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The Lone Badger posted:I poked it for a couple of hours last night. It's very... it feels like what you'd get if you sat down with construction paper and scissors and lots of gluesticks and assembled a game out of Agreed Best-Practice Game Mechanics 2020. Everything's fine and works well but it seems a bit... soulless to me. Like it doesn't have room to be its own thing. Its very clearly a BOTW copy, with VERY talkative narrators. If you find their humor annoying then, yeah you might really hate the game. Otherwise, it seems alright. Just gotta pass the time till cyberpunk
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Dec 4, 2020 04:36
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I just saw a wolf chase down and kill a squirrel  Did animals interact with each other like that in the last two games?
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Dec 4, 2020 04:42
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:No, no, no. You have to complain about how you don't know what's going on (because you can't take a break from kvetching to pay attention to what's going on) or about your set-in-stone personal references. My game was almost ruined by the Sons of Ragnar bug. Thankfully I had a save right before the bug hosed me. I only lost 2 hours of progress but those were two super productive hours that involved me sniping iron/fabric/leather chests from a level 250 area despite being level 35 and also doing a super obnoxious anomaly. Also I know right; in a vacuum this game is a super-amazing feat of design and raw manpower. But outside of a vacuum it feels like it should have come before Odyssey rather than after because Odyssey feels like it did everything Valhalla does but better.
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Dec 4, 2020 05:40
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I've mostly been rolling my eyes at all the meme/pop culture references in this game but I gotta admit, the jesus christ, fenton one got me good
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Dec 4, 2020 07:01
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Ainsley McTree posted:I've mostly been rolling my eyes at all the meme/pop culture references in this game but I gotta admit, the jesus christ, fenton one got me good Honestly the silly humor bits in this one have more consistently made me smile than in either of the previous games The apple bobbing animation for Eivore was hilarious. I also appreciate that she always sounds drunk and a little bit pissed off, except when she's talking to kids  Lol I just remembered "Hello, child. Your house is poo poo cursed." Sometimes brevity really is the soul of wit
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Dec 4, 2020 07:07
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ChrisBTY posted:But outside of a vacuum it feels like it should have come before Odyssey rather than after because Odyssey feels like it did everything Valhalla does but better. Apart from the lead female voice actor, I think almost exactly the opposite.
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Dec 4, 2020 08:45
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Okay, here are my collected thoughts on AC Valhalla after having wrapped up the main quest with 100+ hours played: The Good - The world activities. In the two previous AC games there wasn't a whole lot to do besides kill stuff and find stuff. That's all here in Valhalla of course, but the variety of minigames was really enjoyable and something I looked forward to seeing on the world map. Orlog, flyting, cairn stones, the Hellblade puzzles, even the animus platforming sections were all things I enjoyed doing wherever they popped up. - Raids and sieges. As the major repeatable combat activity for this game, the flow and feel to these were superior to conquest battles from Odyssey and the chariot races from Origins. - I liked how skill books were unique things you found out in the world -- it tied together well thematically with churches being centers of learning as well as plunder in this time period. - The settlement characters and storylines, whenever they occurred, were fun side stories that I wish could have been built out in a more dedicated way. Gunnar and Brigid's arc in Glowecestre was the highlight of the game for me. - Irrespective of plot, I liked how the structure of the missions came in alliances that you pledged on the world map. That was an inventive way of helping to focus the player's attention on where to go next without putting a hard level requirement on everything. - Eivor grew on me as a character. I liked how she was distinct from previous AC protagonists by being kind of sensitive and poetic. - Volumetric clouds are nice. The Bad - Lack of a dedicated RPG progression system and itemization. This was a big one for me. I liked how in Odyssey you started out as some random hired muscle thug, then evolved into a teleporting exploding wall of death, to eventually turning full SSJ with a double lightsaber and spirit bulls. I liked all the unique armor sets and how you could put together a distinctive build with a few insanely overpowered legendaries. Teleporting assassin who never gets hit, 2H warrior who sets the entire battlefield on fire, multishot hunter who can fire off 30 arrows while still in stealth, all that dumb poo poo was fun and led to me putting a ton of extra time into trying out new specs. They took all that out in Valhalla but didn't really make the combat any deeper mechanically, so you're just doing the same sword attack animation over and over, levels 0-400. Armor sets are rare and expensive to upgrade, so there's no incentive to try anything new. They took out all the crazy weapon/armor affixes and just replaced them with runes that are like, "increase critical strike chance after you parry." Big whoop. - Lack