Warframe: On the fence. I already have a daily grind in FGO, don't need anymore. If it really is just sidegrades, it's on the table.

Civilization: I have Civ5, the have-nots are gonna have look into them free demos...

[Kaede]

One thing Matt suggested, Mario 64 online. Pretty sure there are also some other emulators that allow online play so there are those as well.

[Interovegas]

@Planetside: I doubt that will be our thing. It's also a CPU side issue, most everyone will crap out all the same regardless of PC level. You just get to crap out with slightly better or slightly worse graphics.

@Terraria vs Starbound: Choose Terraria, starbound is prettier with less to do, less events, less etc. I also doubt this can work for us.

@Warframe: There is an initial vertical ascent but after you reach your first core build its entirely a game of using different mostly equal powered builds. (Maiming strike you POS). However it's expected in warframe that you engage in the market, as you can sell items to other players in return for premium currency. In this fashion you are expected and able to function with the shop. This is often not people's thing - although even our almost always mute catman has also done these things.

@Mario 64 Online: I saw some gameplay, I saw a lot of lag/clipping.

@Civ5: Playing just with wayne to do some wesnoth can take hours. Is there a mod that allows a sort of log in at various times and make moves thing in Civ?

[The Lord Kelvin]

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop
Top-down class based co-op campaign shooter.
Time/Game: 10-20 min
Players: 4 or 8 person squads (AIs eligible)

Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows® XP or above
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 4 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card


Recommended System Requirements:
OS: Windows® XP or above
Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 6 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Points of Interest:
- Free
- Steam Workshop Support
(aside from the main campaign, there's a bunch of user made campaigns we could play through)
- Somewhat team-play oriented
- The game is kind of dead since the game's been out for like 4-5 years and there's no real competitive aspect (pvp exists)
- There's only really campaign mode, so it'll be dead in our community once we've exhausted the content
- AIs suck (if you can't fill a team of 4 or 8), but you probably don't necessarily need them





Fortnite: Battle Royale
3rd person elimination shooter where a wall of death closes in on the map
Time/Game: 0-20 min
Players: squads up to 4

Minimum System Requirements:
Intel HD 4000
Core i3 2.4 Ghz
4 GB RAM
Windows 7/8/10 64-bit + Mac OSX Sierra

Recommended System Requirements:
Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 equivalent DX11 GPU
2 GB VRAM
Core i5 2.8 Ghz
8 GB RAM
Windows 7/8/10 64-bit

Points of Interest:
- Free
- Competitive
- Cross-Platform (PC/Mac/Linux/Xbox/PS4/IOS/Android)
- Little to no barrier to entry (skill) w/ high skill ceiling
- Constant stream of new content (mostly cosmetic & limited time game modes)
- No tutorial
- Fairly luck dependent (landing & first items)





Evolve Stage 2
4v1 asymmetrical class based strategic shooter/rpg hunting experience
Time/Game: 10-50 min (25-40 min in an evenly matched game)
Players: 5 players per match (AIs eligible)

Minimum System Requirements:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 / Athlon 64 X2 6400
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 / ATI Radeon HD 5770
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compliant Sound card

Recommended System Requirements:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Core i7-920 / A8-3870K
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 / ATI Radeon R9 280
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compliant Sound card

Points of Interest:
- Free
- Competitive
- Mechanically easy
- Heavily team-play oriented (hunter side)
- Steep learning curve to actually hunt as the hunters or evolve as the monster
(This is NOT a shooter game at it's core, though many confuse it as such and are left unsatisfied when they realize they aren't playing a COD rip-off)
- AI is ok, but doesn't present a challenge when one truly understands the game.
- Not enjoyable if players have too large of a skill difference
- The game is dead and no updates will come

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Assuming you didn't just copy paste the whole thing, color me impressed.

Evaluation - Alien Swarm Reactive Drop: Oh hell yes. Finite content's not an issue for me, we can do this and then pick our next thing.

Evaluation - Fortnite Battle Royale: Nope. I'm not too interested in this type of game, plus there's the v-man's performance issue. I might get on just for the Thanos game mode though.

[The Lord Kelvin]

regarding the performance issue from the v-man for fortnite:
According to Epic's released minimum and recommended specs, he should be able to run it just fine.
I personally believe his issue lies with having installed the incorrect drivers at some point (thus requiring him to uninstall all the graphics drivers he's installed before and reinstalling only the relevant ones).
It's a hassle to do manually, but it's easy to do with this software; unfortunately I don't think the v-man trusts it.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

Also regarding the evolve evaluation from earlier, the game should be able to run on everyone's computer, provided their graphics cards are all working correctly (see above).
The game is pretty dead, but it's not an issue assuming we play as 5 ppl.

[Interovegas]

I'm against evolve, when I played it was either awful for the people or for the monster. Also whoever plays the monster usually has to hop out of the voice chat so the other people can do comms. I'm guessing the F2P version is even more microtransaction laden than the B2P version.

[Kaede]

Something I'm probably going to be playing soon The legend of Pirates Online, a recreation of the Pirates of the Caribbean online game that Disney released ages ago. We could all be on one ship and play coop, and from what I remember was a pretty fun game.

Link: https://tlopo.com/

[Interovegas]

Sea of thieves is supposed to get those content updates rolling in next month or so.

[Kaede]

Only would recommend pirates online is because it is completely f2p with no microtransactions, subscriptions, or any kind of payment the player has to make with real money to play.

