Not precisely open world but has the same feeling of exploration, discovery and unlocking, Supraland. Harder puzzles, unlock things that make combat easier. Combat is pretty similar to botw.
Yeah, don’t underestimate the Supra- series of games. I thought Supraland looked childish, but then I started playing it and couldn’t stop. It’s SO fun.
The jokes are hit and miss, but the interconnected world, steady progression and cool mechanics make it stand out. And you can freely draw on the map to mark points of interest!
There are currently 3 games out in the series, with 4th (Supraworld) being in the works.
Pictures turned out ok! I should have done a dry run for my totality setup, as I wanted to do some bracketed exposures and assumed my DSLR would let me do that the same way in live display mode as it does in optical viewfinder mode, and it… didn’t. But the pictures I did get are a reasonable, if insufficient facsimile of the experience.
As for the real deal… I’ll have to update everyone once I’ve processed it. It was clear as crystal, and a perfect day. I was totally unprepared in every way that mattered. I don’t yet have words.
I see a lot of MMOs being recommended, but I find them to be either shallow in combat or predatory unless you are seeking MMO specific things, so I’m going to point at single player/coop stuff.
Bethesda has a large selection of open world games, but I pretty much assume people have played all of them (Elder Scrolls / Fallout games).
If you are okay with going outside of Fantasy, the Far Cry series has some impressive technology in their older titles. Far Cry 2 is a personal favorite, your PC might be able to handle it.
Borderlands series.
The original Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen holds up. This is probably my best recommendation based on your asks.
Lego Star Wars or the Lego Marvel game.
Fable 1, 2, 3
The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War Games were pretty incredible but might be too high-end.
The first Red Dead Redemption might run for you.
Early Dark souls games might run. Maybe 1 or 2.
From here, I would start listing old Star Wars Jedi Knight series games.
I could probably go on, but this is most of the good stuff off the top of my head.
I forgot to add Mass Effect. Great for sci-fi, great leveling, and combat.
Seconding Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I have it on GOG, it’s absolutely fantastic (apparently the pawn rental system is broken on that version, but I never used it anyway). Climbing up a drake to stab it in the face has never been so satisfying! and magic archer is OP
It’s also old enough that OP’s hardware shouldn’t have any trouble running it at decent settings.
Edit: I just realized the GOG version is currently on sale for under $5, what are you waiting for?
I’m currently going through every (mainline) Zelda game and replaying them. Took a bit of a break at Links Awakening, but I’d have to say my favourite 2D Zelda are Seasons/Ages, and my favourite 3D is Majora’s Mask.
Something about the worlds in those games that really draws me in.
OoT for me. ALttP and Link’s Awakening were already my favorite games at the time, but OoT came out at that perfect time in my life when consoles were being made for kids my age and 3D was this mysterious, exciting new thing. To this day, I usually end up replaying it about once a year, and I suspect I’ll continue doing that until I pass on.
Until Breath of the Wild it was Ocarina of Time (I’m so original, I know /s), then BotW, and now Tears of the Kingdom improved on BotW in just about every conceivable way. I’m not much of a big completion type of gamer, despite really enjoying BotW I didn’t go for every shrine, but I definitely made the time and effort to do that in TotK. The only aspect of it I didn’t care for was that I didn’t really like going into the Depths and largely stayed above ground as much as I could (and screw Gloom Hands). Makes me excited to see where the series will go next.
Still working on clearing the map in Ghostwire: Tokyo. There is just so, so much. But even as I'm going through and tying up lose ends, I am loving all the little easter eggs. There's references to previous Tango games, Resident Evil, horror movies, Wizard of Oz of all things... Also, this game has a serious thing for aliens and UFOs? I'm not sure why though. Still fun, even though some tasks have been a little time consuming.
I don’t know if my fondness for any game tanked as steeply as Ghostwire Tokyo. I started out really enjoying it gameplay and traversal, the environmental design and level of detail, the style and enemy design. But it just did not last. I got reasonably swept up in map-clearing activities myself but grew bored of them so quickly I could barely bring myself to finish the game’s relatively swift main campaign.
I'm a bit if the opposite, I seem to thrive on games that have a lot of collectibles and side missions/tasks because it turns into mindless fun between emails.
But I get where you're coming from, and I think that one of the game's pitfalls is the collectibles/side missions to main story ratio. Like finding the stickers/graffiti has been the most difficult for me, so I probably could have done without that one. The relics are really cool, and I love reading about them, but they kind of have a weird spread over the map.
