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NGDBSS posted:Let's Play Dark Souls II, NG+! ... For whatever reason no one's really shown off NG+ gameplay on Dark Souls I or II, where enemies are more dangerous to compensate for your character being all-around competent at everything. Yeah, that's a good point. Especially in DS2, with the new phantoms and having more variety in the early game. I think the main issue is that difficulty scaling goes pretty much completely out the window after a New Game. On one hand, early enemies and bosses are no match for a decent build with +10 gear, while lategame ones can be insane (like 4 Kings); on the other each iteration improves the enemies less to make up to the fact that stats still have diminishing returns and thus you get relatively weaker and weaker and can't do anything about it. I think a "controlled" NG+ LP (like for DS2, maybe cycle 2 starting at level 100 or something) would be neat, though. Speaking of SL, you might want to post your build. I can tell with that giant stack of lightning spears you have 50+ Attunement, but casual fans might not. I'd also fast-forward or just cut things like Cale's dialogue (maybe let each line play for a second or two and then skip); like you said the main draw is the gameplay and showing off new enemies, all the NPC stuff is the same.
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Jan 4, 2016 00:19
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Hey, folks. Don't plan on making a habit of this, but I thought I'd share the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night stream my brother and I have just started on our channel. Kinda rare we play a fairly popular game that hasn't been covered in awhile (unlike all the Dark Souls threads going on right now  ). It's a Luck/Thief Mode run and also doing everything  Planning on updating once a day or every two, since we stream it once a week and you can get about 4 40/45 minute episodes out of that. I can cut them shorter too if you'd prefer that. Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 01
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Jan 26, 2016 20:16
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nine-gear crow posted:And within 10 minutes of that ending, we watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmNdbdSCuC4  Had no idea this existed! And you gotta love Wikipedia's classic understatement, "a television pilot was created for a Bubsy cartoon show based on the video game series, though it was not picked up to be turned into a full-fledged series." You don't say....Almost feeline bad for interrupting Bubsychat, but....  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 02 "" "" 03
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Jan 29, 2016 21:11
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Well, that's the coolest thing I've seen in awhile! End of the first stream. I'm definitely flagging, so the Coliseum doesn't go as well as it probably should....  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 04And this is the first one of part 2 (worth watching if you've 1) never seen the Medusa Shield, or 2) want to see the Olrox fight when the guy playing is seriously not ready for it  ). "" "" 05
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Feb 2, 2016 05:56
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LogicalFallacy posted:Haven't watched any of this SotN LP yet, but out of curiosity, would a "Let's Break the poo poo out of SotN" LP be at all redundant to what you're doing good sir? Not at all! I know of most of the tricks and sequence breaks in SotN, but haven't done any of it. In fact, during the Christmas stream when this all started, one of the goons asked if I was going to do "the Coliseum skip," and I was like, "Uh... ".In this part, I die horribly to Richter, but even more embarrassingly; don't chump Karasuman...  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 06
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Feb 3, 2016 17:34
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LogicalFallacy posted:Mostly I was thinking of demonstrating how to make this the absolute easiest Castlevania game ever. (early jewel knuckles on a luck run, effing sword brothers, Muramasa or whatever the ridiculously broken endgame sword is called) Ahh, yeah, that'd be cool. The goons did point me to the Jewel Knuckles, but I only used them to get past the Doppelganger without having to grind or spam Dark Metamorphosis (since I did the latter in the Christmas series and most of them already saw that, heh). But really, even if there is overlap with what you have in mind, this is the Casual thread,  !I had to work extra today, so I just now got back home in time to post this update and start streaming (which'll be SOTN, so if you see this in the next, oh, 10 minutes to 2 hours , feel free to stop by). This one is exploration stuff, and trying out the Gravity Boots and other things.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 07
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Feb 5, 2016 03:01
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LogicalFallacy posted:In case you hadn't noticed from the one video I've got up in this thread already, I have no clue what I'm doing and lack the LP skill or know-how at the moment to put out anything decent. Nope, hadn't even seen it, and it was like 2 posts above me.  I'll take a look next time I've got some time, though!And speaking of, time's been the issue here, had a really busy week last week. This closes out the second stream, I'll try to resume the update pace next time. Gotta remember to include the Heaven Swords get I grabbed with Shadowplay. More exploration, but the chat leads me to stuff I'd never seen before, like going through the rock tunnel in the merman room with the animal forms. Who comes up with this stuff?!  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 08And then it's time for everyone's favorite topless demon boss fight. I somehow manage to almost lose. Also, does anyone irrationally love certain weapons that mechanically aren't that great? The Estoc is very limited (it has two moves, one jumping and one on the ground), yet I have to use it at least a little bit. "" "" 09
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Feb 8, 2016 22:03
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At least one article seemed to think it's a reference to Shiva (much like Padme = Padma, also Hindu), but... yeah. Wouldn't be surprised if someone at Del Rey ran his name through the "Star Wars-izer" and that's what it spat out. Part 3 of the Castlevania stream begins! Aside from the fun of trying out new weapons, this one really shows how good the pacing of SotN is: just as I'm starting to get bored with the Metroidvania parts, it's about time to "beat the game." Also included as promised, the Heaven Swords farming run.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 10
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Feb 9, 2016 23:15
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Double update again today since this has been another busy week. This is the midpoint of the 3rd stream, pretty much wrapping up the normal Castle. I guess the localization team couldn't figure out "Alraune"? Regardless, lady monsters are ominpresent in folklore and it's always been funny to me.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 11The description in this video pretty much says it all, isn't Legion/"Granfaloon" one of the coolest boss fights in this series? ...and isn't Axelord Armor one of the most disappointing things?   '' '' 12
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Feb 13, 2016 00:27
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Another busy weekend, argh. Whether you all had a good one or not, hope some more Castlevania will make you feel better, or at least feel better about your skills. We finally wrap up stream 3 and the regular Castle. Dark damage is pretty hilarious overkill against poor Richter.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 13And now for the start of the Inverse Castle. Presumably urging me on toward the chance of getting the Crissaegrim and whatnot, the chat leads me to the Inverted Chapel, but that doesn't go so well!  '' '' 14If you're wanting to see more rare weapons, well, you can of course watch this thread , but I'll be streaming here in about 2 hours, and I farmed all the weapons available in the Inverted Coliseum/Olrox parts and will be taking requests to show stuff off.And finally, Ben's been leaning on me to not forget his work, so if you want to see a full playthrough of Hatoful Boyfriend, the whole playlist is now up. If you're bird-curious, well, we won't judge.
