Topic: PC Gaming

@Zuljaras Yeah I know what you mean. I never really enjoyed RTS games on my own. I am not sure why I just cant seem to do too good at them I think I just dont have the patience for them, but I do enjoy watching those that can do really well at them. Usally two of my friends would take turns playing them and I would sit and watch them play them.

Even now my son enjoys them and has tried to get me to play them but yeah I just end up losing at them lol. I do enjoy watching him play them though. I might pick up the Warcraft chest and give them another shot but I dont know.

@Tasuki I do not like playing against people BUT in my early gaming years I loved PvP in StarCraft Broodwar. It is much faster paced game

Now I click slowly and play casually RTS games, and it is so much fun Being bad in an RTS game is only valid for the competitive scene which I only like to watch

As for the Battlechest it is 40$ and you get ALL RTS Warcraft games and their versions For me it is worth it!

My connection with WarCraft 3 is strong, I recorded a Longplay of it both Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne. Total of 17 hours, and World of Longplays has it on their channel

@Zuljaras I never played against people to be honest just the computer. I dont know maybe I just couldnt grasp the concept of the game back then, or maybe just the slow strategy gameplay was just to slow for me, I dont know. Part of my thinking I know was that I wasnt sure if I was building enough stuff or building suff in the right order and I just felt like if I couldnt figure that out I would lose. So most I just didnt strategize enough if that makes sense and was just impatient to build stuff. As I said maybe I will give it another try here at some point. If anything to see the stories of the WoW universe happen.

@F-ZeroX I LOVED Tiberian Sun Firestorm and Red Alert 2

I have never watched competitive matches, but I will check that out

Now my passion for WarCraft 3 is a full force again! Grubby is releasing content and it is super fun to watch!

Picked up Stardew Valley on Steam today for $10 as part of their Black Friday sale.

Started playing Marble it Up! A couple days ago.

About halfway through so far (unless there's a hidden world or something) & it's been very fun so far. It's starting to get really challenging to achieve the Gold times, but it hasn't felt aggravating & has a real "just one more try" quality about it (probably won't even try for the hidden Platinum times. I've gotten a couple just by chance, but on some of these levels I have no idea how you'd get any faster). Some (all?) levels have hidden marble skins to collect & those can be really devious to nab.

So excited about the news of Sims and Sims 2 being released. I hope tbe release date is this Friday. I always enjoyed Sims 1 and 2 back in the day and have been wanting to play them again for awhile now.

Urgh, anyone ever just been tempted to give up on PC gaming?

I've been PC gaming for maybe 8-9 years now and for the most part its been my second platform after the Switch. But in 2025, not only am I finding fewer games off the Switch that appeal to me, but I'm facing all sorts of hurdles in getting things running - whether that's disappointing performance, or just things outright not running for no apparent reason (the most recent offender being Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed - a game that I've been playing for years - just suddenly decided it doesn't want to launch. This has happened to countless games in the past).

It just seems I'm spending more time troubleshooting and tweaking game settings than actually enjoying my games. It's a shame really, as PS5 and Xbox really haven't done in for me this generation either - I really don't think there's a viable option for me ATM when it comes to modern, GPU-demanding games.

Here's hoping Switch 2 satisfies most of my needs in the third party / AA space.

@Tasuki I think it was you that liked HoMM3 and we talked about Horn of the Abyss?

Well now it is OFFICIALLY supported on GOG and it is FREE!!!

https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_iii_hor...

@Buizel this is half of PC experience. games sometimes not working, or some other weird things happeneing.

GOG has pretty good system where they always offer games patched up to the latest standard, so buying there is a pretty reliable choice. Plus they have an enormous library of good old games for real cheap. You can fill your library with lifetime of games for 2 acorns and a twig. Sacred, Civ4, Myst, Disciples, Robin Hood, Settlers, HoMM, you name it.

What do you like playing?

@Zuljaras Yes it was. I saw that the other day and was excited, I thought about our conversations as well. This is good news as I never got around to getting it, been telling myself that I was going to but for one reason or another I just haven't. Definitely will be grabbing it now on my next day off. Thanks for the heads up.

@Zuljaras So downloaded Horn of the Abyss from GoG and I am enjoying it. It feels Just like one of the other expansions. The team that did HotA did a fantastic job. I am thinking of doing a multiplayer game against with my son here once he gets HoMM III and HotA. Not sure if you know the answer to this but is there online play on HotA? I remember that on HoMM III had online play, I never used it back then due to having dial up at the time. Pretty sure that the servers are no longer around for HoMM III but wasn't sure if there were some for HotA. Not a big problem if there isnt, there's always hot seat but it would be nice to know.

@Tasuki I think there is online play to it because I watch some pro matches from time to time. There are tournaments still happening to this day

@Zuljaras Makes sense, mainly I was just wanting to know so my son and I could play on our own pcs. Not really interested in playing other people.

@Princess_Lilly Annoyingly it's half of the PC gaming experience that I really don't care for, and I think it's rather downplayed amongst PC enthusiasts but can be a real issue. I love PC gaming for its flexibility and customizability, but more often than not I wish I could just jump into my games no issue, y'know?

TBH although I consider PC my second platform (after Switch/2), I find myself playing it less and less these days, for a few reasons. I have a gaming laptop that I'd estimate is a bit more powerful than the Series S, so it should have a reasonable time playing modern games. Some games it clearly can't handle too well (a recent example: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) so I will opt for PS5, but in other instances (e.g. Gotham Knights, Infinity Nikki) I'll actually get a better experience out of my laptop due to the 30 fps lock on console.

Then there are the annoying cases where a game should, in theory, run fine - but for some reason is just choppy as hell without reducing resolution to like 720p or locking at 30 fps. I'm thinking Metaphor: Refantazio and Final Fantasy VII Remake as prime examples, with the latter looking like it might be better on Switch 2 than my laptop even. Maybe it's just poor optimisation?

But most frustrating is when a game that's worked in the past just refuses to open, or crashes not long into gameplay. Seems to just happen out of the blue - recently with Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed (in fact, most Sonic games from that period of time seem quite unreliable), but Horizon Zero Dawn has also given me numerous issues in recent memory.

IDK, it just feels like I'm putting so much thought and work into getting games to run in an acceptable state, rather than actually playing them.

I'll be honest I've not experimented much with GOG. When I have, it's usually been older games emulated in DOSBox which itself can be a problem, but hasn't been too bad in my experience. I'm not generally one for older PC games.

@Buizel GoG just doest do older PCs game they have current ones as well. I just picked up Fallout 4 along with the Fallout London mod. And after a few clicks its all set up and ready to go.

Yeah, GOG is "old" only in title, and they do support contemporary releases (Robocop: Rogue City, as one example).

But that's fine as the most important element of their business model persists: game ownership. Offline game ownership, specifically. That's important to me.

@Buizel I realise its a late reply and I'm not talking from experience myself but many people are stating Steam OS is doing a good job with PC games now. I think it uses Vulkan to optimise performance so assuming your PC graphics card has good Vulkan compatibility it might be worth a try. Often the games are easier to get working and perform better however anti-cheat systems don't seem to work on Steam OS yet so some freemium multiplayer games with micro transactions are not working. I'm planning to setup a steam OS computer and see how it fares.

@Zuljaras I just found out about this and though I'd share it with you.

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/3IiGHhnIUywMZ976UQvhim...

I didn't realize this year was the 30th Anniversary!!! As much as I hate Ubisoft I cant deny one of my favorite gaming series and IP, its just a shame Ubisoft got the rights when 3DO shut down. Still I will be downloading that demo.