I think the devs could have either made the map smaller (not that it's that large to begin with) with less "stuff", since you don't unlock at least half the map anyway if you just stick the main storyline, or they could have padded out or lengthened the main story so you do unlock all the map before you get to the point where you move "off map". (Edit to add) It seems like the devs got so caught up in creating a realistic version of Shibuya that it kinda got away from the main point and plot of the game.
I actually do enjoy a bit of tedium, but it very specifically has to be building to something (I’ll swim around breaking rocks as long as Subnautica demands me to if it means getting to build some cool new thing).
Your point about not opening half the map just on the main missions is salient too for the same reason. Collecting for collecting’s sake is not enough for me, and too much of this game is just…there.
I am near the totality line, but stressing over this problem resulted in me giving up planning to see it.
Seeing the eclipse directly would be cool, sure, but it will certainly be photographed extensively. I feel like permanently damaging my vision is way too likely buying something off of Amazon, and I don’t have a clue where else I can find them.
If you can get to an area where it will be in totality, you can see it without eye protection during that brief 2-3 minute window. The danger to your eyes is when it's at anything less than full total eclipse.
Workaround: You can see the eclipse with a low tech solution of a pinhole camera. Google it for a better explanation, but
-poke a pin through a sheet of paper.
-during the eclipse, just hold it over something like another sheet of paper and you can see an accurate projection of the sun as the eclipse progresses
It's actually pretty neat.
But if your weather is good, consider going to a place where the eclipse will be total. I'm in the path, but I'm seriously considering driving several hours to a place with a better weather forecast. I've seen good quality photo and video of total eclipses since I was a child. And the people who showed it to me (astronomy nerds from a club) told me "it's not the same."
Thank you, yes…I’ll probably do the pinhole camera I suppose. I won’t be quite in totality, so definitely don’t want to risk it without protection. But I might try Lowes, from BeardedBlaze’s recommendation, since I assume there’s accountability in their distribution chain.
I’m driving about 15 hours (over 2 days, not all at once, lol) from Virginia to the totality path with a “just ok” forecast. I made a similar trip in 2017. It is definitely not the same as looking at a picture. It’s the changes in atmosphere, the insects’ behavior, the light quality all around you that make a totality viewing special. If you can make it somewhere with decent enough skies, you will be glad you did.
I could see the writing on the wall last week, but after about 20 hours I've dropped Dragon's Dogma 2. Exploration felt just like a chore to me, and combat was super boring. This is definitely one of those games, where I absolutely don't see what reviewers saw in it to give out such high scores and maybe even call it GotY. From what I've read, the online discourse has shifted a little as well, and not just because of the bad performance or microtransactions.
I tried switching over to Horizon Forbidden West, and was going through the first small zone, when the game started crashing constantly with no error or hint on what the problem could be. It was weird, because it ran smoothly for almost 10 hours, and then it became basically unplayable. Crashes every 1–5 minutes. I tried a lot of things, but nothing helped, and was close to giving up. Then one or two days ago I had a breakthrough and I think I found the cause, something with the textures or my GPU memory. First, I reduced the memory OC of my GPU, which I haven't changed in almost 2 years, although it still crashed after an hour, which was definitely an improvement. Then I turned down the Texture Quality setting from Very High to High, I was finally able to play with no issues again. Today I'll check with my normal overclock again, if it's just the in-game setting or both.
As for the game itself, I like it, it's basically Assassin's Creed Valhalla or something, just that controlling Aloy doesn't feel like you're moving through molasses. I don't play these open world RPGs where you're basically checking off markers on the map too often, but I do enjoy them from time to time. Because of all the problems I had with the game, I just made it out of the prologue / introduction or whatever (before you get to the titular Forbidden West), so I can't say too much about it yet, however I gotta say it does look fantastic, probably the best looking game (on a technical level) that I've played.
I also played the new stuff, that was released in the first big patch of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. The new zone is really neat and I had a good time.
Then I tried Halls of Torment, another Vampire Survivors-type game. I love the look and vibe while playing, but it feels like you have to grind the early levels somewhat for upgrades and stuff until you're ready for the later stages, which I'm not really a fan of. For now, I've shelved it, but will definitely check it out again later.