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Feb 17, 2016 01:16
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mikeycp posted:Sorry to double post, but it's time to throw up the next episodes of Myst. This time I have the first lore video too (It's just me reading the books). I hope y'all enjoy. I'll take a look at it later if I can get over my Myst PTSD, played it on Mac when it first came out back in the 90s and wanted so badly to like it and just couldn't. How's "RealMyst" different from the originals? Actually working on modern hardware?Anyway, thanks for reminding me this thread existed, I uploaded the next Castlevania videos back on February 20, got sidetracked by ISP problems, and then totally lost track of this. Here we are! We go to the Coliseum instead of the Chapel this time, and it goes much better. Definitely feels like you're supposed to go up first, I imagine the Coliseum would actually be pretty hard if you actually fight it normally, heh. And as mentioned in the YT description, this thumbnail is purely a gimmick to see how many swords I can fit on screen at a time.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 15And this is the rest of the level plus the boss fight. I got a tip about what happens if you kill "Sypha" last, definitely glad we did!  '' '' 16What's so bad about Dawn of Souls, since some of you were talking about that last time? I played the NES 'vanias, SotN, PoR, and Dracula X Chronicles, but those've been it.
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Mar 10, 2016 01:26
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Everybody posted:stuff about Castlevania Got it, thanks. And yeah, Dawn of Sorrows, not Souls. Too much Dark Souls lately I think. I liked Portrait of Ruin, but not enough to really want to play more games in the series; it'd have to be something special like SotN was. And it's funny, I did think about getting Ecclesia, but I saw an LP of it and wasn't too keen on the story. And yeah, I definitely feel you guys on the last couple replies. I remark in an upcoming video that it's really disappointing so many cool weapons and armor are relegated so late in the game when you don't really get a chance to use it. Why not put one of the "wind slashes" katana in the first castle, so the Yatsutsuna feels like a real upgrade when you get it? Instead you farm it and the Masamune from literally adjacent areas. And with the grinding leading up to the finale this Tuesday, I've officially spent more time farming than I have playing to get a copy of most of the unique weapons, and that's with the challenge mode designed around getting those drops. Time for the end of another stream, where we stomp a mummy (it's so disappointing how little damage that crazy grab does) and dress Alucard like a watermelon.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 17And starting stream #5. Proving to be a darn fool incapable of learning, I get destroyed by one of the golden sentinel dudes in the gallery again, and decide to take on a more manageable foe: the 50' foot tall maggot-infested demon hung up on meat hooks. Castlevania!  '' '' 18
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Mar 12, 2016 02:50
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mikeycp posted:It's...I have feelings about the Ryme Age... Haven't even heard of that! My dad kept playing them up through Myst... 3? the one after Riven and they changed developers and all that, but he was always more of a glutton for adventure game punishment than I was. For what it's worth, I watched the Ewok Village video, and I think you guys could benefit from having some backup "talking points" when you're mulling over puzzles. Like the digression on Scumm games, maybe talk about some of the ones you liked. These kind of games make for very tricky VLPs because they're so slow-paced, that might help keep viewers interested. Just a thought.  Speaking of punishment, I handle the game pretty well this time. It's a testament to SotN's amazing music and atmosphere and whatnot that the game is remembered as fondly as it is, when the actual challenge balance is all over the map (literally, you go a couple screens away and the enemies go from 3 digit damage to 1...). First up, part 2 of the 5th stream, where we go to the Inverted castle's foyer. Would've loved to see the upside-down drawbridge in action! As it is, we still get to experience one of my favorite gimmicks in games like this, where you can turn enemies against each other.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 19Ah, SotN, much like Persona 3 and Dragon's Dogma where Death is a random encounter. Well, I guess it might be a nice mythological touch he's in the same room where you fought Cerberus? Either way, we're lucky he's a Vancian caster and hasn't re-prepared his "take all your stuff away" spell.  '' '' 20
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Mar 15, 2016 03:13
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mikeycp posted:Unfortunately everything is already recorded, since we did it in just a couple sittings. I'll definitely prepare some stuff for when we eventually do Riven, though! Ahh, gotcha. Yeah, I think that's another reason adventure/puzzle games aren't as popular anymore. When all the review sites measure quality with some kind of "fun"/hours played and those games don't take long at all once you know what's what... yeah. Speaking of "fun," how's about that Galamoth? Especially fighting him without the Beryl Circlet? Yup. Galamoth. 