[The Lord Kelvin]

@Interovegas
Regarding the bad experience, that's what I meant by the game not being enjoyable if there's a large enough of a skill difference combined with the other point of the game being difficult to actually learn to play.
Your F2P assumptions are also entirely incorrect as there are literally no micro-transactions. They've even taken out the cosmetics shop that was in the base game.
The reason the game is dead is because they were afraid to put in micro-transactions to keep their game afloat after that launch situation where gamers were pissed that they implemented cosmetic micro-transactions in a paid game (even though that happens everywhere nowadays).

Regarding Sea of Thieves or Pirates Online,
I'd like to steer away from anything in which the core gameplay revolves around grinding.

[Interovegas]

Sea of Thieves is grinding the same way planetside or overwatch is. Since you don't yield any power from what you do it's entirely a repeat event situation, just like running another round of quick play in OW or going through another alert in PS2. Still in it's current form the game is mediocre.

[The Lord Kelvin]

PS2 and OW are competitive. The core gameplay revolves around beating your opponent.
In sea of thieves the game play revolves around grinding for loot just like with Destiny, but there's even less to do.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

I'm not sure what's going on here, it seems you guys both agree that we shouldn't do Sea of Thieves?

If we're just having an abstract discussion then I'd say grinding is a matter of perspective with these games. In Overwatch you might be fully invested in achieving a certain goal within the match you're currently in such as winning the match or supporting your team, so you wouldn't see this single game as grinding. But if your goal is some metagame thing, for example, getting to Diamond ranking, then each game you play to acquire the requisite ladder points could be seen as grinding.
In the same vein, if your only goal in life is to unlock the ASP prestige content in PS2 then everything you have to do before that would be seen as grinding. But if you just log on to shoot planetmans or improve your k/d you may not.

The thing is, you don't NEED to do things like get to Diamond league or unlock ASP before you can start playing the "real" game, so grinding isn't the core gameplay of PS2 and OW.

I don't know any details on Sea of Thieves so you're gonna have to fill me in here; is there equipment you can only acquire through a repetitive, unfun event that you NEED to have in order to play the "real" game? I want to make sure we all have the same definition of grinding here so if yours is different let me know.

[Interovegas]

There are only cosmetics unlocked through 'progression' of sea of thieves. The draw is killing other players but the system is setup keep a very specific and shitty density of players. I get bored of games like OW because it is exactly the same thing every time. It's no different from grifting in diablo, just you much u prefer FPS vs ARPG comes into account.

[The Lord Kelvin]

looking at the thread as a whole, the most positively received suggestions seem to be
- Terraria
- Minecraft
- Alien Swarm

Personally I'd push for alien swarm (I did suggest it after all).
What are people's thoughts on these?

Also noticed that the pokemon thing and pirates online suggestions were ignored and swept under.
Do we wanna discuss these at all?
Personally, I'm not into the whole grind thing, but I'm down to do whatever ppl wanna do.
The community aspect interests me more than gameplay here.

[Kaede]

I was just throwing stuff out there that I either played or are going to play, thats all i was doing.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

I get bored of games like OW because it is exactly the same thing every time. It's no different from grifting in diablo, just you much u prefer FPS vs ARPG comes into account.

You know, I think that's because OW was designed to be an esport from the start, and in sports you also do the "exact same thing" every time.

Anyway it looks like a definite no on Sea of Thieves, which I could have sworn was a ubisoft thing...

looking at the thread as a whole, the most positively received suggestions seem to be
- Terraria
- Minecraft
- Alien Swarm

Personally I'd push for alien swarm (I did suggest it after all).
What are people's thoughts on these?

Also noticed that the pokemon thing and pirates online suggestions were ignored and swept under.
Do we wanna discuss these at all?
Personally, I'm not into the whole grind thing, but I'm down to do whatever ppl wanna do.
The community aspect interests me more than gameplay here.

Three's enough to make a selection now, I'll be putting up a poll soon.

Pokemon Insurgence: Noope. I can't access the main website and there hasn't been any community activity for several months.

The Legend of Pirates Online: I'd be otherwise fine with it being an option as it meets the criteria (besides maybe player count) but you yourself said it has grinding?

Mario 64 Online, Mechwarrior, YGOPRO, assorted TCGs: Postponed.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Poll's up boyz, check the first page of this thread.

[Kaede]

I know I'm going to be the only one playing, but Conan Exiles just came from early access. Lets all get it and run around as naked men with huge dicks.

[Interovegas]

I know I'm going to be the only one playing, but Conan Exiles just came from early access. Lets all get it and run around as naked men with huge dicks.

If only. But it doesn't meet the economy standard for most of us. Also who has the time to play conan-ark nowadays!

[The Lord Kelvin]

[Lets] run around as naked men with huge dicks.

R u tryna say this isn't what we do IRL?
Guurrrlll, who do u think we r?

[Corenat Rovarnus]

will ya look at that its a tie between mein kraft and the swarm.

[Interovegas]

Personally I voted MC. Imo a dedicated server is a great community hub and with appropriate mods MC servers can offer a broad range of activities for members. Terraria would be my second. My biggest hesitation with Terraria is that the core appeal is server progression (reaching the final boss based on whatever content mod you have installed) and that people could miss sudden steps (e.g. the switch from regular to hardmode after killing wall of flesh).

I do love me some alien swarm, like when we played it years ago, but I also know its the kind of thing we blow through in a week or two. Once players get the methods down all but the highest difficulties become trivial.

[Kaede]

Well looks like it's a tie, how you going to break the tie.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Well certain people have said that they will not accept a coin flip to determine the result, so we'll be doing a re-vote without the least voted option, Terraria.