What other games/sims are you guys playing?

[March Hare 720]

1 hour ago, Swe_Richard said:

To all the people suggesting Civ 6... have you not tried Civ 5? I kind of like that one better. Less cartoony graphics. 

I'd never played the franchise before 6. I'm on my first campaign. Enjoying it. It's one of the games my brother worked on. I had heard of the series before he became involved in Civ 6.

I still enjoy The Settlers. I think they made the graphics more realistic in later versions, but I still think the original two have the best art style. I like the cartoony nature of those originals. Still, what makes them great is the depth of gameplay; they cut too much out in later Settlers games, as far as I saw.

One game I've really been enjoying is Anno 1800. I must return to my campaign. It's been a couple of months since I last played. I do remember where I was with it, though.

[udidwht 133]

P3Dv3.4.22.19868 (and a slew of add-ons)

Arma III (all DLC)

IL2: BOS (most DLC)

Insurgency Sandstorm

Squad

World War Z

WOT

War Thunder

VTOL VR

Wreckfest

Heliborne

Transport Fever 2

Cities Skyline (all DLC)

BeamNGdrive

[steve310002 1,198]

Red Dead Redemption 2 is my only other go to at the moment. I used to play a lot of games but MSFS is mostly what I enjoy these days.

Personally, I find many games have become a bit too cringe worthy in their storylines and the type of modern culture they portray. Like the Watch Dog games for example (especially 2 and 3) and the likes of Forza Horizon & Need For Speed. Too many silly voice overs and ridiculous storylines that seem to try way too hard to be cool. It makes them seem rather ridiculous, at least to me, and trying to appeal to a very superficial culture I frankly don't get or relate to. I'd compare it a bit to the obsession Hollywood has had since the past decade with endless superhero movies.

I think it would be interesting if there were more 'believable' games with more believeable storylines. 

 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

9 hours ago, Swe_Richard said:

To all the people suggesting Civ 6... have you not tried Civ 5? I kind of like that one better. Less cartoony graphics. 

Civ (I only played Civ 4) or Stellaris have, for me, an enormous flaw that spoils the fun. The mid-game onslaught. You carefully build up your civilization in the firt part of the game then at mid-game some other AI civilization, perfected beyond all you can do by the computer, wipes you out 😄. 

[Rocky_53 1,566]

17 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

There is a community Bush Flight tonight,  if anyone is interested.  2300 UTC

Discord is used for communications,  but it's not a requirement.

The discord server is run by an FS20 buddy of mine,  GunPilot.   He's an Aussie, and a retired bush pilot.  Really good guy.   It's a good group of people from all around the globe,  from gamers to aviation professionals.  We have a several CFI's,  and a RL 787 driver.

Wide age spread.  All welcome.    Mostly bush flights,  mostly in the Caravan.   (But any aircraft than can keep up with the Caravan is fine).    

We fly on the Southeast Asia server because it's lag free,  for the most people.   Download the flight plan from the discord thread,  and spawn at the departure airport at least 10-15 minutes prior to departure. Spawn,  exit the runway,   form up.   Usually around 35 people will show up for the average Friday,  but there have been more.

Here is a link to this week's event,  https://discord.com/channels/780018927731474462/780677151355437097/872648405183242308

Here is an invitation link to the discord community,  anyone feel free.  Link will be valid for 7 days.  https://discord.gg/GWmTn3Ac

 

Thanks

[virtuali 4,419]

On 8/5/2021 at 8:15 PM, Highmike said:

Elite Dangerous for me, a little space flight sim on Xbox Series X

I'm fairly seriously into Elite Dangerous myself, have 3 separate accounts on PC for me and my 2 sons (all 3 upgraded to Odyssey), and another account on Xbox. I'm at about 1000 hours of play, Elite level in Exploration and Trading, and I use a nice Hotas setup with the X-52 as controller, and a Streamdeck XL as a command pad, with all custom commands and icons...

Sometimes, the Elite Dangerous community feels VERY similar to Avsim...

[John Fields 279]

Hi,

I play two very exciting games:

1) MSFS Update

2) MSFS Hotfix

And I've got enough!

😀

[TheFamilyMan 279]

If it's not MSFS 2020:

IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad (or Moscow, Kuban, Bodenplatte, aka BoX), or its WWI version "Flying Circus", flying online private server missions with my squad mates.  We've been together for 15 years, started off right before "IL-2 1946" released.  I also write BoX mission, using their mission editor's "Graphical Data Flow" programming language, which is similar to the programming language "LabView" that I programmed when I worked in aerospace at LM (recently retired).

Pinball Arcade, which is a highly realistic pinball table sim.  All of its table sims accurately mimic RL tables from the 70's to recent years.  The tables are very accurately depicted, with excellent physics and visuals.  Unfortunately its developer "Far Sight" no longer supports it, primarily because about 3 years ago Williams and Bally didn't renew Far Sight's license to sell their tables.

Though not a sim, at times I spend a fair bit of effort editing HD footage shot while traveling into short films of our adventures, using Premiere Elements.  It's nice to see my 16 virtual cores getting a worthy and useful workout when crunching H.256.