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Mar 16, 2016 19:20
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The best thing about Galamoth is that you can stunlock him by punching him repeatedly in the back of the head. Without that, an all-bosses punching-only run would be very painful.  Interesting! I assume you'd have to find ways to cheese most bosses like that, since Alucard's damage is so low. I assume "punching-only" doesn't count the Blue/Jewel Knuckles or Fist of Tulkas, that would be a lot more viable!Now we're at the penultimate stream! Like I mention in the description, I cut out the first part due to a combo of Twitch issues and, uh, operator error at trying to figure out the best route. ...cat damage.   Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 22Just when I thought we were out of bosses to fight, Frankenstein's  "" "" 23
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Mar 22, 2016 22:46
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Punching is actually more powerful than the weapons you can find in the early game, if you can cope with its short range.  SotN is a pretty easy game, but that's still really impressive! If I do play it again, I'll try punching a bit more (and the blocking thing Z mentioned). Ditto the dive kick; my controller just wasn't having it the first time the chat told me about it, and by the time I figured out how to make it behave I forgot you could even do it. The Blue Knuckles ended up being one of my favorite "midcard" weapons, it's fast and the natural uppercut attack deals with the big weakness of the normal punching animation.We're almost at the end now! There's these two, and next update will be the final battle and a brief romp in Richter mode! I guess after that I'll get ahold of CJ to put a link to the playlist on page 1. First up, the last part of stream 6, dealing with another boss I'd totally forgotten, the giant Bat. (Seriously? From Galamoth to Frankenstein's  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 24And next, exploring the last few bits of the Inverted Castle I couldn't earlier because of misinformation about the Wolf relics. (Some people in the chat said you didn't anything and you could always dog-paddle once you got the Holy Snorkel, not true.  ) I cut the weapon showcase part, it's basically a reminder of how awesome dual Crissaegrims are, which you'll be seeing soon enough anyway! "" "" 25
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Mar 26, 2016 19:23
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Alright, let's bring it on home. First up, the grand finale of the Luck Run. I always liked the ending (cheesy voice acting and even cheesier ending theme aside), it's short and poignant, and completely forgotten about when Dracula shows up again anyway.  Up All Night to Get Lucky, Let's Stream Symphony of the Night 26And then the week after that, I decided to do a bonus video trying out Richter mode the first time. It goes about as well as expected. Still fun, but not enough to keep going with it, so... that's that! Thanks all for watching and talking about Castlevania, really enjoyed it. I'll probably do Portrait of Ruin someday, then maybe one of the games y'all were discussing earlier. RICHTER Mode Stream, Part 1 RICHTER Mode Stream, Part 2--- NGDBSS posted:Anyway, my build? (Wayne asked about this a while ago.) I've made a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the exact numbers, but at the least I've hit soft caps in everything and hard caps in a bunch of things while grinding for Twinkling Titanite in a certain endgame location. I guess the Agape Ring is Scholar-only, right? I ended up a little ahead of Mog in SM too for our LP, since I farmed a few things for Awestones and drops. I know exactly where you're talking about, did the same thing, heh. And yeah, exact stats or not, that's always been my problem with the NG+ mechanics in the Souls game. The second cycle isn't too bad (and I'd argue you're "supposed" to play at least that far, since they add a lot of challenge after that, at least in DS2), but after that you're getting diminishing returns on everything and levels cost insane amounts of souls, it's just balanced really poorly.
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Mar 29, 2016 22:21
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NGDBSS posted:What about you, Wayne? What do you normally expect from a New Game Plus mechanic? Well, there's a difference between what I'd "expect" and what I'd "like to see." I mean, I think the Tales games handled NG+ the best: you play through the game again, but each time you beat it you get more "points" you use to decide what features you unlock in NG+, whether that's cosmetic (costumes, titles where they don't do anything), convenient (recipes), or for powergaming (x10 XP). The game isn't automatically easier, you don't come in with the level you win at and thus breeze past everything; but you can make it so. And honestly, I'd like more games to do stuff like that. Like Symphony of the Night; if I could just start a new game keeping all my swag but starting over at level 1 (so I could play around with gimmicks like maxing Int and using subweapons only with Brilliant Mail or whatnot) I'd much prefer that to "You can do whatever content was left besides Dracula."In the specific case of the Souls games, I think a hybrid of Demon's and DS2 would be best. In Demon's, the amount of souls it takes to level up ratchets up at certain breakpoints, so there's a "soft cap" on levels based on the souls you're likely to get; and so far 2 has been the only Souls game to do anything new in 2nd cycles, like with the new phantoms (and I heard in Scholar they mix up which chests are mimics or something like that). If the game helped ensure you were a "reasonable" level for the increased difficulty in later cycles, and the games gave you a reason to play it again with the same character (granted, Soul Vessels help immensely, until of course you get characters as powerful as yours that can do anything anyway), then I'd be happy. Blind Sally posted:This game is, of course, the well-known and beloved OFF-WORLD INTERCEPTOR!!!!!  Man, that's a blast from the past, I actually remember seeing that GamePro article. It's always fun to see games I read about but never saw in action show up on LP.
