The Gaming Thread

[Allentown]

Looking into PC upgrade.
Currently have a GTX 1060 6GB, which I will keep, and the two HD will get swapped in. Outside that, looks like O need a total ground up build, since my current MoBo rolls with DDR3 1866 RAM. Have an AMD FX6300 6-core 3.5GHz.

Would need a new PSU, mine's only 430w.

Everything runs fine enough on my current, though I do need some new fans, I've got one or more that give off a death rattle until it warms up.

Right now I have a $900 package put together- AMD Ryzen 7 8-core, 32GB of DDR4 3600 RAM, mobo & case.

Dumb?
Necessary?
Wait for prices to keep dropping?

[aurelius]

It is always a question of how future proof you want your rig to be. And how much is that worth it to you.

The last round of intel chips took the performance lead from AMD.

Consider ray tracing is going to become more utilized in future games.

My 2 cents: Definitely invest in at least 1 TB of the best/fastest SSD. Wait until next gen Nvidia cards come out (in the fall). Get a good motherboard.

[JonA]

Looking into PC upgrade.
Currently have a GTX 1060 6GB, which I will keep, and the two HD will get swapped in. Outside that, looks like O need a total ground up build, since my current MoBo rolls with DDR3 1866 RAM. Have an AMD FX6300 6-core 3.5GHz.

Would need a new PSU, mine's only 430w.

Everything runs fine enough on my current, though I do need some new fans, I've got one or more that give off a death rattle until it warms up.

Right now I have a $900 package put together- AMD Ryzen 7 8-core, 32GB of DDR4 3600 RAM, mobo & case.

Dumb?
Necessary?
Wait for prices to keep dropping?

Does the $900 include a GPU? That seems kinda spendy for a desktop, otherwise.
Nm, I see you are keeping your 1060.

Also, have you considered a laptop at all? Lenovo Legion laptops are pretty ripped. You can get one with a R7-5800h and a RTX-3060 for about $1000 on
Ebay. Not _quite_ the performance of a desktop, and not as much upgradeability (just the SSD and memory, usually), but it's hard to beat for convenience. They even make them look "professional" these days.

My son has a slightly older Legion model that he uses for college. (For CAD work, as I understand it. lol )

[Allentown]

It is always a question of how future proof you want your rig to be. And how much is that worth it to you.

The last round of intel chips took the performance lead from AMD.

Consider ray tracing is going to become more utilized in future games.

My 2 cents: Definitely invest in at least 1 TB of the best/fastest SSD. Wait until next gen Nvidia cards come out (in the fall). Get a good motherboard.

Just picked up a new SSD.
Are you saying buy the mobo for my intended build now, then pick up the rest (CPU, PSU, RAM) once the next gen of cards drop?

Does the $900 include a GPU? That seems kinda spendy for a desktop, otherwise.

Also, have you considered a laptop at all? Lenovo Legion laptops are pretty ripped. You can get one with a R7-5800h and a RTX-3060 for about $1000 on Ebay. Not _quite_ the performance of a desktop, and not as much upgradeability (just the SSD and memory, usually), but it's hard to beat for convenience. They even make them look "professional" these days.

My son has a slightly older Legion model that he uses for college. (For CAD work, as I understand it. lol )

Nope, no GPU in that $900. I plan to stick with the one I currently have for a while. $287 for that processor.

Not interested in a laptop, I run everything off a 50something TV in my home office and would like to occasionally upgrade.

[aurelius]

Just picked up a new SSD.
Are you saying buy the mobo for my intended build now, then pick up the rest (CPU, PSU, RAM) once the next gen of cards drop?

Sometimes people go cheap on motherboards, it costs them performance, and they don’t even know it. There are quality motherboards at good price points. Just got to do your research and ensure the board will run everything you want.

PCpartpicker is a great resource if you are not already using it.

[Allentown]

Just picked up a new SSD.
Are you saying buy the mobo for my intended build now, then pick up the rest (CPU, PSU, RAM) once the next gen of cards drop?

Sometimes people go cheap on motherboards, it costs them performance, and they don’t even know it. There are quality motherboards at good price points. Just got to do your research and ensure the board will run everything you want.

PCpartpicker is a great resource if you are not already using it.

Oh, I get it. You are saying when I DO order, get a good board.

I have been using NewEgg, because I did in the past and I can keep track of what I have. No way I will remember the kind of RAM I buy for more than 30 seconds. Most of that stuff is total gibberish to me.

[Renascent]

Just picked up a new SSD.
Are you saying buy the mobo for my intended build now, then pick up the rest (CPU, PSU, RAM) once the next gen of cards drop?

Sometimes people go cheap on motherboards, it costs them performance, and they don’t even know it. There are quality motherboards at good price points. Just got to do your research and ensure the board will run everything you want.

