Welcome Back Commander: XCOM 2 Invades Your PC In November

BeerTent

Resident Furry Pimp
May 8, 2011
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Bindal said:
BeerTent said:
Log War is the reason the game is still popular today.
I highly doubt that. I personally never bothered with any of the XCOM mods for being, among other things, too much of a hassle to install in the first place and for always changing things to the worse as far as I am concerned - especially Long War, which looks to me just a worse game overall.
Look at Youtube. The section for Xcom on reddit. People everywhere are playing LW. If they're not the sole reason, then there's a significant chunk of people who are playing it. The information and discussion on the mod alone is so extensive that I've gone from noob to "Jesus Christ I'm losing because I sold my plasma weapons." by just reading and looking over the strategies. Despite the complete lack of moddability and support the company has initially given, the modding community is extremely strong.

And I'm running B15e right now for Long war. I've yet to encounter any bugs that aren't found in the vanilla game, or due to poor mapping. Something the LW devs have zero control over. (Although, it did break my B14 save. There was big red text saying this was a possibility though. I gambled, and lost.)

I never enjoyed any of the Farcry games. Doesn't mean that nobody else enjoyed them.

If you like depth and more options, feel free to give LW a shot. Play a game without any INI edits first, and see how far you get. If you're having difficulty anywhere with it, let me know, and I might be able to help you enjoy it. :3
 

Aedwynn

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Jan 10, 2009
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Aeshi said:
Aedwynn said:
Also, the Ethereals apparently didn't care much for the Snakemen, as they bioengineered them into Thin Men instead. So I think these xenos may be the enemy of our enemy, so to speak.
It's also possible that they just (re-)bioengineered the Thin Men (back) into Snakemen. I mean, it's not like they need the Thin Men's infiltration capabilities if they rule the world.
A very good point, actually. If I were the Ethereals I would keep both around.

Thinking about it, the ethereal's bodies were wasting away, weren't they? The thing that gets sworded in the vid could well have been an ethereal after all.
 

Bindal

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May 14, 2012
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BeerTent said:
If you like depth and more options, feel free to give LW a shot. Play a game without any INI edits first, and see how far you get. If you're having difficulty anywhere with it, let me know, and I might be able to help you enjoy it. :3
I've seen what LW adds - and that's not depth, that's just artificial difficult and complexity-for-sake-of-complexity.
Again: Stop being a fanboy for Long War - it's not an improvement for XCOM. It's different, but it's not a flatout better mod. As I stated before, all changes it does just make the game worse to me and hence I will not play it.
 

Frankster

Space Ace
Mar 13, 2009
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Bindal said:
It's been over a decade since I tried Aftershock so the details were murky, I just remember the Earth being covered in grey filth xP

Actually now that you refreshed my memory..I'm disappointed. Earth should have been way more fucked then it was.

I disagree with you over "Afterblank" though (guess you didn't care for that game much? xD),that we went there to colonize doesn't change the fact it wasn't our home and the humans there just kinda claim their planet as their own and even change the natural conditions to be perfect for human life but fatal for the natives. Humans were the outside force taking the planet from the natives here.

That's a lot closer to invading then the example given by the poster I was responding to: liberating our home planet.
How are we humans the invaders in that scenario? But I got what the guy was saying even if the language was imprecise (aka that we are playing humans from a disadvantaged position, striking back at a world that is pretty much hostile to your intents) and Afterlight seem to fit that fine.

Anyways point remains, the Firxais Xcom aliens are the kindest most considerate alien overlords one could have if the trailer is to be judged.
 

EternallyBored

Terminally Apathetic
Jun 17, 2013
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Aedwynn said:
Aeshi said:
Aedwynn said:
Also, the Ethereals apparently didn't care much for the Snakemen, as they bioengineered them into Thin Men instead. So I think these xenos may be the enemy of our enemy, so to speak.
It's also possible that they just (re-)bioengineered the Thin Men (back) into Snakemen. I mean, it's not like they need the Thin Men's infiltration capabilities if they rule the world.
A very good point, actually. If I were the Ethereals I would keep both around.

