RL Questions Thread

Trey

Jovolo said:

Any suggestions on making French Toast tastier? Any healthier variations are welcome too. My current recipe is 2 eggs, 2/3 cup of milk, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon and vanilla and a pinch of salt. Mixing the ingredients, dunking both sides of the toast in the mix and then cooking both sides in a pan. 

Also good things to eat with french toast? I like strawberries & thick cream, and syrup. I have a bit of a sweet tooth.

Different but same, using Rumchata in place of milk is great. I've done that and used honey and (real) salted butter in place of syrup and it was heavenly.

Jovolo

Steam Summer Sale!

Looking for opinion on some games. Shadow of Mordor? Life is Strange? Dark Souls 1? Dark Souls 2? The Witcher 3? 

I'm so conflicted.

Tydas

IMHO (having played all of them): Witcher 3 > Dark souls 1 > Dark Souls 2 > Shadow of Mordor > Life is Strange

Exelethril

Any thoughts on 1080p versus 4K for TVs  + curved?

Trying to decide between this and this 

Aesi

Do you have anything that actually supports 4K fully?

Exelethril

I'm on Rogers yeah

Melodie

Jovolo said:

Steam Summer Sale!

Looking for opinion on some games. Shadow of Mordor? Life is Strange? Dark Souls 1? Dark Souls 2? The Witcher 3? 

I'm so conflicted.

Depends what you like. For story, I hear Witcher 3 is absolutely amazing, and having done Life is Strange, highly recommend as well. Dark Souls has story but I think is more focused on the insanely hard boss battles/random cretons handing your ass to you. Mind, I have only watched the Dark Souls series, not played (because frankly that kind of consistent dying is too frustrating for me), so I may be wrong on its focus.

My current addiction is Prison Architect, even though I still have some story games to finish. Eff you, lack of focus and concentration.

Aesi

Exelethril said:

I'm on Rogers yeah

I would get the 1080p tv and put the extra 300 away for a trip

but it's whatever you want!

Tydas

Jovolo said:

Steam Summer Sale!

Looking for opinion on some games. Shadow of Mordor? Life is Strange? Dark Souls 1? Dark Souls 2? The Witcher 3? 

I'm so conflicted.

I guess I could go into a little better details, while I'm waiting for my lag to die down enough to hunt. Warning: the following are my opinions, and your mileage may vary.

Witcher 3 has a superb story, a beautiful world, and a great combat system. Plus an awesome minigame in the form of Gwent, which is as good as Triple Triad in terms of side games in an RPG. Hearts of Stone and (from what I've heard, I haven't played it yet) Blood and Wine DLC's are equally fantastic. Lots and lots of hours can be sunk into the game. It's as close to a perfect action RPG as I've ever seen.

Darks Souls series is difficult, but fun. It's difficulty is a fair one, unlike how many games tend towards a lack of fairness to create artificial difficulty. If you die, it's you're own damn fault. The faults people find in the game tend to be first, that getting good at the game tends to be about learning (they say memorizing) enemy patterns by throwing yourself against them. Basically, ram your head against a brick wall until it finally breaks. This is sort of fair, but I find the games fun enough to overlook it. The second complaint is that the story is very vague, and told mostly through item descriptions. The lore is incredibly vast, but you really have to dig deep to figure out what's really going on. 1 is better than 2 in level design and gameplay. 2 is better in mechanics and art. I'd choose 1 over 2 - it's just better in too many ways, graphics be damned.

Shadow of Mordor is basically Arkham mixed with Assassin's Creed. It's fun, but honestly I got bored with it, same as I tend to with AC games, so I can't talk too much about it. It's worth a try, but I wouldn't put it above the other games.

Life is Strange is a good game, but the replayability is really low. Basically, play it twice to get the main differences, and then you're done. The twists and weirdness are one-offs, but at 2 bucks on sale right now, I'd say it's worth the money. Honestly, just find one of the many Let's Play's on Youtube and you'll basically get the same experience.



