legend

I think this game is a victim of the fact that it's liked by people insisting that western devs are deliberately making female characters ugly and insisting that all women in games should look like super models. Those people suck, but I think it's making a lot of people hate on this game merely because it's liked by those people.

Just now, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

It may not necessarily be better than natural infection for those of us with normally-functioning immune systems, but it could make a significant difference for those who are severely immunocompromised as they will be better able to leverage their RNAi in a less risky manner than traditional vaccine solutions.

Oh for sure. It sounds like it's useful regardless. I'm specifically questioning just how "universal" it is though.

All I can figure is a natural infection won't result in the body ever producing the RNAi because the suppression from the virus lasts too long to allow the system to ever engage.

For clarity, here is the part of the article I'm referring to.

Quote

The new vaccine also uses a live, modified version of a virus. However, it does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins — which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system. Instead, this relies on small, silencing RNA molecules. 
 

“A host — a person, a mouse, anyone infected— will produce small interfering RNAs as an immune response to viral infection. These RNAi then knock down the virus,” said Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author. 

 

The reason viruses successfully cause disease is because they produce proteins that block a host’s RNAi response. “If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus. It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response,” Ding said. “A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system.”

38 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

The "universality" derives from its targeting of aspects of a virus's genome that are common to all strains of the virus which I presume isn't the case with current vaccines, hence the situation where vaccines are constantly playing "catch up" to the evolving viral strains.

 

I'd imagine that eventually those common aspects of the virus genomes would evolve to the point where a new version of the vaccine would be necessary, but I assume that rate of change is significantly slower than that for the aspects targeted by current vaccines.

How are they doing that though? It sounded to me like they are taking a live virus, but removing the part of its coding that allows the virus to suppress RNAi so that it's safe to infect people with it. And that because it's otherwise a full live virus, our immune system does a better job learning to fight it. That might still be better than what we do with vaccines today which are more targeted, but that would still wouldn't be better than immunity formed from a natural infection.

If they're doing something more than crippling a live virus, it's not coming across clearly to me.

21 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

It looks pretty action-y. I'm into that. If I ever finish Persona 5 maybe I'll give this a look. 

It's a hybrid. You fight the lower-level enemies in real time, and the higher-level ones in turn based. But I'm guessing you spend most of the combat in the turn-based.

This is 100% Persona in a fantasy world and I'm here for it.

If I'm following this, it would not be more effective than your eventual immune system if you were actually infected and recovered. Is that right?

If so, it's unclear to me just how "universal" this vaccine would be, because we  have instances of people getting sick with a different strain of COVID not very long after they recovered from a previous version. Sounds like it would be better than what we have, but I question the extent of how universal it is.

13 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I think on easy difficulty you don't have to harvest parts in any particular fashion. For instance, in the main quest I was supposed to kill a machine for parts but was told I needed to knock off a specific part before killing the machine to get it. BUT, you get a message that on easy and story difficulty you didn't have to worry about that. Just killing the machine was enough to harvest even he most specific parts. 

 

I can't comment on pc visuals but Burning Shores on PS5 is the best graphics to date. 

Ah okay. That does indeed make it easier!

11 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Yea, I never ever had the parts to upgrade to any significantly better weapons which was really annoying. I killed a bunch of robots too and salvaged the parts. 

FWIW, it's not enough to just kill enemies and harvest their parts. Some parts can only be retrieved from enemies in specific ways and you need to look at the bestiary to learn what those ways are. The really high-level gear often required components that needed those special conditions to retrieve.

11 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Boy, comparing Burning Shores to Zero Dawn is definitely a console generational leap technically. 

Yeah Burning Shores is gorgeous. There are few games that stand with it graphically. Maybe just Cyberpunk and Alan Wake on PC?

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

That said, IMHO there are too many systems in this game (and I have this complaint about a lot of recent RPGs).  Upgrading weapons requires specific animal parts, plus there is a skill tree, plus there is a valor "super mode", plus there is a variety of "special attacks" that you can choose for each weapon, plus there is food that gives you bonuses, plus there are traps...

Yeah I think my biggest issue is the weapon grind is a bit much. Games need to strike a balance between not handing you the best weapons without work and making sure you can get some of them in a normal playthrough. Getting the best fully upgraded gear swung too hard into a slog.

Otherwise, the game is great.

Not sure I have any interest in returning to F4. It was the weakest in the series IMO. Either that or I just didn't feel like it evolved enough.

But I might back back in for the London mod.

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

The Last Jedi

Well, there goes the thread  

I want DLC that get's rid of long cooldowns.

Maybe a PC mod someday?

25 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Yea I couldn't parry for the life of me. I agree that stamina is too low at the start. 

I got it to land once or twice but then just abandoned using it because dodging (assuming you had stamina!) was just so much more reliable. I'm trying to decide why it feels off. The best I can come up with is the animation does a poor job illustrating when your actual parry frames are.

Played a little. Very pretty. I'm getting a ton of audio stutter almost non-stop which isn't great. Hopefully they fix that soon.

I'm unsure how I feel about the combat so far. The parry timing feels weird to me and at level one your stamina is so fucking low that it makes it kind of unfun with how quickly you just can't do shit.