I gave Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors another chance as well, this time on my desktop PC, since I didn't have a great time on my Steam Deck before. The game just loves throwing ranged enemies at you, so your screen is constantly filled with projectiles, which is just not fun, and the bigger screen only helps a tiny bit. It also seems super grindy, since there is sooooo much stuff to unlock and upgrade, although basically everything are just tiny passive improvements. Not really sure how I feel about it yet, but it's another game, which I'll check out again at a later time.
Wow. This is something I have never heard of before but it conceptually makes sense albeit I am a have no idea how long a tank would run a train for. Would love to learn more too, so please link is to whatever it is your are creating. Hoping a video on the topic.
Thanks! So far that site seems to be the best source of information I’ve been able to find (the Wikipedia article seems to mostly be a restated, trimmed down version of it) but there are a few other articles online I’m trying to vet for accuracy.
I’m especially interested in this quote:
“A fireless soda engine, together with evaporating apparatus, has been at work on the Aix la Chapelle-Burtscheid tramway for the last half year. In order to test the working capacity of this locomotive engine, and the consumption of fuel on a certain day, the Honigmann locomotive engine was put to work this day from 8:45 o’clock am till 8 o’clock pm, with a pause of three-quarters of an hour for the second quantity of soda lye. The engine was, therefore, at work for fully 10� hours, viz, 5� hours with the first quantity, and five with the second. The distance between Heinrichsalle and Wilhelmstrasse, where the engine performed the regular service, is 1 km, […] This distance was traversed sixty-four times, the total distance, including the journeys to the station, being 66 km.”
So it sounds like it ran for about five hours and traveled 33km on its load of caustic soda (I’m not sure at a glance which flavor chemical) and only took 45 minutes to refuel and come back up to temp.
And these were early designs, basically prototypes (though granted, the folks in that time making them probably knew a ton about steam locomotives). I imagine they could have been improved with time to study and refine the designs.
I’m not sure how well the boilers stood up to containing hot caustic stuff, but perhaps materials science has developed enough to help protect against that.
I’m writing and making visual art in the solarpunk genre, which tends to heavily emphasize trains and other public transit. But I want to broaden our options a bit beyond just electric trains. When I first heard about these, I felt like they’d mix super well with another invention of that time period, the mirrored solar concentrators used to run steam generators (some of the earliest solar power).
After all, one of the biggest disadvantages of the caustic soda locomotives was that it took more coal to dry the soda than to produce an equivalent amount steam directly with coal. But you don’t have to use coal. These 1800s mirrored dishes only require mirrors or polished metal and math to make (plus some simple motors and electronics to get them to follow the sun) and they could dry the soda for free. A lot of my focus is on less utopian, rebuilding societies, so trains and solar concentrators built with 1800s technology seems like a good place to start.
I’m going to start with a picture of a stop along the tracks for replenishing the soda in this style
plus a description. And I’m hoping to work them into a fiction story and a tabletop campaign.
As for the technical side, I’m not sure on whether they’ll be draining the diluted caustic soda and pouring in fresh, whether they’ll be drying it inside the locomotive’s boiler using superheated steam generated with a solar boiler besides the tracks, perhaps swapping locomotives to avoid delays, or even swapping boilers as someone on reddit suggested. If I go with swapping the soda, probably the boiler tank won’t actually be inside the dish, but nearby, with the steam from the dish heating it.
I hope that helps, I’m very new to this technology and am already trying to mix it with other stuff so we’ll see how it goes.
Considering that most of the descriptions I’ve seen of drying the caustic soda mention pumping superheated steam through it, and that almost any of these systems, or something like these modern ones could produce that, there’s probably lots of ways to match these trains to analog solar power.
Oh wow. What a great reply and a super cool project you are working on. You have inspired me too as one of the attractions in my VR Theme Park I am Imagineering is about trains and I would love to add a foot note about these. Thanks so much.
I have that and also MC:LA for the PS3. I recently learned that Rockstar never officially ported MC:LA to the PC so the only official ways to play it are on the PS3 and 360. And sadly RPCS3 still needs more optimization before it’s playable. I get about 15-30 fps whenever I try it.
I am currently playing through midnight club Los Angeles on RPCS3 on Ubuntu 22.04.
I would say it is about 70 to 90% stable. There are certain areas of the map that load it lower frame rates. Certain updates of RPCS3 have seem to affect this. Perhaps I should be more actively communicating in their community.
I am right now running a particular build of RPCS3 for midnight club LA.
0.0.31-16277 (from 4-1-24)
I’d say it’s about 85-90% stable. Totally playable ehat promoted this whole thread.
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