So, what're you playing?

[Ironwood]

I never managed to complete (or even get close) to The Witcher.

Hardware problems, time and loss of saved games meant I had to restart 3 times and, frankly, the start is brutally boring to replay.

[Lun]

So, the first chapter is awful. Reading your comments, so are chapters 4 and 5. That makes me wonder why is this game "the best RPG in the last few years"? Oh, and I got Witcher 2 next in line of games to be played

Ah well, I can always go back to PS:T 

[Paelos]

Chapter 2 and 3 are really good. Like stunningly good storytelling and atmosphere for a game.

It's just sandwiched between a really meh opening, and a really REALLY stupid diversionary chapter before you get to an ending that makes no sense.

[Ironwood]

I think it was mostly the tits.

[Sky]

I think it was mostly the tits.

I was surprised how much of a motivator they were.

Well, I guess not. Brilliant achievement system. Worked in Mafia 2, as well.

[Paelos]

Funny how RL motivations also work in games.

[Sand]

playing DDO this week.
Needed to get back into the MMO frame of mine prior to SWTOR coming out.

[Kail]

Just finished Sequence, which I enjoyed the hell out of up until the penultimate boss fight.
Finished the Deus Ex DLC, somehow didn't get the one difficult achievement and not sure how I missed it, too frustrated to go back and try again.
Finally got a successful run through Space Marine's co-op mode, and kinda ran out of motivation to play it anymore, but that was fun while it lasted, too.
Rage still no worky, I'm wondering if a reinstall would help or if I'm gonna have to ice it until I get a new computer.

Angsting over deciding if I should get the new Sonic game or not.  I'm not sure about it.  I haven't watched any reviews because I'm worried that they'll say it's bad.  I'm sure SEGA will stop hitting me if I love it enough.
Saint's Row looks nice, but I'm so short on cash right now I'll probably have to put it off 'till december at the earliest.
Just downloaded Portal 2, so I'll see how that goes.

[Kageru]

I played some Rift and agree with those saying it fails to addict. The abilities and combat felt very generic, the mix and match sub-class selection just ends up feeling colorless and the backstory / world are hopelessly generic. The only part I really liked are some of the costumes and character models are quite nice looking after wow. But then CoH looks quite nice after WoW which is sort of terrifying.
 

[Paelos]

Minecraft server. And Dungeon Defenders.

[Viin]

I played some Rift and agree with those saying it fails to addict. The abilities and combat felt very generic, the mix and match sub-class selection just ends up feeling colorless and the backstory / world are hopelessly generic. The only part I really liked are some of the costumes and character models are quite nice looking after wow. But then CoH looks quite nice after WoW which is sort of terrifying.
 

I'd be interested to know if anyone can put their finger on what exactly is so bland about Rift. It has a lot of great elements and good art, etc. It's just missing something. What? Soul?

[Sky]

I disagree with Kag a bit, I found the souls and the combat to be pretty wicked, and the armor and models to be pretty bleh.

[Evildrider]

I don't know what it was about Rift but it couldn't hook me in any way.  I'll usually give an MMO a couple months but after 2 weeks I'd be like I'll go play Rift and end up changing my mind and booting up WoW.

The world/story was uninteresting to me, that was probably the biggest turnoff.  The combat was fine, no real bitches there, but I didn't really dig the soul system very much.  Other than that it looked nice and all that.  I don't know what it was really that made it so unappealing.

[Kageru]

I honestly can't work out why rift doesn't excite. It's really competently done, there's not that many post-WoW mmo's that weren't deeply flawed... I honestly wonder if it's just genre staleness rather than some specific fault in Rift. It could be because since I'm not interested in raiding, and the rest of the content is a questing on rails, it makes you wonder if it's worth getting on the train in the first place. The "rift" mechanic as well ended up feeling pretty samey, humans are just too good at seeing through the repetition.

I prefer a class design in which the class has a clear identity and role. Rift has so many classes that a lot of them lack individuality, don't synergise well (for example bard sitting all alone in the rogue tree) and are going to be balance nightmares, doubly so once combinations are considered. Having a fighter role in the rogue tree or a healer role in the mage tree just muddies things further. And it makes the early wow error of having a lot of abilities that are dull (+1% to X) but will probably prove to be vital once the spreadsheets are out.

The interesting synergies buried within the talent tree's should have been the classes. And there should only be as many classes as there are interesting mechanical variations on a role.

I'm also playing oblivion, the game about building shaky towers of mods and seeing if you can make a fun game before the tower collapses. Oscuro being one and it's sort of kicking my ass. That said sneaking through dungeons, and a sort of sandbox approach to it, is sort of nice after being so directed in MMO's.

[Threash]

I gave a friend the code for a free copy of Rift they gave out a while back, he played about a week.  Afterwards he told me Rift was better than WoW but WoW had one thing Rift lacked: his six lvl 85 geared characters.

