The Veteran

Wierd that I'm five days ahead but you have loads of things I don't! Guess our priorities are just a bit skewed... My research has been taking a long time so maybe certain technology triggers new events? Not sure why you've had terror sites and not yet terror ships though... But anyway I'm just going for skeleton armour and the SHIV which I only just found! Didn't have the foundry so I wasn't sure how to get it, started thinking maybe I dreamed it as a feature!!! I also still have a squad of 4 as I'm being rather careful with my cash. Most of what I've spent so far is on global surveillance, satellites and aircraft. Not invested too much in facilities and only have one steam vent in the base, had 3 in my classic difficulty game! Hoping to have my four guys in better armour and a SHIV on the team soon though, should help. First things first though I have a very difficult abduction to do! My first mission of this difficulty! Wish me luck -------- Starting to get on really well now, no deaths for a long time, probably since the carapace armour to be honest! I finally figured out how to enlarge my squad, didn't realise it was so simple or I'd have had a full team ages ago... Now ready for my own base assault and the reason you're ahead of me is definitely research Pete as I hadn't been bothering to capture until now and you know how the tech tree affects the game hey Lost Germany and France which is annoying. Not because I lost them but because there was absolutely NOTHING I could've done to stop it... Right now I have another 5 countries on 4/5 bars and I can't help them either. All have satellite and interceptor coverage but I just don't get missions in the right place and every time I fail to attend one panic there increases by 2 bars which seems rather OTT for normal mode. A win should be -2, a loss should be +2 and a non-attendance should be +1 I think... Question : I now have an alien grenade, 1 alien grenade. But it seems that I can equip it so that it behaves as an infinite number of alien grenades for the soldier holding it. Is that right? My heavies can chuck two nades per mission now and when I equip my 1 alien grenade it's shown as 2 in their inventory which I don't have. So does this mean when I come back from the mission that I will still have this 1 alien grenade equipped to the soldier for use in other battles? ANSWER : Moved on in the game and realise this isn't an issue as EDIT : ANOTHER bug! Now I'm in the alien base, first part still and after opening a door and sending my SHIV through I now can't move anyone through it at all. It shows movement options like the door is closed but graphically it's open and physically I can't interact with it at all... Had a nasty start to this mission getting jumped by 3 lids right at the start then 5 mutons on turn 2 but if I could just move through this door and lob a grenade it could be an ok game still! Why is noone else getting ANY bugs and I'm getting ALL of them?!?! Oh, and I just had 2 drones pop up from nowhere in an area I'd already thoroughly cleared. Is that meant to happen :s

Weird that things are happening to us in such a different order hey?! I'm off to bed now, didn't realise how late it was getting! My game is currently on May 26th (when is yours Pete?) and I've just got my first Very Difficult mission but it's only an abduction so should I'm hoping be fine! I've done a good few UFOs now but mostly the smallest 2, just had the big boxy looking one once! Turned out ok in the end but needed a few reloads due to the bugginess I mentioned earlier (if not for the bugs though it was actually a perfect mission!) Whenever my troops come up against a lid they get one shot zombified so I assumed that's all it took! Nice to know it can be survived so maybe my new armour will help against them too. Is the skeleton suit armour much of a health boost over carapace as I'm just about to finish researching it so will have it tomorrow (strangely enough I actually got FURTHER than this research wise in my classic ironman game ) Anyway not come close to having a base yet so no spoilers for me, bound to have one tomorrow though so will read it then! Night all!

You're just a pro Pete Normal is pretty much what it says on the tin for me. Had a few cock ups as you know but mostly as long as I don't mess up then it's ok. On the bridge of this large ship now (terror I think) and just opened a door with 3 'lids behind it! Pulled back and set up an ambush which two of them fell for. Now just need to move my bait and stick a rocket in them before hunting down the third! One problem though (why I'm not killing lids right now) did you have any issues with the ceiling height on this map? I'm guessing you've done one of these ships if you're that much further on than me. I'm on the second level, the entrance to the ship up 2 slopes, and it's as if I'm stuck between levels. My cursor behaves as if I were on ground floor making it difficult to move on the level I want but if I add a layer then the roof of the vessel is put on so I can hardly see at all then! Any ideas? It's starting to really get on my tits and I'm only a few turns into this game! Edit : Another bug now as I'm trying to spring my trap. One rookie has both moves left (clearly shown) but when I make her first one it says she's used both... Loaded the autosave to check I hadn't dashed but it's not me at fault! I NEED her to take a shot after she moves as part of the plan so I'm a bit screwed if it can't be fixed... And again... : Just had 2 Sectoids forming the psychic link thing and took out the one who initiated it (the one with only 3 bars of health) which shoudl kill both automatically... But it didn't! The one with four bars just stayed stood there alive with his half of the psychic link still in place! Why is it only me that this funky shit is happening to!!!

