Volourn

Bottom line is ME2 is an action rpg with shooter elements that has more in common with rpgs than shooters. This is FACT. Still, doubting the 700k number since sega basically blasted AP and I doubt they would if it sold that much. So, either the number is wrong or Sega is foolish.

"Maybe it's one those facts that you don't need to prove at all" "Ooh it was better liked at RPG Codex, then it must be true. *****, please. Mass Effect 2 had 6 votes and Mass Effect had 2 votes on The 2010 Codex Top 5 RPG's vote. Dragon Age also got 6 votes. Great success, eh?" Your comment here doesn't even make sense. We weren't comapring how much Codex likes ME2 comapred to other games just ME1 9and DA). It's clear they prefer ME2 over ME1 and espicially over DA which is supposedly a full rpg. "The whole gameplay is based on shooter mechanics in ME2, not crpg." Baloney. Character talents do make a difference. And, again, the fact that the combatb is action NOT shooter based is why it is an action rpg. " Conversations and story elements are the only part of the game that still have some crpg elements left." Like I said, ME2 is an action rpg with shooter elements.

"More people bought ME2 than ME because it was a shooter. People didn't buy it because it was a sequel to an RPG. In fact, a lot of the fans of the first dislike ME2 because of the shooter direction it took. " Evidence, please. Most people who played ME1 and ME2 prefer ME2. That includes the Codex who are all about rpgs. Heck, they prefer ME2 over DA. ME2 is an action rpg just like ME1, AP, or BL. It's not a shooter. It's an RPG with 'shooter elements'. It has a lot more in common with rpgs than it does with shooters. As for actual topic, if AP actually sold 700k copies already, that ain't too bad. Highly suspect that Sega would officially write off a game that sold that much...

"Nonetheless, they are dedicated people and the people who pay Dave's salary." HAHAHAHAHA! No, they don't. BIO/EA do. Posters do NOt pay Gaider's salary. nor do customers. When you buy a game, you pay for the game. That's it. By your logic, customer shave the right to fire/hire employees but they don't. The bosses make that decision just like they decided what to do with your money once you buy the product.Gaider answers to the bosses. Let me ask this? Who signs Gaider's checks? I guarantee it's not some customer's name on that check. Trust me on that. "It would be awesome if they would say exactly that in that very tone at their forums." Absolutely. "Volo's frothing at the mouth at imaginary strawmen again, but just to come back to the issue - yeah, I don't see a big deal here. There's nothing wrong with a few judicious retcons - retcons suck when they change things for the worse or hugely disrupt the canon. Hell, as Volo/etc pointed out, we see so few qunari in DAO anyway - what if the qunari race has blue qunari, grey qunari, red qunari, ones with horn,s without horns, etc? Not a problem." L0LZ You accuse me of strawman but then go on to agree with? wut up wit dat!?!

"As I said, I'm more curious about the changes to dwarves and elves, though Gaider implied they're more subtle (differentiating silhouettes and animations most probably)." We've already seen DA2 dwarves. If there were any changes, they were very minor. The big difference is the dwarf was beardless but Gaider said that was just that personal dwarf's own choice. "but Dave Gaider's thin-skinned and uppity response to the faithful on the Bioware forae is instructive." Anytime a developer smacks down arrogant, evil, greedy, scumbag, judgemental, piece of crap 'fans' (custoemrs) makes me smile. It has nothing to do with being thin-skinned and more about putting punks in their place. The stink people make over even the smallest of things need to get smacked down. It's BIO game. They make it the way they want. You don't like it, don't buy it. And, no, internet geeks are not in the right because theya re 'potential' custoimers. Afterall, these same potential customers whined about DA's marketing scheme as being 'crap' yet DA is BIO's most successful game to date barring ME2 potentially. BIO knows what theya re doing. Internet geeks do not. P.S. This doesn't mean I agree with all changes for DA2 but crying, and whining, and getting all pyscho stalker possessive over the game is pathetic. The scumbags on the BIO baords 9and elswwhre) crying about changes because it potentially 'conflcits with stuff in DA1' are dumb, and are no better than the FO fanatics.

Nothing we learned about quanari in DA1 disproves the existence fo horned ones. Afterall, we saw just a handful of them in the game. It's like the people in that thread whining and worrying that quanari might actually have different skin colour than Sten. THE HORRORZ! It's stuff like that plus stuff in this thread why any half intelligent developer should pretty much ignored 99% of crap spewed on the net. It means nothing.

"even folks who likes the romances would like to see 'em improved" This comments means nothing as this is true for everything. I like DA. It can be improved. I like BG2. It can be improved. I like PST. It can be improved. I like MOTB. It can be improved. I likeNHL 10. It can be improved. You see a pattern? So comments like 'even x person who likes y thing would like to see 'em improved' means nothing, and is a completely unhelpful statement. P.S. At least the rest of the post brings up potential decent points.