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Apr 2, 2016 06:35
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NGDBSS posted:maths .... Well, it is edifying to know there's a consistent formula (with those couple exceptions, heh). In that case, I meant "natural" breakpoints, like in the Demon's Souls stream I've been doing, now that the levels cost around 20k apiece, the game is being pretty clear that I'm near the max level I can expect to get this playthrough. The soul cost per level is only half the equation, the rest is how many souls you're being rewarded for playing, and that varies tremendously; like the skeletons in 4-2 being worth 800 and the kobolds in 5-2 being like 20% that. NGDBSS posted:Earthen Peak Good stuff, it's wild how powerful the manikins get with a couple cycles in them. Speaking of Mog in Earthen Peak, she actually did get hit with Mytha's grab you reference. I cut off her tail too, but I think it's in cut [... ] footage from the series of failed attempts I tried to show off how hard it is to beat her with the poison-filled arena. It's actually worth it to cut her tail, since it shuts down the grab and spin attacks, which are about the only mixups she has.
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Apr 7, 2016 21:05
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NGDBSS posted:(I apologize if someone was looking for Ratbro PvP, but that's not really my cup of tea.) Weak!  But you might not have gotten anybody anyway. Mog and I got a fair bit of Ratbro footage, but half of them were low SM smurfs even then.Definitely approve of the Drakekeeper axe. I used it and their greatsword for some PvP footage, and the sheer range on the axe makes it... great.  I don't think I've ever seen the big pigs at the start of the Cove, either. --- Got something different for y'all this time! Ben and I started streaming Alan Wake after our PS3's HDMI port died but our 360 still worked, and it's been going well. We're taking it a lot more seriously than usual, not talking over dialog and keeping focused on the plot and everything. There's still some fun but it's not us joking about the whole thing. We're currently over halfway through the main story (just finished chapter 4), so spoilers are OK if you mark them (like if you want to point out how things fit together and stuff, or speculate if you haven't seen the game before).  Alan Wake - Episode 1: Nightmare Part 1Just us getting used to the game and getting a feel for the story and all. We get through the gameplay tutorial and the first couple cutscenes with Alan and his wife. Ben's gotten pretty cynical about games with "critically-acclaimed stories" after Heavy Rain and Bioshock Infinite and the like, so it took him some time to warm to Alan Wake, but he definitely seems to like it now.
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Jun 20, 2016 17:30
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NGDBSS posted:Between DS3's recent release, and the player base being spread over six different ports, there aren't many people around in any particular version. Just today I decided to do some online play with Punchwitch*, and didn't see any PvP hits. Like, at all, or just Ratbroing? And that's a good point, if you want to play "Dark Souls 2" there's 6 versions and none of them are compatible. I keep forgetting there was a "Scholar of the First Sin" available for PS3/360 that doesn't actually have any of the story content. LIke, y'know, the Scholar. Interesting idea, just circling Freja. I find it's worth it to just block her bite (it'll auto-guard crush you, like Rat Authority; but she's too slow to do anything about it) and keep the hits up with a fast weapon. If you're already using a greatweapon, though, then it makes sense to go for bigger hits. Also, you're missing out on a lot of damage by not using weapon buffs, since they scale with AR in DS2. Snak posted:In the lowest effort of all posts, my roommate wanted to do a LP, Hey, co-commenting is co-LPing to me! You two have some pretty good banter, but it's like... too casual for a serious LP (with the belching and backseating) but too focused for a casual one (since she already knows the game and is skipping some stuff). That's my impression, anyway. Audio sounds great, what kind of setup do you have? I've seen you post in the Tech Fort so I know there's some effort there, heh. CJacobs posted:First off: I had no idea you could straight up just turn around and walk back to Alan's car (and thus examine the island), that's really cool! Alan Wake is a fantastic game, and I like your LP stuff so for me that's a winning combo Aww, thanks!  Definitely glad Ben is playing this one; not only does he get into games more, but he's more willing to try stuff out like that. Alan Wake - Episode 1: Nightmare Part 2After doing some more exploring in the woods, we run into Stucky again, then it's back to the "real world." But the fact he's missing (and presumably dead) definitely makes the player start to think there is no "nightmare world" at all. It makes me think about this idea in the meta sense: games like Silent Hill and Persona and more have gotten players used to the idea that "the action happens in a parallel world" and in some sense doesn't count, but here it does; and the jarring skips ahead and back in the narrative and how weird the "Darkness" is is to keep you guessing.
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Jun 23, 2016 18:03
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Snak posted:Thanks! My audio setup is... Gotcha, thanks. Very impressive! Definitely taking notes for when I have more money to work with, heh. Right now my brother and I are using a USB condenser (ATR2500) in our living room and that's about it. I did have an old copy of Audition on hand and its live sound settings definitely help; we started using the multiband compressor settings to gain down most of the mic's self-noise and amplify the rest and it's been helping immensely quality-wise. But there's only so much you can do software-wise with limited tools. NGDBSS posted:For several episodes I'd acquired a different co-commentator who's less acquainted with the series but more, I suppose, gregarious. Also Dxtory got funny on me, so all of this XANTHOUS footage is from Scholar. Well, that explains where your avatar is from. Man, and Solaire thought he was grossly incandescent! At least if you were going to have recording problems, it was in a zone that's basically the same between the two games.--- OK, start of the second stream (and thus the second episode) of Alan Wake!  Alan Wake - Episode 2: Taken Part 1/3It's kind of fitting the episode is called "Taken," because Alan immediately heads out to gun down a bunch of people to rescue his family. But seriously it's a pretty good part of the game. Building on what we were thinking last time ("shadow world" versus possessed people in the real world), the game confirms it with Rusty. The "gradual reveal" building up to it hitting a friendly side character is stock horror but it works.The audio was desynced slightly in the original version, so all 3 episodes have about a second cut off the end when I shifted the audio track to fix it. I guess AVIDemux clips a video to the end of the video track, even if there's still lingering audio. Shouldn't happen again.