How on earth did you get a very difficult before chryssalids? I've still only had one terror site but am now onto large UFOs (just starting my first one, looks wierd!) terror site was ok but only as I was able to kill the 'lids pretty fast so only had 2 zombies. (This is a replay of the one that went badly wrong with the sniper who couldn't snipe! In that one I had to put down 6 zombies, 2 of whom were my own men!) I just lost an interceptor putting down the large UFO but don't think it matters as they're so cheap and money is no longer so crazy for me, for now anyway! Got satellites in africa and russia with 3 planes in each and the same at home which is North America in this game. About to launch fourth sat in South America and already have 2 planes down there too. So looking up but getting worried about Mutons now! NB. Carapace armour is an improvement of +3 health over the normal stuff, get it asap!

Just had my first reload moment when my sniper missed a shot at an enemy about 3 tiles away. Now normally ok, I'd take that it was a 50% chance of a hit and get over it (my snipers keep dying anyway) but in this instance I've lost 2 troopers to zombies (hit me for 9 damage!!!) and am close to losing the entire mission as the Chryssalid is I think too close to my 4th trooper to escape... So I figured to give myself half a chance I'd save the sniper and give him another chance. He missed, again. That's a probability of 0.25. I still wanted to see what I could do with this mission if I managed to make the shot so I reloaded again. And he ha now missed another 10 times. For those of you into your maths, there's a probability of just 0.1% that he could miss that shot 10 times in a row. So yeah, my sniper sucks... And Chryssalids and their zombie offspring are WAY overpowered (even compared to the originals!) Think I got the maths a bit wrong but if I did that makes it even more unlikely And he's now missed 20 times in a row so I'm actually beginning to wonder if the chance to hit is fixed before I even take the shot. The liklihood of one of those twenty shots hitting when every single one has a 50/50 chance is staggering and I just cannot understand how it's still the same result every time! Still testing this and he's now missed 10 times in a row with his sidearm as well... This is same savegame, same man, same place, same enemy. 10 time sin a row he's missed with a pistol that gives him a 97% chance of hitting, I'm not even kidding! How is this even possible??? Now 10 misses shooting at the Chryssalid which is a 98% chance of hit. I'm going to go ahead and confirm this unless someone can prove otherwise. Maybe it's some sort of clever trick to stop reloaders by ensuring that if an action fails then repeating it will continue to fail. Even in this scenario though I don't understand why I missed a 97% pistol shot and a 98% sniper shot the first time of taking them. That's still REALLY bad luck on my part... Not sure what to do now to be honest, without my sniper this mission is over. And frankly if this is how bad my snipers are going to be throughout the game I'd rather have more heavies or support anyway... They're usually so good but in this particular situation it seems impossible for him to hit ANYTHING! Yup, confirmed... http://techland.time...lay-on-ironman/ http://forums.2kgame...sults-and-saves

Ah but there's a difference between allowing functions to be performed but making them difficult to accomplish and leaving that feature out altogether... There was very little wrong with the way interception worked in the original game and I think they've changed more than they necessarily needed to with this one. I'm not saying it's bad or anything but I think in realistic terms it's pretty ridiculous that XCOM isn't allowed to hook up to every sattelite in the world and dispatch military craft from all the funding nations

I think the movement is pretty good tbh, it doesn't give you crouch/stand options but that's because these soldiers are always trying to use the cover you put them in so if you leave them in the open it won't make a difference if they crouch anyway and if you give them cover they always do! Agreed the eithr or sucks big style. I have no use for shotgun troopers yet I have a third of my squad getting trained as assault troops... For anyone playing this now, it occurs to me that we can chat through the steam thingy if we share our usernames, if anyone wants to add me mine is Munty (or muntyboy I forget which one is account and which is user or whatever it is) It's good to have some company while you're playing and helps to ask a second opinion when you have a particularly tough choice to make! I'm still doing ok at the moment though my snipers have a high mortality rate, just lost another one! Just thought to mention, another thing I don't like is the huge limitation on detection and interception in this game. No more patrolling over 'at-risk' countries and every time you do one mission you're guaranteed to piss off another two by NOT doing theirs! There doesn't seem to be a very effective means by which to lower panic in countires apart from the missions you recieve so far but if there is please tell me so I can calm down Russia and France who are on 4/5 bars at the moment!