If you want to try other games that may be on sale that won't break the bank:

Stardew Valley is one of the single most addictive games I've played, and a lot of fun. New content coming, especially "post game" content, but what's there is still fantastic. I only played it because I loved Harvest Moon, and I'm gay and wanted to be able to play a male farmer who can marry a bachelor. Then I fell down the rabbit hole for a month, excluding nearly every other game in my library (and IRE games) JUST to play this. It takes everything in Harvest Moon and improves on it. For some perspective, I put nearly 300 hours in the game in around a month's time. It's really that good.

Kerbal Space Program is also pretty fun, if you're a nerd. Harder difficulties, such as no resets and permanent losses, can be really, really frustrating when you're starting out, but make for a great challenge when you know what you're doing.There's nothing more satisfying than getting a mission done just right.

Darkest Dungeon is brutal, but also a lot of fun once you get into it. I don't own it personally, but I've played a little on a friend's computer. More frustrating in terms of dying and upkeep than Dark Souls, so be wary of that.

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is sort of a twin-stick shooter in the style of classic Zelda, with babies and gross stuff - delightfully weird, incredibly fun, and so much freaking stuff to unlock. Randomly generated games each time, with a wide variety of characters and, as you unlock them, a terrifyingly large amount of items and powerups, making nearly every game you ever play unique. Lots and lots of fun, even if can be frustrating sometimes.

Aesi

Kerbal Space Program is some of the funniest moments I've ever had playing a game.

Those moments when your rocket somehow has side propulsion and spins into a conflagration you thought only possible by Aegoth.

But then, you get it into space. That's a beautiful moment.

Sena

Melodie said:

Dark Souls has story but I think is more focused on the insanely hard boss battles/random cretons handing your ass to you.

It has more lore than story. For the most part, you're told just what you need to do and given the barest outlines of a story, while most of the backstory and why you're doing what you do and pretty much everything else has to be pieced together based on clues in item descriptions and random snippets of dialogue (often spread across different games). There's a lot of depth, but it's buried pretty well.

I didn't find Dark Souls 1 to be terribly hard, really. Haven't played 2 or 3 yet.

Anedhel

Witcheeeeer. It's like a hundred hours' worth of game

Szanthax

Anedhel said:

Witcheeeeer. It's like a hundred hours' worth of game

Or 3 hours of Achaea

Melodie

Anedhel said:

Witcheeeeer. It's like a hundred hours' worth of game

So for someone not actually at all familiar with the series (like, I don't even know what the story is ABOUT, I just like good story games), would you (general you) suggest starting with the original Witcher and moving through the series, or is just Witcher 3 on its own a great game and don't need the others?

Israyhl

The hardest part of playing the different Witcher games will be the controls and interface that seem to change on every single one of them. I started with Witcher 2, got my hands on Witcher through GoG, and the two handle COMPLETELY different. 

As far as story goes, though, I liked playing the first one to get a sense of what happened. You don't necessarily 'need' to play the first two (I have yet to play the third one), but I do recall part of the reason I got Witcher on GoG is there is a lot of flashbacks and other tidbits dotted throughout the second Witcher that call back to the first. 

If you're looking for entertainment value out of story, definitely play all three. I got lost in the first one with the story, the side-quests, the added tidbits. They are amazing rpgs for those of us who want an actual narrative alongside our gameplay. 

Arador

The ones I have played that I would recommend:

Kerbal Space Program (Most fun you can have with pants on)
Dying Light (Open world Zombies work damn well.)
Shadow of Mordor (Great combat mechanics, manage and help your little Orc horde)
Fallout4 (Lovely features and options, do what you enjoy)
Cities:Skylines (Best city builder since SimCity 3000)
The Forest (Truly terrifying and challenging)
Prison Architect (Great little Sim, lots of fun)
Witcher 3 (Great combat, brilliant story)

Ahmet

Risk of Rain and Rogue Legacy. I've spent so much time smashing face in these games. Moreso risk than rogue, but both are decent. Risk of Rain has a lot more replay value. RoR is so wham-bam-thank-you-mam that it can always hold my interest and has enough variety in the gameplay styles, artefacts and possible builds that each game feels fresh and new. Never fails to get my heart pumping and have me on the edge of my seat. Several hundred hours down the drain in RoR. Good for travel, bouts of waiting, or just all-round boredom. Plus, multiplayer that isn't absolute shite! (Well, kind of)

Tydas

Melodie said:

Anedhel said:

Witcheeeeer. It's like a hundred hours' worth of game

So for someone not actually at all familiar with the series (like, I don't even know what the story is ABOUT, I just like good story games), would you (general you) suggest starting with the original Witcher and moving through the series, or is just Witcher 3 on its own a great game and don't need the others?

