So, what're you playing?

[Ingmar]

I stopped doing the World Tour thingie in Forza 4 on the 2nd or 3rd time through it and just started in on the Event List.  I'm 33% done!  And it only has taken 18 months!  God, I love the 1969 Dodge Challenger bumped up to B.  I am pretty much out of B events unfortunately.

I finally am giving EUIII a try after having gotten it on sale a while back.  Since I didn't want things to be too complicated, I picked the Inca to figure out everything in nice easy solitude.  And I think I'm getting the gist of it, but holy crap, it is boring.  I need the Spanish to show up and put me out of my misery.  I will have Government somethingsomething level 4 in about 1650, then I can go find them if they haven't found me first.

Also it is nothing like CK2 at all.  I hope EUIV has more of CK2's people-type stuff and less slider fiddling.

It's boring because you picked a country with no neighbors and no way to find any neighbors because their tech penalty is awful and they never get conquistadors or whatever to explore with. Stop playing that save and restart in Europe.

[proudft]

I get explorers at gov level 4!  Only 80 more years to go!

I was amusing myself by making colonies, as I would get 0.10 colonists a year when my trade center was on the coast.  But then it up and moved inland so no more colonists for now. :(

Also my inflation is like 28% or something.  Hooray for the gold standard!

[Ingmar]

I'm just saying, when you do what's basically the equivalent of playing El Salvador in a WW2 game you don't get to go HURR HURR THIS GAME IS BORING. You may still think it is boring if you play the game for 'real' but this isn't going to tell you anything really.

[proudft]

It lets me figure out all the slider/stability stuff without getting invaded, basically.  But now I'm curious what's been going on in Europe.

[Ingmar]

Lots and lots of bankruptcy probably!

[Sky]

That's how I took on EU2, playing the Iroquois. But then I also got bored. Tried Europe, but it's so overwhelming for a newbie.

[Ingmar]

If you want to see what's going on in Europe but not have too much to manage you could try one of the German minors (in either game).

For EU3, I have not vetted this extensively but it looks alright:

http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Newbie_Guide

In general that's a pretty decent wiki for both games.

[Ruvaldt]

Life as a German minor can be nasty, brutish and short.

I tend to play as Sweden when getting used to an EU game.  There isn't a ton to do early on, and you're surrounded by mostly friendly powers.  The mid-to-late game really opens up though and you can eventually do pretty much anything with them once you get used to the game.  I usually play with the goal of uniting Scandinavia.

[Ingmar]

Sweden starts as a vassal of Denmark in EU2 (assuming earliest start) which is pretty obnoxious and not something I'd suggest a new player start with. You do at least have something to do with your colonists.

If you feel ready to take on controlling a state with some actual power I like Austria as a starter option, you don't have to futz around with naval stuff or colonization, and it has a lot of events to keep things moving (in EU2/FtG).

[Rasix]

Skyrim. Loads of it. The Hearthfire stuff sounded ridiculous, until you get into the fact that it's geared right at crafting whores like me. You get to gather mats to build a house and decorate it with animals trophies. I mean, it's a pretty brilliant addition for $2.50, and I'm totally sidetracked from whatever the hell I was doing before.

This shit is evil.  I can't stop building and decorating my house.  Like I needed other stuff keeping me from trimming down my quest journal. 

[Ingmar]

I was saved by not being able to figure out what the stone quarry looks like or where it is next to the house I chose.

[MisterNoisy]

I stopped doing the World Tour thingie in Forza 4 on the 2nd or 3rd time through it and just started in on the Event List.  I'm 33% done!  And it only has taken 18 months!  God, I love the 1969 Dodge Challenger bumped up to B.  I am pretty much out of B events unfortunately.

Drop some more weight off it and fiddle a bit to bump it up to A, then - you've probably unlocked free mods for the car by now.  My favorite cars in FM4 are the Genesis Coupe or Scion FR-S at A600 or the VW Beetle or the 240SX at B500 - with some tweaking, they're all very controllable drift monsters.