PCpartpicker is a great resource if you are not already using it.

Oh, I get it. You are saying when I DO order, get a good board.

I have been using NewEgg, because I did in the past and I can keep track of what I have. No way I will remember the kind of RAM I buy for more than 30 seconds. Most of that stuff is total gibberish to me.

PCPartPicker might still be a good resource to check out, mostly because of the "PC Builder" tab (not sure if Newegg features something similar on their site). You can basically create a mockup of the parts you have (if they're not too old), and the ones you're considering, to be sure that everything plays nice together.

It'll also give you an estimate of the total wattage and flag you if there are any incompatibility issues among the parts you choose, or if there are any discrepancies between ports available based on your motherboard and case pairing.

You can always screenshot your list of parts and your browser usually keeps your selections anyway when you go back to the PC Builder page, unless you delete your browser history or something like that...

[Allentown]

Just picked up a new SSD.
Are you saying buy the mobo for my intended build now, then pick up the rest (CPU, PSU, RAM) once the next gen of cards drop?

Sometimes people go cheap on motherboards, it costs them performance, and they don’t even know it. There are quality motherboards at good price points. Just got to do your research and ensure the board will run everything you want.

PCpartpicker is a great resource if you are not already using it.

Oh, I get it. You are saying when I DO order, get a good board.

I have been using NewEgg, because I did in the past and I can keep track of what I have. No way I will remember the kind of RAM I buy for more than 30 seconds. Most of that stuff is total gibberish to me.

PCPartPicker might still be a good resource to check out, mostly because of the "PC Builder" tab (not sure if Newegg features something similar on their site). You can basically create a mockup of the parts you have (if they're not too old), and the ones you're considering, to be sure that everything plays nice together.

It'll also give you an estimate of the total wattage and flag you if there are any incompatibility issues among the parts you choose, or if there are any discrepancies between ports available based on your motherboard and case pairing.

You can always screenshot your list of parts and your browser usually keeps your selections anyway when you go back to the PC Builder page, unless you delete your browser history or something like that...

Newegg does all that same stuff too- as you build it filters parts based on what works together. At least, it seems like it does.

[Allentown]

Finished Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Gameplay: a little meh. I'm tiring of the "open world collect everything fill in the map" kind of games, and while the machines were a nice twist it felt very similar overall to MGS5 and Witcher 3.
Story: really cool and interesting until the very end, when it seems like it lifted the Witcher 3 ending almost exactly.

Overall: Solid B. Worth $20, I guess.

[quikky]

Anyone mess around with the new QD-OLED ultrawide from Alienware?

Speaking of ultrawides, anyone got any recommendations for a 34-38"? Mix of work and play.

[brkriete]

I just ordered a gaming laptop (Alienware M15 R7 with a 3070 Ti). I haven't had a gaming PC in....5+ years? Have been playing some Switch and some iPad games. Excited to replay some classics and see what is new out there. Especially looking forward to the newer Total War games (although there's a good chance I just go back and play Medieval II).

[broseph]

Finished Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Gameplay: a little meh. I'm tiring of the "open world collect everything fill in the map" kind of games, and while the machines were a nice twist it felt very similar overall to MGS5 and Witcher 3.
Story: really cool and interesting until the very end, when it seems like it lifted the Witcher 3 ending almost exactly.

Overall: Solid B. Worth $20, I guess.

I only recently completed that game and your review exactly matches my own. Robot animals were cool and dangerous and made cool noises, but the whole thing got VERY repetitive.

Did you have any kind of weapon class progression? I basically went from the starter weapons to the almost-best ones in the game at the midway point and didn't realize maybe I should've been slowly upgrading?

Currently re-playing Borderlands 3. And chewing on the idea that I might have to jump the Sony ship for my next gen console since Bethesda now belongs to Microsoft.

[Allentown]

Finished Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Gameplay: a little meh. I'm tiring of the "open world collect everything fill in the map" kind of games, and while the machines were a nice twist it felt very similar overall to MGS5 and Witcher 3.
Story: really cool and interesting until the very end, when it seems like it lifted the Witcher 3 ending almost exactly.

Overall: Solid B. Worth $20, I guess.

I only recently completed that game and your review exactly matches my own. Robot animals were cool and dangerous and made cool noises, but the whole thing got VERY repetitive.

Did you have any kind of weapon class progression? I basically went from the starter weapons to the almost-best ones in the game at the midway point and didn't realize maybe I should've been slowly upgrading?

Currently re-playing Borderlands 3. And chewing on the idea that I might have to jump the Sony ship for my next gen console since Bethesda now belongs to Microsoft.

No real weapon progression. I even stayed with the endgame weapons after getting the Ice weapons because they took too long to aim/charge up.