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Jun 29, 2016 23:32
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Happy  day, everybody! To celebrate, let's go into the woods and shoot  Alan Wake - Episode 2: Taken Part 2/3But seriously, I think the "reverse escort mission" with the Kidnapper is a definite "your mileage may vary" moment. I thought it was pretty cool to have the game establish that not only are other people explicitly aware of the Darkness some of them are capable of fighting it, while in a lot of stories everyone except the protaganist are "muggles" who can't really do anything about supernatural forces. On the other hand... you get a major moment of disempowerment and the AI isn't good enough to avoid deaths that aren't really "your fault" when he simply fails to shoot enemies and whatnot.
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Jul 4, 2016 20:45
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I've been streaming Dark Souls 3 and Dragon's Dogma currently, so I was thinking about posting those here too. Unlike SotN and Alan Wake, they'd be edited for deaths and backtracking and stuff like that. I'd probably be posting them together to avoid clutter, too... y'know, "Dark Double Feature" (since Dogma's Steam version is the "Dark Arisen" expansion). Any thoughts? 3 "LPs" at the same time could be a bit much, but those are both fairly popular games, and in the latter case nobody's put up any Dragon's Dogma content on LP since the PC version came out. I dunno, just feels like is kinda running asymptotically toward  or something.  Alan Wake - Episode 2: Taken Part 3/3This wraps up episode 2! Alan and the kidnapper get separated and our hero manages to save Barry from a Birdemic. While waiting for their next move, and next episode preview reveals that, naturally, things are not well in the local trailer park.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:19
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Alright, thanks for the replies, guys. I'll get those two going shortly, then! For now, more Alan Wake, start of episode 3: Alan Wake - Episode 3: Ransom Part 1/4Ransom! The titles pretty much sum it up, heh. Alan has a meeting with his wife's kidnapper, but there's the matter of the missing manuscript (and the missing week, for that matter) too, and that takes him and Barry to Rose's trailer. Unfortunately, the Dark Presence seems to have gotten there first and the zombie waitress drugs our heroes. Next thing we know, it's back to the woods at night (...  ) running from the FBI!
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Jul 11, 2016 22:06
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T-t-triple combo! Probably the only time I'll be doing this since the DS3/DDDA videos are going to take longer to make (what with actual editing and all ), but we were due for more Alan Wake, so they're all together this time. First up: Alan Wake - Episode 3: Ransom Part 2/4On the way to the radio tower (you'd think a writer would be genre-aware enough that it's always the well-informed nice people you need to be wary of...), Alan gets ambushed by... the Killdozer! Gotta love surprise boss fights against heavy machinery in a "horror" story, eh? But things get back on track (  ) after that and we have some rare daylight gameplay as Alan makes his way to the meeting point....wait, it's actually a front-end loader and those things have wheels, not tracks! --- And now for the Dark Double Feature! I'll probably do a banner for these two games later (unless CJ wants to make one?). They'll be uploaded in pairs, and both have some edit work and annotations to skip around where appropriate and whatnot. Dragon's Dogma is more serious and most of the edits are fast-forwarding or skipping backtracking and deaths to enemies (since I'm on Hard, you can be one-shotted quite abruptly), whereas Dark Souls 3 is more me messing around and practicing techniques to get better at Sony Vegas. My plan is to do one new "thing" each video, like in the first one using text animation.  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 01 - The Eternal RingPart 1 of Dragon's Dogma! This one has the playable open and character creation (both of which you can skip with annotations at the start), plus the first bit of sidequests in town. I skip the cutscenes during the open because the chat had seen them before, and they're easy enough to find on YouTube. I'd also had a vote going on in chat about who our Arisen and Pawn should be, so we ended up with the Resident Evil 4 reference team of Ashley and Leon.  Dark Souls 3: Lucky in Lothric 01 - Iudex DreddAnd part 1 of Dark Souls 3! It's both my first time playing it and a Luck run, which I figured would make for some interesting variety from when my brother streamed the game (he did some kind of physical + Faith build). So far it's my least favorite of the 4 Souls games (well, about tied with Demon's and I haven't played Bloodborne), but then again at this point in DS2 I absolutely hated it, so... we'll see! This one covers the intro, Gundyr, an explanation of the build and my "rules" and meeting Level-Up Waifu (as Mog would put it).
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Jul 14, 2016 18:48
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SelenicMartian posted:With a fork and a knife. They always say to put your heart into what you cook. Why not somebody else's?  Gimbal lock posted:I pity the fool that doesn't immediately patch back in the "Into Free" song for the title screen. Ooh, thanks for the tips! Yeah, I miss Flying Into Free too, I'll have to do that next time I stream. I've heard that due to really weird level gating there are a lot of tracks you typically won't hear (I think I heard the "high risk" theme for the first time this stream when I made an early run to Hillfigure Knoll to grab the portcrystal), even in BBI. Wouldn't hurt to throw in some mods like that while I'm also looking for things like the fix to Inflection and backup save files.For now, though, the next Alan Wake:  Alan Wake - Episode 3: Ransom Part 3/4This one is pretty gameplay-heavy, but the manuscript pages and Night Springs scenes are quite interesting. The pages are starting to explicitly predict future scenes, so now the question is how much Alan's script is influencing things and what its limitations are and so on. Ben and I will come back to this a lot in episode 4, but these next couple videos are definitely the high point for "thinking through" the story (like the midgame of Persona 4).