of branching outcomes. One of the things I really enjoy about playing any RPG is knowing that situations could have gone differently, had I made different choices at various points throughout the narrative. The railroading and false choices in Valhalla are SO obvious that it becomes kind of offensive after awhile, like why even offer me three seemingly different dialogue responses if you're just going to immediately overwrite the last thing I said, anyway? I went back and watched a lot of the scenes where I thought my choices could have led to a different outcome, and in many cases, not even the DIALOGUE is any different. The scene plays out exactly the same. I'm not one of those people who needs 27 different permutations of every quest in the game to feel meaningful, but if you're going to tell me that choices matter somewhat, then you have to commit to that decision. So many missed opportunities here. - Asgard and Jotunheim. The mythology zones were places I really looked forward to in Origins and Odyssey, where the designers really outdid themselves both visually and mechanically. Here they're uninspired collectathon nodes that stop the main narrative dead in its tracks, all to set up an ending revelation that really isn't all that interesting and is 100% obvious if you're even somewhat good at recognizing faces and voices. - The sidequests. These felt like a huge step down from the previous two games, and the meme-worthy humor was absolutely dire. I'm not a hard person to please, and some of the sidequests in Odyssey legitimately had me laughing IRL. Farting egg lady and smack my bishop just really didn't do it for me. - The Order. Why are we killing these dudes again? What do they actually want? Eh who cares. The Ugly - This is maybe the single buggiest game I've ever played on release. I've crashed to desktop at least 50 times in the past week just trying to finish the drat thing, and that's on top of the usual Ubisoft open-world jank like falling through the terrain and randomly dying while riding a horse. I have to believe my impression of Valhalla would probably have been more positive had I not run into so many problems. Overall, I'm really mixed about this game. There are a few things I think it does better than any AC in the series up to this point, and some that are significantly worse. The prevailing theme I find in Valhalla is an unwillingness or perhaps inability to commit to any of the systems it sets up in a satisfying way. Building alliances with the feudal lords of England is an interesting plot conceit... but there are no real choices and the outcomes are always the same. Seeing your settlement grow over time is cool... but there are 3 sidequests in the entire game and everybody is promptly forgotten about thereafter. Flyting is a fun minigame, but there are maybe 5 speech checks in 100+ hours of storyline. Raids are fun to do, but you never get anything more than raw materials. The entire experience is like this. Odyssey could feel unfocused as well at times, but this game is somehow even longer than Odyssey, more sloppily composed, and doesn't really commit to being an RPG. Odyssey felt like it was at least written by people who enjoyed RPGs and rewarding the player with character progression, while this one is very much "going through the motions" of playing an RPG without the fun stuff. I'm sure Covid and the game director resigning due to extramarital affairs and Ubisoft upper leadership apparently all being sex pests probably contributed to that messiness, but still it's kind of a letdown. exquisite tea fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 4, 2020 09:10
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exquisite tea posted:- The world activities. In the two previous AC games there wasn't a whole lot to do besides kill stuff and find stuff. That's all here in Valhalla of course, but the variety of minigames was really enjoyable and something I looked forward to seeing on the world map. Orlog, flyting, cairn stones, the Hellblade puzzles, even the animus platforming sections were all things I enjoyed doing wherever they popped up. Origins and Odyssey both had treasure maps. Valhalla kinda does too but those didn't work for me at all. Also Origins has stargazing puzzles. Most importantly, Odyssey has exploration. I really feel that simple system of giving directions made me learn and recognize the layout of the land the way I don't remember Valhalla regions. AFAIK Valhalla never makes you come back to allied regions so this knowledge would be moot anyway. Origins and Odyssey made going through a location check list engaging even when there are no enemies or you hide from them. Another thing is while there are indeed more non-combat activities I feel that combat is less avoidable now. Like you don't get those huge keeps with dozens of soldiers anymore but I can't remember ever getting in, snatching all the treasure and leaving without fighting everyone. Sometimes I assassinate everyone but the point is the system of smaller chests and keys means it's much, much harder to "complete" any location without a killing spree. And it's not worth it even on the highest difficulty level. Also I'm PL 250 and I still haven't found any of those stone puzzles. Maybe it was a mistake to turn on high exploration difficulty, but I expected this to be as good as Odyssey exploration. But I agree with the rest, good analysis.
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Dec 4, 2020 09:49
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Jelly posted:Has this game seen optimization improvements on PC since release? The latest patch didn't even actually apply several fixes that were listed in the patch notes, and I've seen quite a few reports that it made the game noticably crashier on PC. If you have stability/performance concerns, I think waiting a bit longer would be a good idea.