[Allentown]

Been playing Battletech (PC). Sold a bunch of games and got a Wii U, found out none of my GameCube games work on it. Just bought Bayonetta 2 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

[Allentown]

Still playing Battletech. Added the BEX mod, which let's you start at different points of the in-universe timeline, and I've finally gotten to the Clan invasions and am working on collecting some Clan mechs.

Also finally started Breath of the Wild, and I'll be honest, that game lives up to the hype.

[5hout]

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight (A Casual Review): Early-On:

0: This is good expansion to play. I don't think it's going to go down with Wrath/Legion for a top tier expansion. It's an all around solid expansion with lots of fun solo gameplay, small group easy stuff, small group hard stuff, easy raids, hard raids and engaging overworld content.

1. I would start at the beginning, but I have to go back further. So far this expansion is (in theory) a break with a recent WoW philosophy of "borrowed power". How did you build an RPG/MMORPG where people play for years, but can catchup without spending months/years re-gearing through old content? One way WoW has been addressing this is (and to prevent more consistent/older players from having semi-perm. advantages over new/returning players) is by having each expansion grant you a ton of expansion only borrowed power. In Legion this was special artifact weapons that were game-changing, but disabled after the expansion. In Shadowlands this was a system where you selected a faction to follow and got special abilities/powers from that faction, plus special power granting item to level over time. In Battle for Azeroth there was an entire gear modification system + legendary items that changed your abilities that you leveled over time.

2. This has lead to a lot of frustration. For one thing, this breaks the RPG character progression fantasy. You're not getting powerful, some fuck is just lending you some. A lot of the time key abilities that were super fun had an end of expansion expiration date which depressed the fuck out of people. Finally, having to learn all these random systems (that would never be seem again) felt, even for an MMO, particularly pointless.

3. In theory Dragonflight "promises" to fix these concerns. New abilities are coming from talent trees, not borrowed power and Blizzard is planning on supporting the various systems for longer as a bedrock of WoW going forward. They've said this before, so we'll see.

4. Dragonriding, apparently stolen from GW2, is fucking awesome and makes you engage with the world even as you zoom around. It's basically Spyro-the-dragon flying but in WoW. Fun to get around, and unlike normal flying b/c you are always falling or flapping upward you aren't totally disconnected from the world.

5. Leveling is fast, fun and pain free. The campaign questline (i.e. the stuff you must do to unlock "real game at 70") is shorter than Shadowlands, more a tour of the world and the players than the entire story. Plenty of side quests, and in a return to form, the side quests are generally amusing vignettes. If you're a fan of silly WoW, there is a lot to make you happy about here. Leveling through dungeons is inconsistent per reports, I didn't do any. Leveling is now possible from crafting/gathering, but idk how slow it would be.

6. The "solo end game" has just buckets of shit to do. Rep grinds/weeklies/some dailies (but not too many, correcting the "I must login every 20 hours or get fucked" feeling of some expansions), world quests (but not too many, and many reward good loot once per week/ok loot daily), world events/invasions/changing quests. World PvP is back through Warmode and has hit its stride. Lots of different world PvP stuff happening at the same time means not too much getting camped, and you can disabled warmode at any inn (but must return to capital city to turn it back on). Supply drops, frequent crates dropped from sky, are fun to fight over and seem to split 50/50 horde v alliance on my server. If you're a solo player looking to do a bit of questing, a bit of grinding, a bit of pet battling, a bit of world pvp, a bit of instanced pvp and occasionally do some harder content this is the best expansion for you in a long time. There is a ton of progression for solo players and you can do it through many different ways. Also, the progression (so far) doesn't feel so panicky, and isn't (like in some past expansions) sit in 1 area and grind till you bleed. You go all over the world and do all kinds of different tasks (ride balloons, kill people, find open world rares, kill hard mobs, do silly quests, do standard quests, farm elite mobs, farm elite/legit fairly hard mobs).

7. Small groups/guilds have a lot of stuff to do, primarily all of the above/pvp plus Timewalking (run old dungeons at appropriate level for them) plus Mythic 5 mans (speed run old dungeons with special harder mobs for time). People are having a whine that not every mode grants the best gear for that mode, but it's close to the best its ever been. If you want to pvp, the best gear is acquired through pvp. If you want to raid, the best gear is from raiding (mostly, + some crafted + some other stuff). If you want to timewalk, the best gear is from timewalking. The real crux is that if you want to min-max 5 man Mythic dungeons you're probably going to want do some raiding.

7.5 Personally, people are making the right level of stink from this. There is a system for PvP gear where in non-PvP it has a lower item level than it has in pvp. I think sooner or later they'll add this system to Mythic 5mans so the best Mythic 5man gear is ALWAYS from Mythic 5mans, but it's only the best at them and will probably be gated to a few pieces a week. A key difference between raiding and Mythic 5mans is you can farm Mythic 5mans 10+ times per day, so have to somewhat limit the loot faucet.