Wow really? Awesome That explains why my normal game is going better so far then! But then half of that is due to lessons learnt. Here's a tip for others, deploy interceptors BEFORE launching satellites!!! Interceptors take 3 days, satellite is instant and an undefended satellite is a lot of time and money wasted. Just lost my sniper in this game which is a shame but they were fairly fresh so could be worse. Got to decide between a Sniper sergeant and 4 scientists as a reward now. Can't decide

The whole point of the game is that you're seriously underpowered the whole time. But that means giving us crap guns and rubbish troops, not to mention a 4-man team... But the inability to field an improved weapon AND grenades is a complete joke. I'm getting really frustrated by the awful quality of XCom recruits too at the moment. No matter their rank they seem inable to hit anything when it really matters. Bearing in mind the player is always outnumbered that's a VERY bad thing! Can't afford to research or manufacture any of the armour or weapon upgrades (got all laser stuff but no alloys) and cash is ridiculous, selling a sectoid corpse for $5 and having several hundred dollars a month income from the council! Sure it only costs $100 for an interceptor but the scaling is ridiculous. Think I'm going to restart a normal non-ironman man because I do love it but it seems that the player is extremely limited in what they can do. Maybe a normal game learning will help me when I return to the classic settings!

Right after that and I'm having the worst time ever now! Used my money from the funding council to order interceptors for NAmerica where my 2nd sattelite is. They take 3 days during which time 2 UFOs turned up in said region and shot down my sat... Next mission I had an assault trooper miss with his shotgun at point blank range and a stun trooper fail to stun also at point blank range. Obviously they all died, they deserved to die but then my corporal bought it in heavy cover too... Really? Oh and my only real gripe with the game so far (so best you be warned now) you can't have more than one 'accessory' Currently I can have a scope for my weapon, grenades, medkits, tasers or improved armour. But only one... wtf is with that? The scope is fitted to the gun ffs! I still have room for grenades!!!

I just made it to the first council meeting and received an A grade! Pretty good as I got massacred right at the end of one mission, had completed all objectives and killed all enemies but it seems sometimes the 'thin men' will turn up unannounced in the final stages of missions given by the council. Hopefully that's enough information to help others out when they start playing without spoiling anything And no Sorbicol you don't HAVE to play through the tutorial (which as you might imagine starts with the demo levels) but I'd recommend it as it gives you a fairly large portion of scripted gameplay (not in tactical though) and also gets the first few research projects done without any alien interruptions! When you start a new game it will ask if you want to play with the tutorial on or not so just make your choice. I'm meant to be capturing an alien right now but it's too risky so I'm currently ignoring the tut. and doing things my way! Apart from the train station massacre it seems to be working too!

Here we go, Classic Ironman! Wish me luck, I think I'll need it

I thought the delivery was the responsibility of the distributor? If they give you an option to use someone unreliable then it's still their problem if it doesn't reach you on time isn't it?

Did you preorder? If you preordered then it should be guaranteed for delivery today. That's kind of the whole point of preordering!

Not got much to say about this right now but consider it a placeholder for about 12 hours from now when my eyes need a break from playing this game My Special Edition arrived at half ten and is now installing so anyone else in a similar situation (who finds time to come to the forum!!!) feel free to use this a a place to record the events of the day. It's a most memorable occassion after all! Edit 1: Just so people can be forewarned, there's a big 1gig+ update between installing and playing and for some reason my Steam is only downloading it at 1mbps so is taking it's sweet time! So far it's just over an hour since I got my box and I'm still not playing