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Dec 4, 2020 10:12
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i feel like world war one game or some war from right before it like franco prussian or any of the imperial wars in africa/india/asia would work well as a setting. Given they've now got a nice map of part of England, some kind of English Civil War setting would be great since no one ever sets anything in that period. I'm not expecting it to happen even as a spin-off game or whatever since I imagine making towns and villages bigger would be unlikely to happen but it would be so great. Also realistically, it's not a part of people's awareness much outside England I guess.
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Dec 4, 2020 12:52
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I think everyone knows and loves Oliver Cromwell. Also before that, you can have War of the Roses. It's probably hard to do lore-wise cause it happens at the same time as Ezio shenanigans. But with Game of Thrones making that kind of setting cool I'm surprised they didn't do it after they exhausted the American 18th century.
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Dec 4, 2020 13:19
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I mostly like the approach to levelling in this game, I'm fine with being super overpowered if I go to an area later. Prefer it to the Odyssey treadmill where everyone is always boosted to be +-1 from your level. But (Suthsexe spoilers) it's a shame they seemed to make a lot of unique animations/dialog for Fulke when I two-shotted her second phase
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Dec 4, 2020 18:19
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ilitarist posted:I think everyone knows and loves Oliver Cromwell. the GoT storyline is close enough to the actual War of the Roses that half the audience would just be tired of those characters and families and the other half would complain about the game being a "GoT ripoff" at least in the case of Valhalla not as many people have been recently watching The Last Kingdom. Sivart13 posted:But (Suthsexe spoilers) it's a shame they seemed to make a lot of unique animations/dialog for Fulke when I two-shotted her second phase yeah i was confused by that fight. usually when a boss goes into a second phase with a new weapon they get harder, not way easier - but thats what happened with her for me as well. as soon as she picked up that big wooden cross she lost her speed advantage and i took her out in a couple hits. and im still mad i didnt get to keep her awesome christ sword Earwicker fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 4, 2020 18:23
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Sivart13 posted:I mostly like the approach to levelling in this game, I'm fine with being super overpowered if I go to an area later. Prefer it to the Odyssey treadmill where everyone is always boosted to be +-1 from your level. Yeah I've been wildly overpowered for the entire game, and it feels appropriate because Eivor's meant to just be running in and wrecking poo poo.
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Dec 4, 2020 18:41
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As time goes on I'm spending less time trying to figure out a locked house and just valkyrie diving the barricade. I hope they never patch it. At first I liked the puzzle element of it but now I'm 80+ hours in with seemingly a lot of plot to go still, I can't be be bothered to run around this house another 4 times looking for some small square of wood an arrow can break or whatever.
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Dec 4, 2020 18:57
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Motherfucker I got stuck in the story quest-breaking bug in repton (Sons of Ragnar). Google confirms a lot of people are encountering this. None of the fixes I’ve tried have worked. And I’m 57 hours in, not gonna restart. Anyone here have more info than Reddit did?
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Dec 4, 2020 20:01
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The Macaroni posted:Motherfucker I got stuck in the story quest-breaking bug in repton (Sons of Ragnar). Google confirms a lot of people are encountering this. None of the fixes I’ve tried have worked. And I’m 57 hours in, not gonna restart. Anyone here have more info than Reddit did? have you tried getting out of the animus and back in? ive heard that works for many of these kinds of quest bugs, though not that specific one
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Dec 4, 2020 20:03
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Earwicker posted:have you tried getting out of the animus and back in? ive heard that works for many of these kinds of quest bugs, though not that specific one Also, hi Earwicker. Long time no see. 
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Dec 4, 2020 20:10
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"Come quickly, your father is dying!" [Eivor spends three in game-weeks trying to stack the nearby rocks before attending]
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Dec 4, 2020 20:19
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On the positive side of the bug fiesta, I wandered back to that part of Lunden with the jar warehouse, which I had earlier traipsed around in for no reason other than there was an icon on the map, and the quest-giver was there this time and gave me credit for the mystery which I have no idea what it actually was.
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Dec 4, 2020 21:33
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This game crashes every two hours and made my base PS4 overheat to the point it shut down for half a day so I hope they get some bug fixes in.
