Valmy

EA made me angry when my computer crashed and they refused to let me re-download the digital orders I had made. Gog and Steam are always there and I have pretty much gotten used to playing all my games with them. I might come around someday but frankly the constant mistrust and hostility vibe I always got from EA wore on me. I don't have much time for gaming much anymore anyway, it is not like I need to play their games.

Love is seldom rational.

I am unlikely to own this game unless EA decides to put it on Steam or Gog unfortunately.

The only thing you can really do evil in BG1 is murder and steal. You can turn down the good quests but you lose the advantages of doing so and do not gain anything substantial in return. There is really no evil path, there is a psychopathic path and non-psychopathic path and it is to your benefit to do the non-psychopathic stuff. That was a big criticism of BG1 at the time. Sure and there are a few big evil options in IWD2 as well. As shown by the option to side with the Duergar. I thought the issues he had with the essential non-existence of meaningful evil paths are not solely for IWD2. Actually I thought there were nice RP moments in IWD2 just mostly confined to the first town. I am not sure what you are talking about here. They mean a great deal in that game. More than the others. You could be one cold bloodedly cruel bastard. I have to admit I didn't have the stomach for it.

So....no love sonnets?

I look forward to your very detailed breakdown and review of every romance in the game.

Indeed. Also, IWD2 was famously rushed. Interplay told Black Isle to crank out another IE game as quickly as they could to get some money coming in and forestall the slow implosion of IPLY's finances. It's not surprising that alternate alignment-based paths in the endgame didn't make it. Would've been nice, sure, but it's not something that is going to have much effect on sales in the early going. Well the same guys are making PoE so I think there is still value in bringing these issues up to the developers.

Granted but his criticisms easily extend to the other IE games as well.

Just a Valian girl Livin' in a Cipher world she signed up with a caravan goin' toward the Gilded Vail Just a Chanter boy Born and raised in south Rauatai

Oh dear God. I remember when I played ME 1 I was kind of like 'wow these Reaper guys are pretty amazing opponents I hope they have their motivations and how to beat them carefully thought out or this awesome premise could go wrong. Paying off villains like this would be tough.' But they had not even thought of it yet? That is amazing. You think that would have been one of the first steps not something just to improvise later. That does explain the bizarre nature of Mass Effect 2 though.

The eternal alliance between France and Germany once more bears fruit.

Fewer maps than BG2?! NOOOOOOOOOO *gasp* OOOOOOOOO Well alright I guess that is ok. Oh god that drove me crazy. It was getting positively absurd by 2002 when IWD2 was released. The press was screaming about the 'archaic infinity engine' and I was like 'really? But we have only had five titles total and it is only about five years old' I mean heck Bioware's engine from Mass Effect has been going on eight years now and nobody is demanding it be shut down forever and no games like it be made again. I will never understand why they couldn't just have made a new engine that made games like the IE games but with the all the updated nonsense instead of just declaring the who genre dead and forcing us fans to self-fund them. Thanks industry.

This Rift tearing stuff letting demons in sounds like ES: Oblivion.

LOL. Dear God. It is like Mass Effect 2 all over again. Remember all that story telling and lore from the last game? Well arbitrary parts of it are going to change.

FYI: DA:I will not appear on Stream (ever, in all likelihood). As I understand it, Stream requires games that offer DLC to offer it for sale via Stream itself (in addition to whatever other channels that they might use) -- which, of course, allows Stream to take a cut when it is purchased that way. EA has refused to do so, so unless / untill an "Ultimate" (bundled with all possible DLC) version is created, no EA game will appear in Stream. Directly on topic, I've been intermittently following the coverage of DA:I, but for the same reason that people can't look away from a train wreck in progress. I watched the 2012 Simcity hype in much the same way, and we all know how that turned out... No Steam and/or no GOG? Then no sale. Sorry EA, already gotten screwed enough by your terrible store. Never again.

I always form caches in each Dungeon I retrieve after I have it cleared. I could take me quite a few trips back to town to get all the loot out.

I have no problem with The Witcher or any of those games. I do have a problem with, for example, Dragon Age claiming to be a modern update to the IE games and having so much less content and features. I think there should be more than one sort of RPG. I want the kind of I like to be included though. It has been quite awhile.

Indeed. The only thing more amazing is the inability of the industry to do what those games did so well again. It seems like the tech upgrades have largely had a regressive effect on gameplay. So excited we are so close to release and it looks just great.

The UI and the Icons still have a ways to go is my understanding.

Well according to ashtonw it was a pretty big waste of text for feminists as well.

I enjoy romance a lot as well. I am so sorry about your husband what a horrible loss. I agree it can be a great addition to the story. I just think we should remember Obsidian and BIS has created great characters and memorable stories without romances in the past and trust that they will do so again.

Because she was mysterious and memorable and what her motivations and objectives were were interesting? I mean she was a villain, does she need an arc to be a well written one?

Not a coincidence

Right? Those characters were all amazing in games that had no romances. But it seems now everybody thinks that unless you have romances all character interactions are going to be subpar. Pity that.

Are you sure? I thought it was always a game. It certainly has its rules and you don't always win. Very true, in fact isn't the great game of love the greatest game of all? Not really. It is a game you only have to win once. What kind of game is it where the person who bats 1000 is just as much of a winner as the person who bats 100? Pretty lame.