8. Raiding content (which I am not doing and have 0 intention of doing) seems solidly average. Some complaints about class balance, but it's very early and nothing seems too out of whack from looking at the DPS charts. Some classes have more impactful buttons to push than others, but Blizz is actively fixing/balancing this so I don't think it'll be like this for too long (I mean, always going to be a "best" and a "worse", but they're doing a good job tuning the bottom towards the middle).

9. PvP has some gear issues. The item level difference can be pretty brutal, probably needs some kind of linear tuning so that perfect gear vs OK gear is re-mapped to, idk, no more than 2x health difference. I'm seeing people rolling around the open with 450k/500k hp,

10. Crafting/Gathering professions are completely rebuilt. Short version: Each has its own talent tree with subspecs, no respeccing allowed. You will eventually get everything, but it will take a year unless you do insane things. Some subspecs are amazingly good, some are completely useless. If you don't do enough research you'll use all your early points (when points come free and easy) on stupid shit and fuck yourself.

The good stuff: Professions are fun, and deep and have real choices. I love the system and think with a bit of tweaking it could be awesome. I hope this continues to other expansions.

The bad stuff: Some professions are incredibly hard to level to max level (needed for absolute best crafts). Each craft has a range of item levels it can craft at and so you want as high level as possible, but it can be very hard. Often the best leveling recipes are gated via crap subpecs, so your choice is expensive leveling or slightly less great outputs.

The gathering professions are fun again, with the gold output being pretty decent for how much you gather randomly in the overworld. Only some nodes are worth tapping though. One node might have an expected value of 5g, another might be 500g, and the name will tell you. Some people are upset by this.

On the whole, it is a great rework and makes professions something you do every week instead of once a year.

11. This is an above average Fishing expansion. It's not Legion where fishing is basically an entire side game, but it's pretty damn good. After the swing-and-a-miss that was BFA fishing this is a good sign. If you don't have your Legion fishing pole (takes about a day to get), you'll be a bit sad. The TP to node ability is disabled in DF, but the waterwalking/swimform works and is awesome again. There is a choice between a slightly better for fishing, but no waterwalking/swimform DF rod and using your Arclight Angler. Choices are good. People mad about this are dumb.

[5hout]

12. Concluding remarks: If you're going to play this game at work, or while on couch with SO that is playing other game/chatting, or you're a hardcore raider and are going to do some kind of progression raiding, or you're a hardcore pvp'r going for rating, this game is worth buying and playing for a while. If you're going to casually play it outside of work, or when you could be playing actually good on their own games/reading/lifting, do not buy and play it for more than a 1 month tour. If you are an addictive person that will end up casually/non-progression raiding/doing shit-tier mythic 5 mans for 20+ hours a week, do not play it/buy it at all.

[OverheadDeadlifts]

12. Concluding remarks: If you're going to play this game at work, or while on couch with SO that is playing other game/chatting, or you're a hardcore raider and are going to do some kind of progression raiding, or you're a hardcore pvp'r going for rating, this game is worth buying and playing for a while. If you're going to casually play it outside of work, or when you could be playing actually good on their own games/reading/lifting, do not buy and play it for more than a 1 month tour. If you are an addictive person that will end up casually/non-progression raiding/doing shit-tier mythic 5 mans for 20+ hours a week, do not play it/buy it at all.

Thank you for igniting that yearly ‘maybe I should play some WoW’ spark. The outcome is always the same though, get bored and stop after 2 weeks because the elitist ‘get rekt scrub’ part of me that wanted to queue arena all day is dead.

I started playing when I was 11 and my main is about to turn 17. What the fuck.

[5hout]

12. Concluding remarks: If you're going to play this game at work, or while on couch with SO that is playing other game/chatting, or you're a hardcore raider and are going to do some kind of progression raiding, or you're a hardcore pvp'r going for rating, this game is worth buying and playing for a while. If you're going to casually play it outside of work, or when you could be playing actually good on their own games/reading/lifting, do not buy and play it for more than a 1 month tour. If you are an addictive person that will end up casually/non-progression raiding/doing shit-tier mythic 5 mans for 20+ hours a week, do not play it/buy it at all.

Thank you for igniting that yearly ‘maybe I should play some WoW’ spark. The outcome is always the same though, get bored and stop after 2 weeks because the elitist ‘get rekt scrub’ part of me that wanted to queue arena all day is dead.

I started playing when I was 11 and my main is about to turn 17. What the fuck.

YW!

Dragonflight is probably the best 1 month themepark exp n in a while. If you have a slow month or two I'll be you could do a solid 100 hours in two months and have a good value for money.

[aurelius]

We are about to be hit with a ton of game releases over the next couple of months. Pretty excited about Jedi Survivor but...stoked about The Day Before? Anyone else going to be a Day 1 adopter?