The Witcher 3 does a pretty good job of making sure you're not too lost as far as the story goes. Honestly, the story in 3 doesn't really rely on the story form the first two, although characters and events from those games do get referenced. If you want to play just 3, you'll be fine. The first two are good enough for me to say "get them too", though.

Anedhel

You can definitely just jump into The Witcher 3. I really, really like 2, but I don't know that I can wholeheartedly recommend 1. If you have lots of time, go for it, it's a good game, but it's not my favorite, and the combat system's a little bit iffy. 2 and 3 are much more exciting to play! Just a tip- read the journal stuff, if you like stories/lore from series. They have a ton of backdrop stuff in the journal entries, they're pretty great

Tahquil

@Arador : The forest seems to have a sister game. The intro looks the same but you'rs stuck on a small island in the middle of the sea.

Stranded Deep.

Israyhl

Anedhel said:

You can definitely just jump into The Witcher 3. I really, really like 2, but I don't know that I can wholeheartedly recommend 1. If you have lots of time, go for it, it's a good game, but it's not my favorite, and the combat system's a little bit iffy. 2 and 3 are much more exciting to play! Just a tip- read the journal stuff, if you like stories/lore from series. They have a ton of backdrop stuff in the journal entries, they're pretty great

Witcher 1 was a lot of "Change stance! Wrong stance, change again! Roll ROLL YOU BASTARD! Use the runes! Damnit, wrong one. MORE ROLLING". 

Trey

Tahquil said:

@Arador : The forest seems to have a sister game. The intro looks the same but you'rs stuck on a small island in the middle of the sea.

Stranded Deep.

If you like survival games like that, The Long Dark even unfinished was fun, if a bit too unforgiving at times.

Sarathai

Melodie said:

Anedhel said:

Witcheeeeer. It's like a hundred hours' worth of game

So for someone not actually at all familiar with the series (like, I don't even know what the story is ABOUT, I just like good story games), would you (general you) suggest starting with the original Witcher and moving through the series, or is just Witcher 3 on its own a great game and don't need the others?

Honestly, you can probably start with TW2, it doesn't do too badly on keeping you up to speed, but it will be a bit like jumping into a story before the start. I'm a bit of a completionist, though. Of course, technically the story "starts" in the book series.

Just be careful about your choices. The reviews aren't kidding when they talk about how they genuinely do matter and will have an impact on the ending.

Melodie

Man, as fun as games where choices matter are, I tend to be super crazily obsessive about assessing my options and what they'll do instead of actually just playing through the game. It tends to bring out the worst part of my OCD-like tendencies. They're still fun of course, but sometimes just enjoying a narrative is more relaxing.

That said, my focus/attention span these days is pretty shitty, so I think I'll give 3 a go first, and then if I find I love it enough, will dip backwards. Thanks everyone for the recommendations, it was really helpful!

Sobriquet

Not sure where to put this, but seems as good a place as any.

I'm looking for some free software which will allow me to record my laptop screen and add narrative for presentations, with the ability to edit afterwards. Most recordings will be no longer than 30 minutes. I've used Camtasia in the past but that was licensed software with the company I was working for at the time, so wondering what else is out there that people can recommend.

ta.

Kalithea

Honestly? I would use OBS. Normally it's used for live streaming but you can record locally. Set up overlays, and the whole shebang.

https://obsproject.com

I used to to speedrun games using it so if you need help message me but it's pretty straight forward.

ETA: missed part about editing video. This won't do that.

Arador

@Tahquil that is The Forest. It takes place on an island after a plane crash. 

Tahquil

Stranded Deep. Very, very, very much like the forest but my Robincon Crusoe than Bear Grylls... Unless it's an expansion.

Arador

Oh yeah that does look very similar. I also own it for some reason though I can not remember buying it. Must have been part of a Humble Bundle or something.

Exelethril

How do I make overly salty Costco chicken less salty? Is there a cooking method that extracts salt from meat?