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Jul 19, 2016 01:37
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Tindalos posted:I've been absolutely loving your Alan Wake videos. Seeing you exploring the plot without any knowledge has been great. Aw, thanks!  It's been a lot of fun. It's a lot more serious than the games we usually play, so it's a cool change of pace to talk about the game and what it's trying to do/say (and like CJ said, you get plenty of time to do so, heh).Time for the Dark Double Feature once again! Man, has it been a week already? Definitely need to work on my workflow and editing speed, heh.  Dark Souls 3: Lucky in Lothric 02 - Instant ReplayAs the name says, the technique I tried this time is an instant replay (using both the velocity envelope and CTRL-dragging to manually change speed). There were two moments in pretty short succession that I was way off on hitboxes, so it worked out pretty well (well, now, anyway, I was kinda miffed at the time ). Kind of a hassle to do, definitely something I need more practice on. Also includes getting out- by Sword Master (I think that's actually his name and some people summoned him off-stream). Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 02 - Of the Pawn LegionAnd in Dark Arisen, we knock out all the missable Cassardis sidequests (well, the ones that expire before you get your main pawn, anyway), rescue Reynard, and talk about combat and skill points at the end and stay out past our bedtime to show off some of the things that change.
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Jul 20, 2016 20:50
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I bounced around in the video since I've seen most of Legendary (my brother got it on Gamefly), but your rant on the "flamethrower" was great and pretty much exactly what I remembered. I didn't see your Sandcastle post asking about commentary until a few days afterward, but for what it's worth your voice and setup sound solid, you just have some issues with enunciation that your accent amplifies a bit. Given that you sound fine when you have a joke in mind or pointing something out (I only have trouble understanding you when you're musing about something or doing "verbal filler") I'd guess it's more nerves than anything else. I started doing a 5-10 minute meditation routine before streaming when I can, and it helps a lot: being relaxed and not as stressed about the day helps with nerves, and breathing exercises makes your voice sound better too. --- And here's the end of our third Alan Wake stream!  Alan Wake - Episode 3: Ransom Part 4/4It turns out that the "kidnapper" was only a pawn for someone else, and they never had Alice at all. We as the audience can be pretty sure she didn't die in episode 1, but the game is still holding its cards close to its metaphorical vest and there's always a chance this is a darker game than it first appears. That uncertainty is really hard to maintain, kind of like how most stories end up as "don't get attached to any characters" or "it's OK, nobody dies in X book." In the end the Dark Presence does its job as the villain and disposes of Mott now that he's outlived his usefulness, and we head into "The Truth," which was easily my favorite episode of the
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Jul 22, 2016 19:43
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anilEhilated posted:Thanks. Recording this pair of videos is actually what prompted me to ask in the Sandcastle and I've been digging around the Internet for some face-stretching and breathing exercises, hopefully we'll hear some improvement. Yeah, good luck! Practice makes perfect, too. Video commentary is a performance art, same as singing or narrating and whatnot, and eventually you'll find a style that works for you, and at that point it's just honing it. The trick is that bad habits become part of that style too, and that can take some work to fix, heh.--- Part 1 of what ended up being Ben's and my favorite Alan Wake episode: The Truth.  Alan Wake - Episode 4: The Truth Part 1/3It's a pretty classic move to start the chapter called "The Truth" in a psych hospital, making you wonder what's true and what isn't, if they're going to retcon part of or the entire story heretofore, etc. I don't know how common it is in other shows, but Star Trek did it multiple times (including layers of deception in that one Riker episode), so.... Anyway, the game starts laying out what the Dark Presence is and what its goals are, and that this isn't the first time it's done what it's doing. This kind of reveal in these kinds of stories is always risky, and I think Alan Wake handled it pretty well.
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Jul 26, 2016 21:42
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Aww, that's amazing. Glad to see the thread moving again, so here's a 2-parter! I would've uploaded more Dark/Dogma, but been stymied a bit editing the DS3 episode because I played so badly so little happened. Probably going to do something creative with a death montage, only thing I can think of, heh. Anyway, Alan Wake! Alan Wake - Episode 4: The Truth Part 2/3 Alan Wake - Episode 4: The Truth Part 3/3These 2 episodes cover a lot of ground literally as well as metaphorically, with Alan eventually escaping through a hedge maze, driving a ways with Barry before crashing into the woods (... ) and having a huge setpiece gunfight to wrap up the action for the episode. Alan then understandably settles down for a drink, and while passed out relives his memories in a sort of astral projection/lucid dream. In a TV show they probably would've hit the reset button and had Alan forget while the audience knows, but since the game is now over half-over it's time to take what we know and go take on the Dark Presence mano-a... shadow? next time!