You might want to give a look to Forza Horizon, too if you can find it cheap - almost all of the actual races are fairly short point to point or short circuit races.  My brother and I (I picked him up a copy from the MS online store when they were selling it for $15) are having a ball doing some of the co-op challenges and generally using it as a party chat client with racing in it.

[Chimpy]

S class GTI is probably my favorite. I just joined "the League of Legends" division (final career division). The cars I am getting as free buys now are all ridiculous, but it is fun to do 2-3 races depending on affinity bonus with each manufacturer to get free upgrades.

[MisterNoisy]

S class GTI is probably my favorite. I just joined "the League of Legends" division (final career division). The cars I am getting as free buys now are all ridiculous, but it is fun to do 2-3 races depending on affinity bonus with each manufacturer to get free upgrades.

GTI is terrible regardless of situation in FM4/FH.  FWD pig from hell (which does bolster the game's realism).

[Chimpy]

Stop making fun of my car! 

Though I will admit, the Golf R having AWD makes it better and the higher end German sport sedans made me forget my trusty GTI and move to other cars.

[Cyrrex]

I brushed off the PS2 a week or so ago, and let my ten year-old have a quick go at Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.  It gave me such a nostalgic rush that I had to run out and buy the 360 MGS HD Collection (comes with 2, 3 and Peacewalker.  You have to get used to the old control scheme again, but fuck they knew how to make games back then.  Really nice to see it in HD. 

[Ironwood]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

I get why (it's because they don't pay and are therefore parasites) but it's really really funny to wander into a Cantina and have the whole screen shout 'You are Poor And Worthless'.  Also, trying to open your Cargo area to find basically a credit card slot is also funny.  Then opening your mailbox to send something to see the same 'Sign Up' screen.  And then, the real fucking kicker, you're getting full bags (because you have no mechanism to do otherwise) and you find that you can't even trade items with your mate.  Because you're POOR.

It's a real laugh.

Also, large lightsabres hitting people.

[Chimpy]

So it is kinda like tourist areas of Scotland in its thinly veiled attempts to separate you from your money? 

[MisterNoisy]

Stop making fun of my car! 

Though I will admit, the Golf R having AWD makes it better and the higher end German sport sedans made me forget my trusty GTI and move to other cars.

I like the GTI as an 'actual' car, but racing it (or any other FWD car) in-game is pretty awful to me - you end up spending the whole time trying to fight understeer and have to trail-brake like a madman to get it to work.

[Paelos]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

My favorite was when you actually completed a quest, and you get a window that says, "Select your reward" with the choices blocked. You are then informed that only subcribers get quest item rewards.

[MisterNoisy]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

My favorite was when you actually completed a quest, and you get a window that says, "Select your reward" with the choices blocked. You are then informed that only subcribers get quest item rewards.

Oh wow.  That's hilarious.

[murdoc]

Dark Souls.

Had a successful night last night - killed the Capra Demon, two Black Knights, the Hydra and the Moonlight Butterfly. I've been avoiding the Depths, but figure I'll have to head down there soon.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

NBA 2K12 on PC - In the Finals in my second season as a scooring Small Forward on the Bucks. We are up 3 games to 1 on the Lakers. Started the Finals with Ellis injured for us and Bynum injured for the lakers. Both are playing in game 5.

Started Batman: Arkham Asylum after buying it for cheap on Steam. It's fun. I like the combat. I wish there were more places you could use your grapple though. I also bought Arkham City. I wanted to play them in order, although I already played the intro to City.

[Ironwood]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

My favorite was when you actually completed a quest, and you get a window that says, "Select your reward" with the choices blocked. You are then informed that only subcribers get quest item rewards.

Yes, that's also a good one.  To be honest, I could go on for hours about it.  Like when a massive epic purple dropped for me and it was cool as fuck until I found out I couldn't use it unless I got my credit card out.  So much awesome.

And, yes, the analogy of the Tourist Trap is exactly right.

Also, I have to ask :  Are there really 24 other devils advocates ?

