StaceyPowers

If you have a significant backlog, what is the oldest game in it that you have been waiting to play for the longest time, but just haven’t gotten around to? Have you ever waited so long to play a game that by the time you could get to it, you no longer had a compatible system?

Are there any game series you wish would be resurrected? If I were to pick one series to get new instalments which has been gone for a long time, it would probably be Zork. I suspect though that Zork’s sense of humor might not translate to current times.

Has anyone been playing The Division 2? If so, how is it, and how does it compare to the original if you played that as well?

aww, not the mudcrabs. They're too cute to kill.

If you had the chance to spend a day in any location in any video game world, where would you pick, and why? Note that this may not be the same as you would answer in terms of where you would live in a video game world. You could have other reasons to visit. Like I would pick Columbia to visit because I find the place and the person who made it fascinating, and because I would like to meet the Luteces. But I sure as heck wouldn’t want to live there.

What is the single longest span of consecutive time you spent playing a video game without taking breaks for more than food/water/bathroom trips? What game?

Are there any specific games that you wish had been made by another developer? If so, which developer, and why? Personally, I wish Obsidian had made the other Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, because they did such an amazing job on New Vegas. They put a lot of nuance into the characters and factions, and I also liked how they handled skill distribution.

To anyone here who has participated in a professional esports competition, what was the experience like?

Has anyone here ever been a gaming addict? I’m using the term specifically, not generally, like … your dedication to gaming being so intense that it overwhelmed other aspects of your life. Like, I knew a person who wouldn’t get up from his couch to shop for supplies in a brief window during a natural disaster because he really, really wanted to achieve some objective in an online game. I’m looking for stories like that.

Does anyone fondly recollect educational games from their childhoods? I recall as a little kid being hooked on a series of games called “Math Blasters” on PC. There were some cool science games as well, but I have no idea anymore what they were called. I think one could argue that almost any game can be educational in one respect or another. But in this case, I am referring specifically to games which were designed with education as their key purpose.

How many games are in your backlog right now? What’s the oldest game that is still in your backlog?

Do you play games on one or more platforms? How many, and which ones?

I notice that HP Lovecraft stuff is … everywhere, these days, especially in gaming. It’s a bit odd for me since I still remember back in high school when I was reading his stories and like two other people even knew what I was talking about if I mentioned anything from his universe. Apparently his work entered the public domain in 2008, so that’s probably why he’s (finally) become a household name. What Lovecraft-themed games do people here recommend, whether recent or older, on any platform? I’d particularly like suggestions from folks who have read his stories.

What specific elements would you like to see improved in the next Elder Scrolls game? For me: Consider fixing the awful physics (not going to happen, but it had to be said). Please make it possible to call followers who have wandered off/gotten stuck, instead of making us go search for them. It would be nice if you can “detach” from a horse so that it won’t always appear when you fast travel. I’d like to be able to arrange items in my house without them constantly flipping upside down. Why do they do that? A more complex set of factions like in Fallout NV would be good. More depth to followers with more follower-specific quests would be great, even if that means fewer follower options. Being able to marry or make any follower a steward would be an improvement. So would being able to change followers’/family members’ attire. I’d like to be able to donate more than 1 gold to poor people. What would you like Elder Scrolls 6 to fix?

I used to play MUDs, where there was a strong emphasis on player interaction. In fact, it was by far the central feature of most MUDs I played. The games revolved around the politics and relationships between players, and the world was transformed through how those relationships played out. I haven’t played any of the big modern MMOs, but I’ve heard that there is very little player interaction in most of them, aside from PVP or teaming up to grind. For me, that sounds incredibly dull, and worse, I’d just get annoyed that there were other people in the game. I suppose I’m a bit “all or nothing” on interaction. If I’m not going to have meaningful interactions with players, I’d druthers they simply weren’t present. I'd feel they would only add elements of chaos to my experience without providing me with value. What about you? Do you prefer moderate, heavy, or little interaction in online games?

Sometimes I see people who prefer open world games where you get free rein over a lot of decisions say that they can’t get into games which are written with tighter narratives and less or no player choice. Personally, I like both formats for different reasons, and both seem immersive to me. They just rely on different mechanisms to get the player emotionally involved. Where do you weigh in?

Gaming taught me how to type super fast. It's also taught me some social skills.

I swear like once a day I see at least one person online complaining about “just another zombie game” with reference to one game or another. I can understand getting sick of a trend that’s been played to death, but I largely don’t have a problem with it. First of all, I really don’t care that much about a game’s subject or universe as much as I care about simply getting a great story or characters or overall experience. Secondly, I can understand why our current culture is obsessed with zombies with reference to aspects of modern life as well as 20th and 21st century history. Given events of those timeframes, it is hard to visualize an idealized future. The closest thing to “optimism” we have in some ways is such a genre, where the world goes to sh*t, but a few individuals manage to retain their humanity. What are your thoughts on the deluge of zombie games, TV, etc?

Who here pre-orders games? If you do pre-order, do you usually get standard game editions, or do you opt for the premium editions which come with all the extras?

Have you ever received a ban in a video game? Was it temporary or permanent? What happened, and how did you resolve it?

I have a Windows laptop and a PS3, so I have products from both Microsoft and Sony, but … suffice to say I’m a fan of neither company. Microsoft upsets me by obsessively trying to turn things into subscription services and force updates, and Sony upsets me by resisting cross-play and backwards compatibility. But what is a person to do? There really are not a lot of choices for computing or gaming. Which of these two companies do you think is the worst?

Do you buy DLC for games? If so, do you do it as a rule, or only some of the time? If the latter, what makes you decide to go for a DLC purchase versus passing it over? I often feel like a game is flat-out incomplete without its DLC. I hate missing out on any added bits of the story or info about the characters and world that I love. At the same time, I admit it drives me crazy when I buy a used game for $5, and wind up spending $40 on digital content. I wish that DLC would drop in price over the years a bit. I have actually spent way more money on DLC than I have on main game content. I feel so angry when I realize I missed out on a Game of the Year edition :/

I've heard people complain about the lack of choices in Bioshock Infinite in this regard, but to me that increased my empathy with the characters, who were trying to change the outcome of bad choices made in events preceding the game, but who were in many respects trapped by those choices during the game.

Those of you who enjoy Bioshock games, which plasmids and vigors do you use the most? Which do you use the least/never? In Infinite, I used the Murder of Crows one the most, and Undertow after I got it. So far in Bioshock 1 (first playthrough), I’ve mostly been using the electricity one.

Gaming for a living?