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Aug 1, 2016 19:04
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Hey all, good to see this is still going strong. Sorry for the lack of updates, just been busy and trying to find a good schedule to do much of anything fun besides streaming (well, editing kind of walks the line between fun and work, but you know what I mean), but that should all be over with. Speaking of "over with," no more Dark Souls 3 until From fixes whatever they did to make the auto-summon covenants so awful. So instead of the Dark Double Feature, we'll just do Alan Wake and Dragon's Dogma until the former's done, then probably double Dogmas after that. Alan Wake - Episode 5: The Clicker Part 1/3Well, we left off on my favorite episode, and while it's definitely downhill from there this one is still fun. Sarah is pretty cool and it's a shame she wasn't used much in the story earlier. On a technical note, I forgot to hit record on the Elgato (for the high-bitrate local capture) until about halfway through the stream, so it's on the lower bitrate until then. What, me forget things?  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 03 - Leon, Help!This one has 2 big skip points (with annotations letting you know when, naturally), since not everybody wants to see another bout of character creation or the last couple minutes where I explain things to chatters who've never seen the game before. In between those is Berne's teamwork challenge, and we open with the first main-game boss fight (...sort of), so there's that!
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Sep 26, 2016 22:37
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Blind Sally posted:we few. we happy few. we band of posters. Band of Bubsy? GamesAreSupernice posted:Our short, strange journey comes to an end Good job! I'll definitely check some of that out later, but "samurai jazz" has a lot of heavy lifting to do as a concept to make up for that sprite style and palette, heh.Speaking of palettes, who's up for some more browns and greys in Alan Wake and Dragon's Dogma?!  Alan Wake - Episode 5: The Clicker Part 2/3Yes, this is a thumbnail of Alan Wake, the "psychological suspense horror" game, showing our hero blasting zombies into dust while escaping onto a helicopter. Not saying that's good or bad, just... leaving that out there.  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 04 - Well-WishingWe get back to the rest of the early-game (and thus easily missable) quests, including a scene you have to go back to Cassardis pretty much exactly when I do to see (and it's pretty neat, some of the best/funniest facial work in the game). Speaking of "early-game," low-level Hard mode continues to live up to its reputation with the saurian nest fight. If you're doing this challenge too, note that you can come back to this later, at least after Gran Soren.
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Sep 29, 2016 22:28
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Genocyber posted:I just worked my way through these and enjoyed them quite a bit. You mind linking your stream since I couldn't find it glancing at your total posts in this thread? Aww, thanks! We're at BroopGamers on Twitch, and I just try not to link too often to avoid looking like self-promotion or anything. GamesAreSupernice posted:It never occurred to me to consider Alan Wake a full-on horror game, so much as an all-around adventure title. I feel like people who just wanted to be scared might be a bit disappointed. Yeah, Wikipedia calls it "psychological thriller action-adventure," which is more true than it isn't I guess (it sets up a lot of interesting ideas and then decides to have you shoot them instead ). The friend that lent it to Ben said it was "kind of a horror game," which, y'know, is also kind of true. Blind Sally posted:Alan Wake is Max Payne 2.5 Tindalos posted:Alan never wanted to write horror, that was his editor/the dark presence's doing. Yup, pretty much sums it up. I didn't even realize Remedy were the Max Payne guys until one of the earlier streams, and it was all, "Yeah, that explains a lot." Speaking of explaining things, how about the game basically unwind everything in one big exposition sequence?  Alan Wake - Episode 5: The Clicker Part 3/3Every story with fantastical elements (and that's probably most of them) has what's called a disbelief / immersion threshold, at which point the excesses of the stuff you're reading destroy your ability to take what you're reading as a plausible reality, and instead just entertainment. This chapter hit that for me, which is why I've been ragging on it. It's still not a bad game, so far as I can tell; but they really fumbled setting up the opposing force to the Dark Presence (in my opinion anyway).  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 05 - Getting AheadOh, c'mon, how could I not call it that? The hydra fight (which you clearly have absolutely no chance to win and have to drive it off instead) is the 3rd and last such encounter. Capcom definitely threw it in after Grigori and the cyclops to give you a taste of just what kind of stuff you can do in this game, but we won't see the hydra again until the postgame. I also learned only after the stream that you can let the fight play out, and if you do the hydra eats every single redshirt until you try to flee, at which point Mercedes will toss you a red barrel, the hydra goes passive, and hitting it immediately destroys the head. The game won't let you leave without looking cool!
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Oct 4, 2016 02:16
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It's not our usual wheelhouse, but for Spooktober tonight, we'll be streaming Dead Rising 2 here in about half an hour. Assuming it still works, of course; this was the game we tried Tuesday too. Anyway, how about another double dose of Dark Presence & Dark Arisen?  Alan Wake - Episode 6: Departure Part 1/3I don't remember how I felt at the time, but looking back I do like how this episode opens (with Alan hung over and watching himself  on TV), setting up what would happen later on in present time. The only bad thing is that we had some graphical problems and they persisted such that we couldn't really edit around them. :/ Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 06 - Not Bitter About ItThe title is a twofer this time, since Mercedes whines when you show up to continue the escort quest, and we also visit Bitterblack Isle but don't stay long. I explore more at night in this stream than you probably normally would playing the game, and this update has a few good examples why, heh.