[Lantyssa]

24?

[bhodi]

It's like they researched human psychology and determined the exact way to encourage people to spend money and then implemented the complete opposite. It's like that whole "Rested XP" versus "You have been playing too long, everything is half experience until tomorrow" penalty thing from WoW all over again, implementing it as a daily bonus instead of a penalty. It's the exact same system but the framing is completely different. The framing of the 'free to play' portion sounds like it was done extremely poorly.

[Ingmar]

Every indication is that they're making money hand over fist with the way they did it. Just the sheer amount of stuff from the random cartel packs that shows up on the GTN indicates a lot of money is being spent on Cartel points. Some Bioware Austin guy posted in a Lum blog comment that he wants to dance every time he sees their numbers now, too. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal but it appears to be very, very healthy now.

EDIT: Perhaps also worth noting that I'm still logging in to see multiple fleet instances every night, which in the past rarely lasted more than a few days past a big change or merge or whatever.

[bhodi]

Sony claimed that Playstation Home sold millions of dollars worth of FULL PRICED VIRTUAL CLOTHES so people could STAND IN LINE WAITING FOR A BOWLING MINIGAME. Literally implementing ANYTHING will get you some money from a group of people.

Consider the game is still in the 'fresh and new' cycle. Let's look how things are in 6 months. Even a botched implementation buys an extra year's worth of operating funds, based only on the people who relog to try it out and stick around for a month or two.

[Ironwood]

All I know is I giggle every time I try to have a conversation in chat.  It goes something like this :

"Hey, anyone know where the foozle is?"
"Yeah mate, it's over there."
Ironwood types "thanks" only to be told :  YOU CAN'T TALK ANYMORE PEON.  YOU HAVEN'T PAID TO TALK.  SHUT YOUR FILTHY POOR PARASITIC MOUTH.

That ones gold.

[Paelos]

I also like, "Hey that's a pretty fancy purple you found there peon. Nice and shiny. Man, you are lucky. NOW PAY US SO YOU CAN WEAR IT! YOU CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS EVEN THOUGH YOU HOLD NICE THINGS."

[naum]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

My favorite was when you actually completed a quest, and you get a window that says, "Select your reward" with the choices blocked. You are then informed that only subcribers get quest item rewards.

Yes, that's also a good one.  To be honest, I could go on for hours about it.  Like when a massive epic purple dropped for me and it was cool as fuck until I found out I couldn't use it unless I got my credit card out.  So much awesome.

And, yes, the analogy of the Tourist Trap is exactly right.

Also, I have to ask :  Are there really 24 other devils advocates ?

You'd have to possess a mighty masochistic thread to endure much of that.

[Hammond]

Finished Far Cry 3 and boy the comments about the story line were true.  One of the funner games mechanic wise but the story was just downright terrible.

Next up is to finish borderlands 2 then maybe finally trying to finish Sword of Stars 2 since it is considered "stable".

[Sky]

PEON SLAVE

FIFY

  SI

[Sjofn]

I love that dude. I'm supposed to hate him, but the way he rolls "sssssssssssslave" around in his mouth and his hard-on for hating me turned him all weirdly endearing to me.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

I'm playing SWTOR and it's fairly frigging awful, but it's free and it's a genuine laugh to see how the treat the 'peasants' who don't pay.

Hint :  Not well.

My favorite was when you actually completed a quest, and you get a window that says, "Select your reward" with the choices blocked. You are then informed that only subcribers get quest item rewards.

Yes, that's also a good one.  To be honest, I could go on for hours about it.  Like when a massive epic purple dropped for me and it was cool as fuck until I found out I couldn't use it unless I got my credit card out.  So much awesome.

And, yes, the analogy of the Tourist Trap is exactly right.

Also, I have to ask :  Are there really 24 other devils advocates ?

Haha, no, not on here. It's actually my yahoo name, since there apparently are at least 23 more there. I also own DevilsAdvocate on here, but forgot the password and couldn't get the recovery e-mail at work.