Dead Island

[Fiach]

Got talking to the modder who did the day/night for the resort and he gave me a mod for the city of Moresby with a day/night cycle, its really good, the neon signs, the electric effects on weapons, the shock effects on enemies, burning zombies, they are all so vivid when see in a night time environment, Its a shame the devs never included this stuff (its all in the files) on release, the game would be a classic by now, there is literally no game like it.

I have no vids unfortunately as the mod isnt available any more and the only link I found actually went to the CGI advert for the game.

[PZ]

Fascinating how the developers and game publishers can squash a good thing and call it good.  :D

[Fiach]

Well, what I think (my opinion) is when they made Call of Juarez Cartel and it tanked, they had to get something out fast for financial reasons (nothing new there), I would honestly say it broke their hearts to let it out early, because the moddling/animations and maps/environments are very very good, add that to what the mods are extracting from the current game and you have a truely ambitious initial project vision.

Theres a DLC (Ryder Whyte), dont look it up as its a major spoiler to the games ending...seriously, it will ruin it... and they are taking their sweet time on it, so I'm kinda hoping they are going to use it to save face with something spectacular, apparently the game sold 3 million in the first three weeks (out of stock in many outlets worldwide), even now its still not in the bargain bin or anywhere near it, so I reckon it will help cover what they lost on (the admittedly very bad) CoJ Cartel, and allow them to plough more resources into this new IP.

[PZ]

Funny coincidence - I was looking at COJ Cartel a few hours ago.  Although I enjoyed the last iteration of the game (BIB), it was a bit linear for me.  I guess I'm just a bit too fussy ;)

[Fiach]

Aw dont get it, its a pile of bugs, I was never over fond of the franchise, but they put it in a coffin and buried it deep with that game apparently.

[spaceboy]

It is too bad that stuff didn't make it in the game, like I said this one has always been one I've kept an eye on and would like to play someday, perhaps having more of that available would have tipped my hand by now.

[Fiach]

@spaceboy, if you do decide to try it, I would really suggest the PC version, its like a totally different game with just the day/night cycle, never mind all the other mods. Its on Green Man Gaming for 19.50€. Which is less than half the price of any other outlets. They give you a code that you use on Steam.

[spaceboy]

I appreciate that - I've seen PC pricing like on the Steam sale that look quite nice, and some of these mods look great, but my PC is not gaming ready.  Despite it being newish (about a year old) I went cheaper when I bought it and did not get one with a graphics card and all.  I kind of figured I spend enough dough on gaming as it is without another outlet (PC) plus the initial cost of the upgraded system.   :-\\

[Fiach]

Good point, a gfx card is more expensive than a console tbh. I got a really cheap one my self, so it has its limits, but it does what I need it to do, I mostly play old RPG's so it doesnt sweat too much :)

[Fiach]

So far, I have played three characters twice or more, I havent played Sam as he is a pure melee tank from what I can see and getting that up close and personal, with something that wants to eat my brains and wobbly bits, is a path I tend to avoid :)

This is mostly about Logan and why he is shite.

OK, so Melee, Xian has all the skills needed for this and she needs to concentrate on sharp weapons, ideally Katanas, the 2 hand length, gives here some nice breathing space.

Ranged, you have Purna, she has decent melee skills to get her through the resort, where there are no guns, but these skills will be used for the whole game, so they are never wasted, even when you have weapons, but need to conserve ammo. Once she gets guns, she is probably the easiest character to play.

This leaves Logan, the redneck alcoholic ex quarterback who's forte is throwing stuff. I can only assume that when they designed this character they were either drunk, or just ran out of ideas and took all they crap skills they didnt use for anyone else, stuck them haphazardly into skill trees and released the game.

His main trick is throwing weapons, they based a characters whos best skill is based on a broken part of the game....sometimes, when you throw a weapon, it disappears.... Now, even if it doesnt disappear, sometimes it can be annoying trying to retrieve it out of a zombies body, trying to get the weapon to highlight, so you can pick it up. Now, to counter that, they gave him 3 Boomerang skills, so that sometimes the weapons will come back, the Boomerang skills give the following % rate of "possible" returned weapon, 15% never worked for me, I never got a weapon back, 30% and 50%, now I have the 50% skill and that feckin 'rang does not return every second time, maybe every third or fourth, but I guess its better than nothing, but sometimes when you are assailed by 15 zombies, trying to retrieve the failed returnee's from 15 stacked corpses is just too trying.

On top of this, there are a serious number of useless skills you have to buy, just to get each of these three boomerang as one is the first skill, the next is in the middle of the tree and the last is at the very bottom.

Now, there is no point in just chucking any old weapons at zombies, they need to be upgraded and modded, otherwise they just still keep coming at you, so you need to drop a zombie in one hit, otherwise you need to throw another weapon at it, now you are possibly down two weapons, so you need to use whatever is left in your inventory to dispatch whatever enemies are left, this can leave you suddenly using your fists and fumbling in your INV to equip some more weapons.