"all romance is a linear route towards a sexual encounter, after which, for the most part, the romance has concluded." Except, that's not true. Morrigan's romance is a prime example of this where the sex itself was not the actual goal since if sex was the goal, the 'romance' could end within seconds of meeting her. Nor does her romance have a happy ending. Same with the elf. (though his can have a happy ending) I'm just wondering if the people who bash romances simply cna't see the big picture becuase when they think romance they think sex. I see romance in rpgs as a way to add story, characters, role-playing, and C&C. Some of BIIO's best C&C is strictly because of romances. That's why they are solid additions to the game. "I think if they focus on the small stuff - i.e. two adventurers who grow to like & understand each other, and eventually decide to go romantic - it could be done much better. I don't hold a lot of hope out for this, though, we seem to be going the opposite direction and soon we'll have gay sex, threesome sex, sex with goats, you name it. " Not realistic since every form of entertaiment has romance largely linked with sex. Why? Because, newsflash, that's how it works in real life as well. Long term (or even short term) romance will ALWAYS lead to sex. Just a fact. No need to hide our ehads in the sand and pretend it don't exist. That shows a lack of maturity.

"DS was pretty much the only party-based action RPG," ME series would ahve diasagreed with you if you hadn't cheated with 'pretty much'.

"All of that could have instead been deployed into a Really Big Sword or a 10 x 10 room with an orc in it. And a pie." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"It's not exactly as you really can really ignore it in DAO, since you basically die if you don't iirc." EXcept, you don't need to take part in the romance to do the ritual. Romances in DA (like all BIO games) are 100% optional.

"When I was working on SoZ I always thought of it as a spiritual successor to the Gold Box games." Yeah, but sadly, not as good. Sorry. Thankfully, MOTB, was a solid 'spiritual successor' to PST. DS3, on the other hand, looks very potentially good.

wtf

To me, for the most part, romances in BIO games, just add to the role-playing, C&C, quests, and interetsing characters. Just the fasct people will argue which romance is better is enough to show that romances are a solid part of games. There have been good romances and bad romances. *shrug*

"P.S. : Technically, while the AI isn't top-notch, it's also bugged to hell (enemies standing without doing anything, shooting through cover, just to say a few), which yes, technically count as the game being buggy, not as AI being not that good." How do you know? Maybe them standing there is intentional. P.S. Out of all my AP complaints, being 'too buggy' isn't one of them.

"oh yes it did, I played both ME and ME2 with male and female chars, female was horrible. it's very subjective really, a matter of personal preference and whatnot, to me it makes a little more sense to give players another Gordon Freeman, than to make it seem like players actually have a choice when there's none. take away the possibility to pick a race but leave - sex? puh-lease" Your opinion is one of many. Some prefered male Shep, others prefered female Shep. Seems BIO did their job. Gave people options, and various people enjoyed one of them. *shrug* Focusing on male Hawke will not help or hinder female Hawke. It's irrelevant. P.S. Why did you hate FemShep so much?

Spam thread.

"this is actually what bugs me, doesn't seem right to make Hawke anything but male, since Bio is pedaling the male Hawke looks so much. they'd probably be better off concentrating on a male Hawke story and scratching the female option entirely." Illogical. They focused the ME series hype on a male Shepard yet it didn't hurt female Shepards at all. "I guess it's pretty much the same in DA:O, only you get absolutely nothing for seducing members of your party. and in ME2 it was even worse. god, to think Bio would put it into each and every one of their games... " False. It added more role-playing, more story, more awesomeness, and I'm no 'romance freak'; but I like anything that adds the above features.

"this game looks more and more like "The Witcher" to me, even the both games' main characters look alike, and it could be a good thing. I just hope they ditch the romance and let Hawke be a womanizer, collecting medieval era panties or something..." Well.. Hawke can be a female...

Seems to work since you keep buying/playing their games. And, their games keep selling more and more with ME2 and DA being their most successful games to date. *shrug*

It was Atari's choice. Not Obsidian's or BIO's. If I were BIO, I would have told Atari no since BIO pretty much gets niothing out of the relationship anyways.

"It's same with darkspawn - They are very similar to orcs. I'd say they are extremely similar to LotR orcs" No. But, hey, dragons are now considered orcs. So are ogres, so are those sneaky guys that pump up from the ground. People have weird defintion of orcs. L0L "I think the main reason I enjoyed it was the old-school RTS hybrid combat where I would pause, issue orders, unpause, and repeat," PC version should be staying basically the same, and even the console version you'll be able pause and select commands. The basics of combat isn't really gonna change. Ignore the silly hype diahherra.

"They do, after all, outrank the President of the United States by a not inconsiderable margin. " Huh? How so? US is an independent coutnry which swears no fealty to any other power in the world. The US President is outranked by nobody outside of the country or inside the country though even the president still has to follow the laws of the US. Leader of any country shouldn't be bowing to anyone, anyways. Bowing is a sign of weakness and subservience; NOT of respect.

"There is an occasional anti-British vein in American politics" Yeah, because that kind of attitude is uniquely Amerikan. There's plenty of anti-Amerikans from many governments including Britain plenty. Heck, one of the main reasons for the creation of the EU is to oppose and overpower the US through sheer number of member countries. "The Americans seem to favour non-reciprocal relationships." All countries do if they have the power to get them. Britain, btw, is one of the biggest sinners in this regard. The only difference is the US is one of the few coutnries to have that kind of power nowadays.

" Sure, SK with USA backing would win, but there would be enormous casualities. I certainly don't want to see 30,000 American soldiers wiped out in the first wave. " Even with a flat out nuclear strike that is guaranteed to happen. Afterall, the US and allies bombarded Iraq with almost unlimited missles with 'Shock & Awe' yet the casualties were rather minimal considering. Still, yes, a lot of people die, but hey that's war. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made,. Afterall, sin't that why we celebrate WW2 soliders for their sacrifices? Because, sadly, those sacrifices had to be made because of scumbags?