Thinking about it, the ethereal's bodies were wasting away, weren't they? The thing that gets sworded in the vid could well have been an ethereal after all.
It's also possible that the tall sectoid looking thing from the trailer is the reboots version of the alien/human hybrids that appeared in later original series X-com games. The trailer makes it a point on multiple occasions to have the announcer in the city talk about humans going in for gene splicing therapy, and the big human looking sectoid thing could be the result of that.

Following from the first game, the Ethereals seem to want to turn humanity into a weapon against whatever else is out there by creating a race that is both physically and psionically capable, the final mission gives the impression that the ethereals tried to empower themselves and failed, ending up extremely physically weak and nearly wiped out, and the other races are their attempts at correcting this, either ending up physically useless (sectoids), or psionically useless (Mutons).

If they follow along with Enemy within, we know that Meld basically allows them to rewrite the human genome as they want, my money is on the sectoid thing from the trailer being part of their experiments with humans.
 

Dalek Caan

Pro-Dalek, Anti-You
Feb 12, 2011
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Andy Shandy said:
I hear you man. I thought hearing about all the features DICE removed from Battlefront was bad, but this was an even greater kick to the gut. Here's hoping they release a port for the consoles sometime in 2016.
 

Bindal

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May 14, 2012
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Frankster said:
I disagree with you over "Afterblank" though (guess you didn't care for that game much? xD),that we went there to colonize doesn't change the fact it wasn't our home and the humans there just kinda claim their planet as their own and even change the natural conditions to be perfect for human life but fatal for the natives. Humans were the outside force taking the planet from the natives here.
Except that from the two Alien species there
Number 1 wasn't on the planet (as mentioned, driven off planet)
Number 2 was burred under the planet and were the reason Number 1 had to leave (those were successful invaders)

Meaning the planet was, when humans got there, empty on first and even second glance plus it was freaking Mars, known to not had any inhabitants for a few centuries. So, no, it was not an invasion, it was a colonialisation of what was supposed to be uninhabitated land.
 

Recusant

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Nov 4, 2014
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I'm a little surprised by people's reactions to the "Xcom lost" aspect of this (personally, I blame the lack of hyphens, but I guess we'll see). The Alliance of Free Stars lost. Gordon Freeman killed Nihilanth, and Earth lost. That Earth doesn't appear to be a dystopic wasteland is an interesting angle; hopefully this'll be something of an accurate picture, and not just an Orwellian cover; there's a lot more room for interesting ideas and mechanics in that than in a pure and simple "Free the Earth from the evil alien scum" type situation; plus it'd be nice to see Sectoid hybrids again. I also feel compelled to point out that the humans still aren't invading; Earth is still their planet. This is an insurrection, not an invasion.

Beyond Earth left me with a deeply bitter taste in my mouth. I do like that this announcement was made a mere six months before the game comes out; not long enough to get bored waiting. And Firaxis: for the love of all that's holy, let us shoot and then move, willya?
 

Frankster

Space Ace
Mar 13, 2009
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Bindal said:
And the second the humans find out Mars isn't uninhabited? They don't give a fuck.
Even after having negotiated a truce with green martians and finding out that making Mars more friendly to humans makes it fatally hostile to martians the humans still decide "fuck them, when the time comes we will war them all over again and claim this planet for our own!". If it wasn't an invasion then, then it sure as hell was an invasion now.

But I'm not looking to argue with you on semantics , believe it or not, because that was never my point. You're just being way too pedantic and not keeping up with the context:

If fighting to reclaim your home planet is considered an invasion in the context I was responding , then so does the situation in Afterlight. The dude I was responding to considers playing the rebel freedom fighter trying to liberate their HOME PLANET the perspective of an "invader" which makes little sense on its own but if you keep in mind normally xcom games have you defending a world rather then assaulting it, then my Afterlight comparison is perfectly adequate because thats' exactly what you are doing: mastering a hostile world from the perspective of an outsider (aka new colonists.)

Edit: So really what the guy was trying to say was "aggressor" instead of "invader".
 

Aedwynn

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Jan 10, 2009
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EternallyBored said:
Aedwynn said:
Thinking about it, the ethereal's bodies were wasting away, weren't they? The thing that gets sworded in the vid could well have been an ethereal after all.
It's also possible that the tall sectoid looking thing from the trailer is the reboots version of the alien/human hybrids that appeared in later original series X-com games. The trailer makes it a point on multiple occasions to have the announcer in the city talk about humans going in for gene splicing therapy, and the big human looking sectoid thing could be the result of that.