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Dec 4, 2020 21:37
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Hobo Clown posted:As time goes on I'm spending less time trying to figure out a locked house and just valkyrie diving the barricade. I hope they never patch it. At first I liked the puzzle element of it but now I'm 80+ hours in with seemingly a lot of plot to go still, I can't be be bothered to run around this house another 4 times looking for some small square of wood an arrow can break or whatever. Yeah, most of them aren't so bad, but every now and then you get one that expects you to like, climb a tree 50 feet away, stand on a specific branch, and noscope the bar through a tiny window. That's why god gave us smashing
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Dec 4, 2020 21:40
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they are going to start running out of cool birds for the protagonist Saved NPC: "You have done right by me, Masked Booby-Bearer!"
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Dec 4, 2020 23:23
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homullus posted:they are going to start running out of cool birds for the protagonist I put on the pigeon skin immediately and never looked back. It's a good one.
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Dec 4, 2020 23:29
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The bird gets skins now? 
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Dec 4, 2020 23:52
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Rinkles posted:The bird gets skins now? You can buy them at the stables with silver.
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Dec 5, 2020 00:10
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How come none of the new Ubi games are on Steam? Is it just a new release thing?
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Dec 5, 2020 00:41
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BrianWilly posted:How come none of the new Ubi games are on Steam? Is it just a new release thing? They have a deal with Epic, so they're EGS and Uplay exclusive.
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Dec 5, 2020 01:00
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ChumpsForChange posted:This game crashes every two hours and made my base PS4 overheat to the point it shut down for half a day so I hope they get some bug fixes in. You might wanna get your ps4 looked at or at least clean the fan cause I'm playing on a base slim and it doesn't even make the fan loud, let alone get warm
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Dec 5, 2020 01:31
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Danger - Octopus! posted:Given they've now got a nice map of part of England, some kind of English Civil War setting would be great since no one ever sets anything in that period. I'm not expecting it to happen even as a spin-off game or whatever since I imagine making towns and villages bigger would be unlikely to happen but it would be so great. Also realistically, it's not a part of people's awareness much outside England I guess. that would be interesting too. id am genuinely curious what the next setting will be. i assume we might get an AC in 2021 but if not more time to bake it in the oven.
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Dec 5, 2020 01:42
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I'd really like to see 30 years' war, if for no other reason than the landsknecht fashion kind of a grim period of history i suppose though
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Dec 5, 2020 01:45
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Dapper_Swindler posted:that would be interesting too. id am genuinely curious what the next setting will be I think a Cold War game would be insanely good, have it set in Moscow, Paris and NYC or something. I know they keep going further back in time but gosh darn it I wanna climb those Orthodox churches
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Dec 5, 2020 01:48
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Simone Magus posted:I think a Cold War game would be insanely good, have it set in Moscow, Paris and NYC or something. I know they keep going further back in time but gosh darn it I wanna climb those Orthodox churches Polonium tipped hidden blade! 
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Dec 5, 2020 01:51
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Simone Magus posted:I think a Cold War game would be insanely good, have it set in Moscow, Paris and NYC or something. I know they keep going further back in time but gosh darn it I wanna climb those Orthodox churches Cold War has to have Berlin as a location, really.
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Dec 5, 2020 01:58
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Subjunctive posted:Cold War has to have Berlin as a location, really. After seeing this game I really don't want them to do anything related to communism, but if the meat of the plot is like Suspiria where it's all about crazy cult poo poo and the cold war is just a backdrop I could see that being fun.
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Dec 5, 2020 02:00
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The series has really never handled guns well, so I can't imagine them tackling a time period where guns are the dominant combat system (especially as they've moved away from the stealth-counter based design).
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Dec 5, 2020 02:02
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Subjunctive posted:Cold War has to have Berlin as a location, really. apperently the Mafia 3 devs were making a game with that setting. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/05/26/mafia-3-definitive-edition-contains-hidden-bits-of-berlin-from-a-cancelled-spy-game/
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Dec 5, 2020 02:07
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The only silver I have spent so far is to bribe people or give to beggars. Is there anything to actually buy with silver?
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Dec 5, 2020 03:54
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Yates posted:The only silver I have spent so far is to bribe people or give to beggars. Is there anything to actually buy with silver? New boat cosmetics, cosmetics for your settlement, some weapons from the vendor, iron/leather for upgrades, good runes will occasionally pop up on sale.
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Dec 5, 2020 03:57
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Yates posted:The only silver I have spent so far is to bribe people or give to beggars. Is there anything to actually buy with silver? Iron ore, leather, etc. for upgrades. Buy out the vendors every chance you get, there isn't anything else to spend it on.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:00
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