[quantumpion 39]

8 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Civ (I only played Civ 4) or Stellaris have, for me, an enormous flaw that spoils the fun. The mid-game onslaught. You carefully build up your civilization in the firt part of the game then at mid-game some other AI civilization, perfected beyond all you can do by the computer, wipes you out 😄. 

Civ4 is the best in the series and possibly the greatest turn based strategy game ever made. The fact that the AI plays in a predictable and logical way and is capable of beating players in any difficulty setting, but can be beaten in any difficulty setting with the right strategy, is a testament to that. If you are bordering an aggressive country and you think you can just peacefully develop without bother, then you deserve what you get! Same thing happened every time in real life! 🙂

Civ5 and 6 are garbage in my opinion primarily because the AI is just illogical, erratic, and useless. Many of the gameplay elements are designed around limiting the player in order to accommodate the useless AI instead of starting with good fundamental gameplay mechanics first.

The difference between Civ4 and its later iterations is like the difference between playing Chess and playing craps with loaded die. Chess has refined strategies and you can easily be beaten by AI players if the difficulty is higher than your ability. The latter is just a bunch of random dice throws but you inevitably win.

[109Sqn 1,551]

On 8/6/2021 at 11:32 AM, HiFlyer said:

A Plague Tale Innocence is now free at the Epic Games store from August 5, 8 AM PTD/ 5 PM BST until August 12, same time, if anyone is interested. 

Just skimmed this thread in time to spot this.👍 Installing now and it's taking ages Nearly 2 hours and I'm only at 72%!

On 8/6/2021 at 11:38 AM, HiFlyer said:

Plus I'm pretty sure epic must have paid a pretty penny for the right to release it for free and in order to attract people to its store.

Well it sure worked for me, never had an Epic account till today.😀

 

Before MSFS, I was almost exclusively on Gran Turismo Sport. Since then, I've only been installing updates without firing it up. I've got dozens of unplayed PS Plus games. I'm also very bad for starting games but drifting away from them. I've even got a physical copy of GTAV which I installed a few years ago but never started.🙄 I do the same with demos, stocking up on them but only trying a few. Silly really. Red Dead 2 is definitely one I must go back to after only playing for an hour or so.

[wyman_hd 232]

Escape From Tarkov was one of the best FPS games I experienced, but recently after their last wipe and patch I stopped playing it cause they made the game more grindy and just more annoying in some aspects lol

Rust is another game I played quite a bit and racked up 8 hours in a single day... if you can get around the toxicity then it's a nice game to play with some friends.

If i'm not playing either of the two, It's probably My Summer Car I'm playing... drinking 7 shots of vodka before blacking out in the pier, urinating on someone's strawberry patch... then come home with no electricity in the house because the bills hadn't been paid since 3 months ago.

[March Hare 720]

On 8/6/2021 at 12:20 PM, ThrottleUp said:

Epic gives away free games regularly. Just get a free account, download the client and keep a lookout. For example over the past week I got Train Sim 2 for free. 

Even though I missed Train Sim World 2 on the Epic store, I bought it on Sunday for £17 -- the Collector's Edition, that is. Which I think is a pretty good deal, and probably works out cheaper than getting the base sim free then paying for the add-ons.

So far, though, it seems much easier to find good, detailed tutorials for flying an aeroplane than for driving a train. Or I'm looking in the wrong place. So far I've played the first two Bakerloo tutorials, and accelerating is easy enough, but controlling the speed along the route and what all the different brake types are isn't explored. I haven't come up with any good, detailed tutorials in a Google search, either.

[ThrottleUp 617]

7 hours ago, March Hare said:

Even though I missed Train Sim World 2 on the Epic store, I bought it on Sunday for £17 -- the Collector's Edition, that is. Which I think is a pretty good deal, and probably works out cheaper than getting the base sim free then paying for the add-ons.

 

That is the best way to get games and its what I always do. After a game is released Im in no rush to get it (plenty others to play) by the time Im ready to get the next game its "special edition" will be available. This will include all the DLC and for way way cheaper. Exactly how you got train sim. 

I would suggest Dovetail games forums if you need help with stuff. 

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/forums/pc-discussion.97/

 

[March Hare 720]

4 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

That is the best way to get games and its what I always do. After a game is released Im in no rush to get it (plenty others to play) by the time Im ready to get the next game its "special edition" will be available. This will include all the DLC and for way way cheaper. Exactly how you got train sim. 

I would suggest Dovetail games forums if you need help with stuff. 

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/forums/pc-discussion.97/

 

The reason I have so many games at the moment is because of a) the Epic giveaways, b) waiting for deluxe/collector's editions with big discounts -- and there seems to have been many discounts this past year.

Thanks. I immediately found a thread in their forum from someone scratching their head over the lack of proper tutorial in the sim, just like me, with some links provided by experienced users. Should be very helpful.

[Elvensmith 165]

Snowrunner mainly but also Deus Ex HR and MD.