Ok, if I'm lucky I may get my pre-order tomorrow which I guess will go for a lot of others too. Either way we should all be guaranteed a copy come Friday right? Leave now if this is not the case, you oughtta be ashamed of yourselves Anyway I've recently started using TeamSpeak for some online gaming and I'm wondering if we as a community could use this or something similar to actually share our thoughts come release day while we're actually playing the game. Now, I'm sure we all have jobs, wives and kids to deal with but are they really going to understand how we're all feeling while we play this thing? Clearly not! So why not create a channel somewhere that'll give us hands free comms to anyone else who decides to join? Come into the channel when your game arrives and we can keep each other calm while it installs, then share our experiences throughout the first 24 hours of release, maybe 48 hours if some people get it early! Oh and I need to check with the missus but I'm planning an actual 24 hour gaming sesh from the second my copy hits the doormat so US players would of course be welcome too!!! Let me know what you reckon, I think this could be a pretty neat way to enjoy our first day of the game though. After waiting so long for something that we've all wanted for so many years who better to share it with than each other!!!

That's true, the repair cost for my ZD is pretty hench now (it's way over 9000 - inside joke XD) while making more bullets is a lot cheaper... I've seen Thug headshots with pride shotguns and the like but never with pistols, but then at level 60, everything is a lot easier than at the lower levels so perhaps a modded level 60 magnum or something would be good for the job

I just picked up a level 60 Zed's Demise (the best blade Silencer mentions) and after upgrading it I'm having no problem battling my way through hordes. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Purna has a maximum ammo allowance of 75 pistol rounds right? Sorry if perks can increase this later, I'm only at level 20 something with her atm. Anyway, my point is, I can kill more than 75 zombies with my level 60 Zed's Demise between workbenches, Purna can't because she'll run out of ammo... And yes you could say 'she also has shotgun auto rifle, single rifle and burst rifle' but then my SamB (with the ZD) also has a kanabo which can destroy literally hundreds of zombies without breaking a sweat. Clearly Purna was the gun specialist, like Knan said. The other characters get a crappy allowance of 50 bullets and the guns generally don't kill anyone outright unless heavily modded. Even Purna won't be headshotting Thugs unless she gets close with a decent shotgun and I think she has only a few dozen ammo for that so you'd kinda want to save it. Whichever way you look at it the game is about 'rationing' because that's what you need in a survival game. They've cut out things like the need for food and water but you still need to manage your most important commodity which is your weapons cache. For players using melee weapons that means frequently repairing broken weapons, for gunslingers it means crafting, finding or buying more ammo. Same difference... I agree that there should be a maintenance mechanic for guns but then the cowboys would have 2 upkeep costs compared to just one for the heavy hitters. Personally I'm all for that as I think gunplay should be discouraged to a degree in Dead Island. Not sure what the gun laws are like down under but I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be so many weapons on this island! As a parting note, remember Purna was a cop for a long time, that's why she's good with a gun and therefore it makes sense that she'd be able to make her own bullets if the need to learn ever arose. Guess what, it's a zombie apocalypse and the need has arisen But anyway, what about the new game??? Why are we still talking about the original here?! Azrael, if you ever want to revisit the game on PC, hit me up. I always fancy a little co-op zombie smashing and I still have 3 more characters to build up

True, valid points. But Dead Island and Left 4 Dead 2 are COMPLETELY different games. L4D is all about fast and frantic action, fighting off seemingly endless waves of the infected with no more than a frying pan if you so wish. Dead Island takes a more 'realistic' approach if you'll accomodate the term! Of course you don't want to be in a situation where you're surrounded by zombies and it shouldn't be as easy to kill them as it is in L4D. Dead Island makes every single fight a little more tactical, especially when approaching a group of undead. One thing I have to totally disagree with is that guns are 'true power' in this game. Personally the only thing I EVER use firearms for is to blow up suiciders. They just downright suck against every other type of undead enemy. It's nice to be able to use them against gangs and such but even if they WERE any good I'd still be happier using melee weapons to bash my way through the horde. As for playtime I have nearly 160 hours on Dead Island and just a touch over 43 on L4D2 (I'm sure that's not right though, I've played loads of it. I did play a lot on another Steam account though) I have to agree with weapon durability though, only wooden weapons should really deteriorate at all over the course of a game and even then it shouldn't be as fast. But then if that were the case it wouldn't be much of a survival game. It'd be like giving out infinite ammo. I think gun maintenance would be a nice thing to see in a new game though, Far Cry 2 was good for jamming/broken weapons but it always bugged me that there was no way to maintain them (even the gold ones broke eventually!) Swords are ridiculous though, some blades breaking after a couple dozen hits on puny putrid zombies. I think for me Dead Island provides a much richer co-op experience thanks to the quests that can be done together, the large open world locations (though I only REALLY enjoy playing in the resort) and the RPG elements of the game. Modding is good but crafting would also be a nice touch in a new game and dismantling common items for components would be nice too. L4D horde style games are great fun but essentially they are what they are, get from here to here as fast as possible without dying. I can do that happily enough but there's nothing new each time I play, nothing different. Frankly I get a fairly minimal sense of achievement playing L4D compared to DI so for me it's the better choice but sometimes I'm in a mood to get fast and frantic so both games are still winners with me! I guess it depends which style of gameplay you prefer and you and I clearly enjoy different ones! If you haven't played the bloodbath Arena DLC in Dea Island though I'd highly recommend it, it's basically a horde mode and is much more L4D for you