So the problem with this guy is he is an expensive date, you need to spend alot of money on spare weapons, upgrades and modification parts, especially in the first third of the game, he doesnt really come into his own until late in the game.

I was discussing the character with a guy that was telling me how great Logan is, in the end, I elicited the information that yeah, his character was modded and glitched....why? To make him worth playing.

Logan also has some decent shooting skills, but they come late in the game, his best weapons are Katanas and Wakizashi (kinda long japanese dagger), both sharp weaons, but what do the devs make him buy first....feckin Blunt weapon skills! They really pushed the boat out in fucking this character up!

I played a vanilla Logan up to lv 25 and it was a pain in the arse, My next, I played up to Lv. 27. I got a mod (Liberty Tree Mod) which allowed you to cherry pick skills from the skill tree so, if you had eg. Three points, you could buy the three Boomerang skills without wading through the shite skills. But still I had to contend with the expense and difficulty of accumulating a range of decent weapons every couple of levels, until I learned that you can still dupe after patch 1.3 (look for Dead Island Checkpoint dupe), so now I had the ability that, if I found a decent weapon, I could "clone" it into eg. six, 3 for throwing and three for spares.

So, my thoughts on Logan are coloured in two ways, he is either shite vanilla or actually a pretty awesome character if you mod his skills and dupe. He has good skills but they are seperated by so much crap and useless filler, it kills the enjoyment of playing him. But modded he really is fun to play.

Why this post....well, if you hadnt played DI, you would look at his skill tree and think he is a good all 'round character, he can melee, throw and shoot, but in reality he will only do them well very late in the game. So this is just a heads up to anyone considering him :)

[Art Blade]

"just" a heads-up  ^-^ :-X

[Fiach]

"just" a heads-up  ^-^ :-X

[Fiach]

Ryder White DLC is supposed to be released on Feb 1st, where you playe Ryders story as to how he came to be where he was. You will have a different skill tree which is limited compared to the others.

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[PZ]

I'm still looking forward to getting back into the game, but can't seem to drag myself away from the AC series.  :-()

[Fiach]

Yeah, I totally get that mate, same here for DI, I deleted a character by mistake (Purna), a couple of days ago, so made a new one and now I'm 75% through the campaign again lol :)

[spaceboy]

I'm still looking forward to getting back into the game, but can't seem to drag myself away from the AC series.  :-()

If I recall correctly, PZ, you weren't sure about ACII and a couple of us convinced you to try it.  You preferred more modern weapons etc.  So glad to see how much fun you've had with the AC series the past couple years!  On that note, I still think you'd enjoy Skyrim immensely.  The interactions with the NPCs make AC NPCs seem like cardboard cutouts.  Nearly everyone has something to say to you and many of them will give you a task to do if you choose.  I've been playing organically, just letting things unfold, taking my time and having a blast.

I don't want to hijack the DI thread, but just sayin'....you ought to check it out!!!  :)

[PZ]

   If I recall correctly, PZ, you weren't sure about ACII and a couple of us convinced you to try it.  You preferred more modern weapons etc.  So glad to see how much fun you've had with the AC series the past couple years!  On that note, I still think you'd enjoy Skyrim immensely...

You remember correctly, space, and you guys were absolutely correct.  The AC series has been one of my favorites since then.  I guess that I'd better check out Skyrim!  ;)

[spaceboy]

my cardboard cutout comment seems a bit unfair after reading it.  Don't get me wrong, I love me my AC and in AC the enemies are quite lively as are your interactions with friendly AI, I was just thinking about all the civilians.  In Skyrim most of the people walking around have something to say or can give a mission, whereas the AC citizens are background noise more or less.  You can actually "get to know" the citizens of Skyrim.

Sorry - now back to Dead Island..  :)

[PZ]

 :-X ;)

[fragger]

...can't seem to drag myself away from the AC series.  :-()

I think we can all relate to that sentiment :-()

[PZ]

Indeed, even though there are other wonderful titles to play - just not enough time in the day  ;)

[fragger]

All too true...

[Jim di Griz]

It's a real shame about there being no day/night cycle for the consoles, though the DLC campaign Ryder White does start off in Moresby just before dawn, so you get a brief bit of night to contend with, which is tough going considering how much more difficult the Moresby map is and you are starting with essentially a level 15 character.

I might well get this again for the PC when that time comes.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and even went through to platinum with it - still plenty of replayability left in it (if only certain other games would let me do so...) My main chartacter is Sam B and he's been through 1.5 times - I have the other three on  the go too and Ryder White...but that's a different story.

[Fiach]

I got the Ryder dlc on sale a few weeks back, I thought it was a bit ...meh, never finished it.

[PZ]

I still have not finished my first play through - need to get back on it one of these days, but I've been mostly on my PC