Following from the first game, the Ethereals seem to want to turn humanity into a weapon against whatever else is out there by creating a race that is both physically and psionically capable, the final mission gives the impression that the ethereals tried to empower themselves and failed, ending up extremely physically weak and nearly wiped out, and the other races are their attempts at correcting this, either ending up physically useless (sectoids), or psionically useless (Mutons).

If they follow along with Enemy within, we know that Meld basically allows them to rewrite the human genome as they want, my money is on the sectoid thing from the trailer being part of their experiments with humans.
You know, I actually missed that about the gene splicing in the trailer! Several times! I'm good at this...

I like your reasoning, though. I didn't play Terror from the Deep or Apocalypse very much, but I do remember you could have half human/half sectoid troopers in Apocalypse. (They were your psi troopers, I think?) So that fits.

The MELD in Enemy Within; I did wonder why they were just leaving that lying around and only really making the Mechtoid with it themselves. It's like they wanted you (and EXALT) to play with it...

Speaking of EXALT, what were they up to? I got that they had been around for a LONG time, and they were as interested in psionics as XCOM were, but I'm not sure what it was exactly they wanted (unless I missed that, too). If their goals were different at all...

I'm guessing there's going to be human 'collabo's' in the game from the trailer, but it might be interesting if there are other factions around. Hey, if XCOM lost canonically, we could *possibly* be seeing the result of an EXALT victory? With humans as something less than equal partners, but more than slaves/lab rats. Maybe not, but I'd like it if EXALT were still around in some form.

I'm just spewing badly-thought out headfluff now, I guess. But I love thinking about crap like this, as inept as my reasoning is. Thanks for the reply!
 

Callate

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Dec 5, 2008
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I'm sure it will be a compelling game, and I will probably play it eventually.

But I have to confess that, as a trend, "compulsory bad ending" is getting a wee bit old.
 

JonB

Don't Take Crap from Life
Sep 16, 2012
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Ah, good, escapist staff hadn't been talking NEARLY enough about XCOM recently.
 

Alfador_VII

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Nov 2, 2009
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Sigmund Av Volsung said:
Looks much like the first one but with bug fixes and a different campaign to be honest.

I have hopes for this to turn out good, but Beyond Earth was pretty damn disappointing. I honestly believe that Enemy Unknown needed a second expansion pack to fully realise it since the late game was still a slog, but here's hoping that Xcom 2 does things right.
Considering we haven't actually seen XCOM 2 yet, it's way too early to be saying that yet
 

47_Ronin

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Jul 30, 2012
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I'M SO PUMPED YOU GUYS. YEAH! HELL YEAH!
Gee pops, what a trailer. Xcom was one of the few modern games I truly enjoyed. I'm really looking forward to the Sequel.
I have to wonder, though, how many people did not pay attention to the story. Some comments are just baffling.
 

Sigmund Av Volsung

Hella noided
Dec 11, 2009
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Alfador_VII said:
Sigmund Av Volsung said:
Looks much like the first one but with bug fixes and a different campaign to be honest.

I have hopes for this to turn out good, but Beyond Earth was pretty damn disappointing. I honestly believe that Enemy Unknown needed a second expansion pack to fully realise it since the late game was still a slog, but here's hoping that Xcom 2 does things right.
Considering we haven't actually seen XCOM 2 yet, it's way too early to be saying that yet
Then their marketing department is bad. I'm basing it off of the studio's Civ games and Unknown was following the same trajectory, almost to the letter, and they suddenly release a sequel with a more futuristic setting?

Firaxis aren't that unpredictable.
 

Demagogue

Sperm Alien
Mar 26, 2009
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omg omg omg. SO EXCITED!!

I have a hard time with XCOM, as like any RPG, everytime I pick it up, I want to start a new game rather than finish the one I've started... but I did beat it, and it was glorious... but apparently my earth was a different dimension.
 

EternallyBored

Terminally Apathetic
Jun 17, 2013
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Aedwynn said:
You know, I actually missed that about the gene splicing in the trailer! Several times! I'm good at this...