I've also never liked punishment for death, so taking degradation costs doesn't feel great. I'm all for games where they're hard and you die a lot, but punishing the player for it has always struck me as just out-right bad game design. It's possible that as the game goes on this will be fairly innocuous with sufficient repair materials, but I think games shouldn't even bother with it -- just don't make it a design element. I much prefer games that are hard but *encourage* you to keep trying rather than punish you for failing. E.g., Rogue Legacy 2.

Also, I'm kind of lost?  I guess I have to find a lever somewhere but the entire map is filled so I'm clearly overlooking some needle in a haystack. I don't think having quest markers for everything is great, but finding a missing item somewhere on the map isn't great either.

We'll see how this one develops.

45 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

I've never had so much 

  Hide contents

anxiety at the endgame of a video game before. I'm at the Temple of the Ancients and I managed to never find out what happens to Aerith, and I'm so worried about her.  

 

Not much long now!

2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

After months of being too intimidated to even start, I finally started playing. Only a few hours in I think I'm even more intimidated and lost. Hell, even this thread is too much for me to catch up on. I decided I wouldn't try and optimize everything and instead jump right in without worrying too much about screwing things up, but even with that attitude I can't help but feel the massive weight of this game. Even resting is a complicated decision! I clearly don't want to rest too much because of the ticking clock, but some spells need me to, which makes me more weary of using them, which compounds my other problems. Early leveling has way too many decision points, between choosing a subclass and being given a huge array of spells and skills to choose from, with basically no context for what what might be worth taking. I imagine much of this is more a complaint about D&D than BG3 specifically, but having to chose a subclass at level 2 is bonkers. I've barley even touched the game, haven't even used the majority of my abilities and now I'm making big (potentially irreversible?) decisions about the future. I'm trying not to worry about it too much and just pick things quickly, but it's hard not to think I'm handicapping myself or locking myself into some trap I don't even realize.

 

That second guessing is getting worse as I go along because I keep running into encounters and getting absolutely beat down. I'm not sure how much of it is poor setup choices, how much is just sucking at combat, and how much is the game telling me to find another way to avoid combat in those situations. I know I have a huge array of non-combat options, but I don't even know where to begin exploring them. I had to turn down the difficulty to easy because I kept getting my party wiped and I'm still firmly in the beginning section.

 

All that said, I can easily see why people love this game so much. The characters are already varied and interesting. It's great that I'm already making far more difficult and morally grey choices than in any game I've played in recent memory. There is so much freedom here in all the ways that I'm always asking for in games. I suppose I just wish wish I was being eased into this ocean of unlimited complexity instead of being tossed into the deep without knowing how to swim.

There isn't really a ticking clock game-play wise. There are maybe 3 times in the game where you need to be careful about doing something without sleeping and the game is usually clear about those moments by the characters saying if you spend too much time x will happen. Otherwise, just sleep whenever. Loot everything for camp supplies and send them to your stash.

Also make sure you use your short rests in between sleeping. You get two for every long rest. Depending on the class, short-rests can restore abilities and spell slots.

You can respec your entire class and ability assignments anytime you want once you find Withers. You can even respc party members into wholly different classes if you want to. It technically costs 100 gold to a do a respect but (1) that's not actually that much once you get going and (2) you can steal it back from Wither very easily with no penalty  

But yeah, it's a lot. DnD has a fuck ton of rules/abilities/spells and this game gives you them all  It's better to just play with abilities to learn it as you go. Don't be afraid to save scum a bit to give you a chance to experiment with different skills and abilities to figure out how they work. You can save anywhere in the middle of battle, so you can even save, try an ability you're not sure about, and then reload immediately after seeing what it does.

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

No Rest for the Wicked: the spectacular evolution of Moon Studios' graphics tech

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Digital Foundry talks about visual features and performance in No Rest for the Wicked on Early Access.

 

 

 

This sounds like it's impressively well engineered.

Not spending their time predominantly on new games doesn't mean they're not playing them. Multiplayer games can skew much older and will stay in a rotation for long time even while people buy and play new games.

I absolutely would not want to be whichever studio is forced to make this from a business deal their execs made looking for a quick buck while forcing them to make it under far shittier conditions than Larian's leadership.

The only hope I'd give to anyone is Obsidian helmed by Josh Sawyer, but I'm not sure he wants to do another DnD game and frankly I'd rather him explore his own ideas.

Watched a little, but I'll wait to play it!

I was a PC gamer both before and after Halo. I'd still place Halo 1/3 as top on my list for FPS campaigns. There are few games that have such diversity of tactics to explore.

I don't think COD4 would even crack the list for me. It was fun, but if it weren't for the fact that everyone keeps buy COD games, I would have forgotten about it by now.

Oh shit. This comes out for rent and purchase digitally tomorrow! 

8 minutes ago, NeoJoe said:

Dune Messiah has been confirmed. They already have a script.

 

 

Denis Villeneuve's third 'Dune' movie is officially happening

EW.COM

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Legendary confirmed that they are developing a third 'Dune' movie with Denis Villeneuve, fulfilling the director's dream of adapting Frank Herbert's novel 'Dune Messiah.'

 

Oh I happily already know that  I was just commenting that it feels like we need it!