[Ingmar]

I honestly can't work out why rift doesn't excite. It's really competently done, there's not that many post-WoW mmo's that weren't deeply flawed... I honestly wonder if it's just genre staleness rather than some specific fault in Rift. It could be because since I'm not interested in raiding, and the rest of the content is a questing on rails, it makes you wonder if it's worth getting on the train in the first place. The "rift" mechanic as well ended up feeling pretty samey, humans are just too good at seeing through the repetition.

I prefer a class design in which the class has a clear identity and role. Rift has so many classes that a lot of them lack individuality, don't synergise well (for example bard sitting all alone in the rogue tree) and are going to be balance nightmares, doubly so once combinations are considered. Having a fighter role in the rogue tree or a healer role in the mage tree just muddies things further. And it makes the early wow error of having a lot of abilities that are dull (+1% to X) but will probably prove to be vital once the spreadsheets are out.

The interesting synergies buried within the talent tree's should have been the classes. And there should only be as many classes as there are interesting mechanical variations on a role.

For me it was the complete and utter lack of anything resembling flavor. It was extremely competent mechanically, but from a world standpoint it might as well have come in one of those generic brand yellow boxes from the 80s with MMO stamped on the side. The game didn't have a shred of personality. Given that it would have had to be a revolutionary leap in gameplay for me to keep playing it, and it really wasn't.

[Azazel]

I'd be interested to know if anyone can put their finger on what exactly is so bland about Rift. It has a lot of great elements and good art, etc. It's just missing something. What? Soul?

I dunno. I never tried it, but when it was on that steam sale ($7?) I watched a couple of hours of footage and reviews etc on youtube. To me it just looked really similar to WoW in some ways, but also not as good looking as LOTRO in others. I mean, as someone with an (inactive) WoW account and a lifetime sub to LotRO, Rift just looked too similar to both and yet generic to bother with.

WoW has smooth, fast gameplay (note I mostly just take my time questing) amusing LOLore, and nifty cinemas and such scattered through it, and still looks good to me, as I'm a fan of the art style. LotRO is much more clunky mechanically, but, you know. Middle Earth. Plus it looks gorgeous.

Rift looked to me like the bastard child of both, and as Ingmar said, lacking in personality. Generic Fantasy World.

[Azazel]

I gave a friend the code for a free copy of Rift they gave out a while back, he played about a week.  Afterwards he told me Rift was better than WoW but WoW had one thing Rift lacked: his six lvl 85 geared characters.

Also this. I couldn't be arsed starting again-again.

[trias_e]

Alpha Protocol.  Well into my 2nd playthrough.  Game is fantastic, despite the mediocre combat.  Just pretend stealth doesn't exist and it's awesome.  Definitely one of my favorite RPGs, and a big achievement in letting player choice have a legitimate impact in the game in this era.

[Rokal]

I really liked the soul system once I got into it, but for the first few levels it didn't work too well. This is most obvious if you play a warrior, since the basic abilities you get for each tree don't synergize at all. As a dps warrior I might want to throw some points into a defense/support tree, but I have no use for +threat attacks that the game throws at me as soon as I pick the tree. My experience with rogues and clerics was much better.

Bard synergizes well with the ranged souls in pretty obvious ways, but it also synergized with melee souls oddly enough. I would open from stealth with the stun (nightblade), use the combo point builder from bard while the mob was stunned, and then I'd throw an axe (nightblade) before the enemy reached me. This gave me 5 combo points before the fight even began.

It's a really specific example, but my point is that the class synergy gets better as you level. The spells you get at level 1 in each soul don't necessarily synergize well, they're just basic abilities to make sure you can deal damage and complete the first couple quests regardless of which soul you pick.

As for the setting, I thought it was pretty bland the first time I played it. I started playing again ~2 months ago and I had a much easier time getting into the game and enjoying the setting. I can't really explain why. Part of it was taking my time, and finding goals in zones (achievements, rifts) outside of the questing experience which is pretty generic. I'd suggest trying those sorts of goals the next time you play, since Rift's strengths lie outside of questing.

[ezrast]

The Binding of Isaac from the latest Humble Bundle is quirky, inspired, and fun. It's a roguelike mixed with an arcade shooter mixed with a dungeon from Zelda 3. I only wish it were a bit deeper.

[Count Nerfedalot]

Rift was too much like WoW to offer much to those bored by or otherwise not interested in WoW, and too small (races, classes, starting cities, stories/lore, places to go, things to kill, non-combat things to do, etc.) compared to WoW to choose it over WoW if the DIKU-RPG game still holds any interest for you. 

On top of that, it largely lacked "Immersion".  The lore was drek with both factions being totally unappealing to identify with.  The world was humorless and the NPCs too annoying to care about.  Your character was too mutable to really identify with.  What few things there were to do in the game outside of combat were far more hassle than pleasure (crafting, auction house, puzzles, collections, armor dyes, and - that's pretty much it as far as I can recall).  And combat was pretty much limited to grind the next boring quest, deal with a pug in a dungeon, join a rift zerg, or PvP if you are so inclined, all limited to the one or two zones suitable for your level.