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Oct 7, 2016 00:32
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Back! Sorry about missing last week, I was sick on editing day and too busy to catch up.   Alan Wake - Episode 6: Departure 2/3The Dark Presence continues to throw just about everything it can at Alan, but I do think they missed out on having it throw a trailer at us, what with being a tornado and all. This one is pretty gameplay-heavy, but it sets the stage for next video and the finale (not counting DLC, of course) well enough.  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 07 - Escort MissionI was pretty worried about this part, since you fight a lot of enemies in waves during this quest, and things are hitting really hard on... well, Hard. We handle it pretty well and make it to Gran Soren, which opens up most of the rest of the game (you can basically think of this as the end of the tutorial). Apparently the overworld was originally a lot more restricted, since guards still make reference to "the roads being open to us" after the next story mission, but nothing keeps you from going just about anywhere, you just can't change vocations (without going to BBI, anyway) and miss out on some useful merchants.
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Oct 18, 2016 01:59
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ThornBrain posted:Welp, it's finally finished. Congrats! And speaking of completing LPs, I watched the Eversion one while editing the other day. It's really creative but too short and repetitive for my taste, so basically the perfect game to watch an LP of.  Alan Wake - Episode 6: Departure 3/3The final episode (before the DLC, anyway)! Not much more to say than thanks for watching, and if you're here more for the game than our commentary, well, the 2nd half of the video is the credits and Ben putting his writer hat on to dissect the game along with chat.  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 08 - The Hills Have HeartsThere's another free-music-over-sped-up-footage bit at the start of this video (and I forgot about the one last time, otherwise I would've mentioned it), since I do a bit of a "sequence break" to head to Hillfigure Knoll and get a free portcrystal before going to the Witchwood. If you've heard about the infamous over-leveled bandits on the way there, yep, we deal with them too this video.
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Oct 23, 2016 01:07
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Oh man, I remember Beyblade too. I don't think I made it through a single episode, and that was out of shock somebody approved "shounen anime about tops." And according to Wikipedia, it made 3 full 1-year serials? There're 150+ episodes of Beyblade?! In other examples of insanity come to life, here's the Alan Wake DLC!  Alan Wake - DLC 1: The Signal Part 1/3The episode starts off appropriately weirdly, a little familiar (and thus a clever way to re-use darn near everything without having to create new assets ) but clearly tipping you off you're in a fake reality. Some parts of it work and some don't, and I think your appreciation of the DLC will depend on whether you find TV Wake convincingly insane and malicious or just annoying. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 09 - Which Wood?And wrapping up the 3rd stream, the Witchwood! No deaths, but I do spend a while trying to kill phantoms with the two mages (since Quina counts as one) utterly ignoring my attempts to get them to buff me so I can actually hit them. Other than that it goes pretty well, and it's really neat to run around a sinister forest in near-pitch black darkness.
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Oct 30, 2016 04:11
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Shoeless posted:Yeah, and tops sound dumb until all sorts of glowing monsters appear from them and fight and stuff! #TopsAreCoolCardsJustDrool ...you sure we're not still talking about Yu-Gi-Oh?  The Alan Wake update is pretty normal (well, you know, besides the surreal meta dreamscape setting), but for Dragon's Dogma, we had a problem. On the 4th stream of the game, I forgot to turn in Lost & Found (the quest we did last time, going to the woods to rescue Quina)-- I did all that stuff, but you have to go talk to her dad for it to count, and I got the quest failed after doing the next one; and since the game auto-checkpoints after story quests I couldn't go back. So I had to replay the game and do some of the same content over again. For the LP, I just cut out that stream entirely and left in my references and explanations to it in the next couple episodes. Let me know if you want to see a bonus video with some of the highlights that were cut (or the whole thing, for the handful of crazy people really into this series ), otherwise I'll just move on.In the actual stream I talked over most of the NPCs since we had the normal dialogue last time, so I dropped the volume on my track really low this time around so you can hear them better but still hear me. Best I could think of to do.  Alan Wake - DLC 1: The Signal Part 2/3This section goes full-bore with the "illuminate words to cause things to happen" gimmick, including a sort of verbal minefield (and for once, we can say that without talking about politics or something). It's a continuation of the focus on gameplay and hopefully that makes it interesting to watch (and for what it's worth, Ben handles it decently up until the boss next time, heh).  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 10 - Undead & Just DeadAs explained, I had to redo the game up to this point, so while I tried to explain what happened last time and keep things from being too jarring, I do apologize about that (well, Capcom should be the ones apologizing for their terrible quest structure ). We get some quests in Gran Soren, then it's into the Everfall to clean out the Pawn Legion's basement, and the goons dwelling within....
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Nov 4, 2016 18:52
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Oh man, it's happening. Will definitely check that out, I only saw a couple streams of Bad Rats and it delivered, heh. Alan Wake - DLC 1: The Signal Part 3/3Thus ends the first half of the DLC! The fight setpieces get pretty crazy, but not as crazy as TV Wake. Definitely curious to see what y'all thought about him (since like I said the first part, the DLC really works or not depending on how you think the writers (heh) handled him). Next time will be the 2nd DLC, and that'll be that for Alan Wake.  Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Part 11 - Warriors Come Out & PlayWe wrap up the Everfall and gear up Ashley and Leon to switch vocations at the chat's behest for the next section (which is the Ancient Quarry). Quick question: how much editing, if any, do y'all want for the ogre fights? There are 3 and I don't figure out until the last one my problem is basic numbers (magick archers have infamously garbage weapons early on and I switch to a staff for #3), so the fights are very long. At minimum I plan on cutting deaths until about the health I was at before I died the previous attempt (which is what I did in the Everfall), but I haven't edited it yet so it's really up to you. If nobody cares I'll stick with the more minimalist approach, err on the side of caution and all.
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Nov 9, 2016 01:46
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