Hey hey guys! I did a quick google before coming here and I see FA raised a Dead Island topic back in 2011 which garnered zero replies. I'm hoping that some of our members have actually played the game since then (after the patches ) and had an enjoyable time with it. Cos I'm tired of being so excited all on my own! They announced Dead Island Riptide, the next chapter in this series at last week's E3. I'm loving this news because DI is a freaking amazing game! They haven't said anything much, just wanted some attention at the show I think, but it's confirmed for 360, PS3 and PC and will cost less than 50 bucks off the shelf! If anyone here cares about this please tell me because I really want someone to jump up and down with. Also do we have any means of contacting Techland at all because Poland is very close to where my friend just happens to be visiting in a few months and I'd KILL for a chance to have a word with some of these guys (and not just the already dead either!) In the meantime, steam came up with zero hits for a Dead Island Riptide group so I've created a UK one and would love it if any fans of the game would come and join me. Would be nice to bust up some zombies with the SC crew as well, and I never get tired of doing it! Hit the link to check out the group, hopefully we'll have more info come Summer so join me if you want to be the first to know http://steamcommunit...dIslandRiptide/

I'm honoured but seriously it's fine, just buy me a beer Can't believed I missed so much of this story, all the interview brainstorming gone without me! I want to ask them what took so long? Seriously, this is like waiting for a bus. None for 30 years and then 2 come along at once! Admittedly one is more of an OAP minivan with 4 flats but still, 2 buses are 2 buses!

Ha thanks SV! Case is still in the same condition it was when I last posted about it I think! Currently residing upstairs gathering dust. I did however bring the Mammoth tank back downstairs this week though and am currently hoping to get going on that again Just watched the videos on the official Firaxis website and I'm loving this game so far. Honestly can't see anything I don't like yet and set in 2015 is not as distant as I'd thought so that's good too. Base looks amazing, cover system looks well implemented and holy crap I am loving the glam cam! I want a team of snipers

How have I only just heard this awesome news?! Looks pretty promising, though a fair step time-wise away from the original. Will be watching all the interviews once I get my boys to sleep and nursery respectively but for now I'm just excited! A thought though... Is it just me, or is Marin's XCOM branded crapshoot now doomed... It's been criticised from the start by pretty much everyone, delayed for several years, and now a true re-make has stepped in to put down the pretender once and for all... From what I can tell, this game will be better on every single level and it even releases before a game that's been in development longer. And for those saying a long development time has positive potential, may I bring your attention to Duke Nukem Forever? So what hope does this awful looking FPS have, now that a genuine X-Com title is on the scene. I certainly can't imagine that anyone would choose an ugly FPS over this great looking RTS game if given a choice between the two. I know I certainly won't be paying for the former now, even to satisfy my curiosity! Good luck Marin, you're gonna need it! Just found this in the strategyinformer interview, sums up my question perfectly

Personally I'd say this IS your tutorial. The icons on the left tell you exactly what you should be doing and the computer voice tells you how to do it. When you need to construct buildings for example the necessary icon actually lights up and flashes until you click it. As for crossfire I'm not entirely sure what you mean but I'm guessing you mean GPU wise. A quick google reveals that you're certainly correct but I'd say it looks perfectly good enough for what it is. There's nice detailing and high FPS as it is even on my old single card. Besides, this game has quite a decent scope for zoom so we shouldn't expect the devs to have gone detail on every single level of zoom. I think the reason crossfire doesn't work harder on this game is because it just doesn't need to, it looks fine as it is

I believe you mean X-Com forever. XCom never