Combat, being 90+% of the game, required far more skill/google-fu to prepare for (skill selection, macros, toolbars, etc) than it took in actual combat, yet the face-rolling required was too interactive to allow socializing time.  Combat never felt heroic, either against the plainest mobs in the countryside or the baddest boss in a rift or dungeon.  I can't recall much in the way of real get-out-of-jail-free abilities you could use to pull your party's ass out of the fire if things went pear-shaped, so you never got to feel like a hero even to your own friends, just a heel if you screwed up or failed to do all the "right" things perfectly ("right" including character skill selection of course!).

Other than that, I think it was largely just a technically well-implemented game that was about 5 years too late in coming.  The world is not the place it was when WoW was fresh, and a game that would probably have competed quite well with WoW back then (although it still would have been in second place for all the above reasons) just isn't that interesting to the surviving inhabitants of the world post Great Recession and all.

[Llyse]

Blood bowl, and Terraria is a wonderful game with a couple of good friends to play with.

I can see getting bored with it once you get enough good items and explored most of the areas but dropping in every couple of months when they release new content is definitely going to happen as well

[jakonovski]

I'm still mostly raging at LoL and shaking my head at suffering three casualties on the first turn in Blood Bowl (total went up to 6, plus 4 dudes KO'd. I lost), but in brief moments of sanity I've played Bastion. It is the best RPG experience since ME2.

[Tebonas]

Scratched my Retro RPG itch with Eschalon Book 1, and since Eschalon Book 2 is buggy and doesn't run on my Windows 7 machine, I might just power through Deus Ex Human Revolution the next few days.

Maybe install Bastion and take a look if its as good as everybody says.

[Sky]

Waiting for the viking invasion, I don't want to jump into anything too deep.

Played some Metro 2033, but ffs stop making me walk around camp and do rpg stuff. Normally I like that stuff, but I just want to shoot stuff. Will probably re-install Crysis for that, I guess.

Started the Back to the Future series, enjoying the writing and style, some great nods to the series. Also gets quite infuriating because it's one of those 'guess the exact way the devs want you to do this' kinda deals. Drove me buggy when I had to run an unskippable sequence four times in a row....two different sequences. Still, mostly fun and I love the BttF stuff and Chris Lloyd, so it surmounts my usual "next!" reaction.

And minecraft, of course.

[tgr]

and since Eschalon Book 2 is buggy and doesn't run on my Windows 7 machine

Buggy how? Ran fine here, so any clues as to what might be the culprit?

[Tebonas]

Damned if I know. It just says Exception_Access_Violation as soon as I try to start it. Google tells me I should start the game in Administrator mode. I just installed Geneforge instead and hope for the future  

Edit: Deinstalled and Reinstalled it, and now it works. Just in case somebody else runs into that problem.

[Malakili]

League of Legends, Tribes: Ascend beta.  Enjoying both greatly.

[Engels]

Playing Payday: The Heist. Last night 3 pals and I finished the Diamond Heist on Overkill, also stealing the red diamond. Yet we STILL haven't managed the Slaughterhouse on plain ole 'Hard' setting. That map is just insanity.

[Azazel]

Playing bits and pieces of SP Space Marine - decent but nothing special gameplay-wise and MP Space marine - actually pretty average, but I'm sadly a sad case for 40k. I think I'm mostly playing it because it's right there on Steam, so it's easy to boot up.

Also some Dead to Rights: Subtitle on 360, which is a passable way to spend time, though not exactly a good use of it.

And a couple sessions of LotRO on the weekends.

[ghost]

I introduced the boy (3 years old) to Lego Pirates of the Caribbean today.  This has been an interesting experience, to say the least.  

Playing bits and pieces of SP Space Marine - decent but nothing special gameplay-wise and MP Space marine - actually pretty average, but I'm sadly a sad case for 40k. I think I'm mostly playing it because it's right there on Steam, so it's easy to boot up.

I've had a really hard time enjoying this.  It's fairly bland.

[PalmTrees]

Finished planescape:torment. Had always heard good things about its story. Must've been collective nostalgia. Found it average at best.

[Tebonas]

You had your chance Eschalon and Geneforge.

If Skyrim turns out like Fallout, there will be no one beside it for the next couple weeks, sorry!

[Minvaren]

DCUO, mainly.  Can see where it's going to get shallow before long, but it'll easily get a few weeks out of me.

Also a bit of time here and there in the EnB emu - trying to get a character to OL 150 for once (plod plod plod).

Plus RB3 - they unlocked "Black Hole Sun" and "Dani California" from RB1 if you imported to RB3 via a recent patch.  At least "Dani California" isn't as annoying to play as "Snow"...