I like your reasoning, though. I didn't play Terror from the Deep or Apocalypse very much, but I do remember you could have half human/half sectoid troopers in Apocalypse. (They were your psi troopers, I think?) So that fits.

The MELD in Enemy Within; I did wonder why they were just leaving that lying around and only really making the Mechtoid with it themselves. It's like they wanted you (and EXALT) to play with it...
That could indeed be the answer, in any case, I do hope the sequel works off of the canon established in Enemy Within, rather than using Enemy Unknown. The meld and EXALT are nice editions, and the events of Enemy Unknown just aren't as well fleshed out as the expansion.

Speaking of EXALT, what were they up to? I got that they had been around for a LONG time, and they were as interested in psionics as XCOM were, but I'm not sure what it was exactly they wanted (unless I missed that, too). If their goals were different at all...
You've got it essentially right, EXALT's motives are never explored in depth, the only thing we know is that they are a conspiracy of many rich and powerful people that believed working with the aliens would be a greater benefit than fighting them. They are like the cultists from the original series that saw the aliens as a way to bring humanity to the next level. Reading into their intentions a bit, they come off as doing it for social Darwinist reasons, they believe in sacrificing the majority of humanity to elevate the elite to the next level, which includes them of course, which is why we see them go much farther than Xcom in using MELD for gene modification, making themselves closer to the aliens rather than just superhuman.

I'm guessing there's going to be human 'collabo's' in the game from the trailer, but it might be interesting if there are other factions around. Hey, if XCOM lost canonically, we could *possibly* be seeing the result of an EXALT victory? With humans as something less than equal partners, but more than slaves/lab rats. Maybe not, but I'd like it if EXALT were still around in some form.
It's possible, the display boards in the trailer show humans in armor next to the ADVENT symbol, much like the Overwatch from Half-life 2, the aliens are recruiting humans to act as the face of the new government while the aliens hide in the background playing puppet master.

My guess would be that if EXALT is still around, depending on how the destruction of their headquarters plays out from Enemy Within, EXALT could end up like Doctor Breen from Half-Life 2, the puppet leaders of the new one world government, EXALT was already made up of powerful financial and political leaders, so it's not a stretch to see them being placed in positions of power within the new government. Even the naming convention seems similar, the one world government is called ADVENT, which could very well just be EXALT with a new name after teaming up with the aliens to negotiate earth's surrender.

They could also go a different route and make EXALT a rival guerilla faction, one that works nominally with the aliens but still tries to steal and horde their technology to try and meet their own goals, essentially working with them until they achieve their own goals for humanity.

I'm just spewing badly-thought out headfluff now, I guess. But I love thinking about crap like this, as inept as my reasoning is. Thanks for the reply!
Same here, as fun as the reboot and expansion were, there is a lot of wiggle room to interpret events, and Enemy Within proved they were willing to just turn everything from Enemy Unknown into an alternate universe in order to expand canon. So the sequel may go either way depending if they are working off of the EU timeline (no Meld, no EXALT) versus EW (Meld and EXALT as well as the expansion mission rescuing psionic people the aliens were experimenting on).
 

Fdzzaigl

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Mar 31, 2010
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I was just thinking that I haven't really been hyped for something in a long long time...

BUT NOW THE HYPE IS REAL BROS... WOHOOO ALL ALONG THE CHOOCHOO TRAIN



Don't disappoint me Firaxis!!!
 

SweetShark

Shark Girls are my Waifus
Jan 9, 2012
5,147
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Snake Men and Melee Combat ACTIVATED!!!!!
F*CK YES! *U** YES!!!!!!!!!
However I turn off with the whole "Aliens won the War" Theme....
What was the point of our Victory in the first X-Com? All the effort for nothing?
 

Sniper Team 4

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Apr 28, 2010
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1) So...no console version? Okay, find. I...didn't want to play it anyway. Jerks...

2) So I take it the guy that was grabbed by the snake didn't make it?

3) It looks like the story might be a bit tighter this time around. Which is good, because as fun as XCOM was for me, after I beat it twice, I kind of lost interest because the story was bare-bones. Not that it matters, because I apparently don't get to play it. Not that I wanted to, mind you. So, you know...whatever

(Please make a console version...)