zazei

It doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose beyond being there because of the strechgoals. It's not tied in to the main storyline, the visiting lords doesn't come from any place we might have visited and we can't even talk to the visitors who do come. As someone else said it feels like we have our own little town, only it's completely dead and filled with silent guards. The endless path is great but the keep itself is so very weak I found it made me enjoy the game less when I tried to use it. Building all the buildings didn't seem to do all that much and the only quests I ever got from it beyond the endless path was the bounties from the warden's place. Honestly in it's current form I personally think the game would been better without the stronghold. I do love Pillars of Eternity outside of this one thing though what makes the Stronghold even more frustrating to deal with.

Remember that undead Raedric's first act when he came back to life was to kill Kolsc and everyone in the entire keep. So if you go over there and kill Raedric afterwards it's basically means the Vale now has no ruler at all. So they might be a tiny bit upset you basically cut the village of from the left of the nation and left it to tend for themselves since they no longer have any ruler at all. Never mind that both of them where horrible, at least they had someone to make sure the law was followed. Now they have nothing!

I would agree that Iovara was pretty weak and was introduced too late for me to care much about her. The student/mentor relationship with her never mattered to me since she was shown so late in the game but truth is that Iovara herself basically seem to admit that she was not the one that's important to the player. The one that matters is Thaos and some of the gods were nice enough that my character stuck with them rather then converting to a let's all be atheist mindset! The companions I had to the last fight also stuck with the teachings on their god despite the fact that they heard they were lies. At this point even if the gods were at some point created it doesn't mean they are not gods. At one point before the world was made aware of their existence it might been possible to have the world following Iovara's example but at this point in time I doubt the majority of the characters in the game would care about her vision for how the world should be. I think Iovara might been a bit heavy handed but personally I think game left itself enough room to go in any direction from here, the ending certainly didn't hint at some massive rebellion to bring down the gods and I trust Obsidian didn't build up this setting just to instantly destroy it the way Dragon age did with it's templar vs mage war.

The big news here for me isn't that someone got offended by something that the backers put into the game but that someone read those notes in the first place. By the second zone when I figured out what the gravestones/golden bars means I stopped clicking on them and never looked back. It's not like these characters are part of any serious lore that Obsidian feels bound by. Also I would be sooo happy if I never had to read the word SJW again. ;..;

Maybe not, but the concept for this game was sold from the very beginning as the spiritual successor to those games. While I wouldn't go so far as to say the game sucks, I am disappointed. I like certain aspects of the game, ie the art design, sound, etc, but I have issues with the core gameplay to the point I simply don't find it enjoyable. The way xp is handled, stealth, combat only abilities, ai. endurance/HP, etc. I have no doubt that patches will address some of these, as will (hopefully) mods, but for the most part some things are here to stay. The game seems to be doing well and I am glad for that, and I know I am in the minority as a lot of people enjoy it, I just wish I did. Personally I think the game does play like a spiritual successor to Baldur's gate mixed with a bit of Icewind dale dungeon crawling (Endless dungeon). Learning the mechanics/reading the spell description and talents when leveling up certainly made me feel like I was learning Baldur's gate 2 all over again. Same feel as I had back when it was new and I had never heard of Forgotten realms. I know Baldur's gate 2 had several different play styles but for me it was always a group effort in combat. My main character in Pillars is a human hunter and it's probably the character I micro manage the least in combat except for the tank. That doesn't make me care any less about her though since it's still my character and again, group effort. It's just the spell classes in these games always needed a bit more attention. I'm not sure why people care so much about who does the damage when it's a six member party. Unlike wow where I still only control 'me' here I control everyone. All the companions are just as much mine as my hunter.

While I read a lot of complaints on how hard the hacking mini game can be I would like to ask why none ever mention the real challanging mini game in AP. I'm talking about the one we have to do when cracking keypads on doors or breaking Alarms. I have Alpha Protocol on PC and some of the later ones on hard for the pipe line mini game include up to 11-12 lines to find in about 18-20 seconds. I don't think I ever managed one of those on the first try or managed to do any of the ones with 12 at all. Honestly can anyone do these without several attempts or a EMP? I abused EMP's quite a lot toward the end of the game but still beyond a few insane examples on hard I personally find all the mini games interesting and somewhat fun. Mostly since they are almost always a challange and besides normal locks that was quite easy I was never 100% certain I would would make it. I wonder though if there is a system to it. The mini games doesn't always seem to follow the rule to just get harder the futher into the game I got. Some normal doors on the later levels just had 3 or so things to crack while others had 6 and some keypads had 6 while others had 12. I think what made me most afraid to try them on my own toward the end of the game was the risk of running into one of those I can't do on my own without knowing in advance how challanging this one would be. Still it's part of the charm really. I think AP is rather rare in the regard that I was always a bit uncertain if I could manage a mini-game or not. In most games they are rather easy and while I don't always manage to do them 100% of the time I manage it well enough to always asume I can do it. In AP it's far more uncertain and I rather like it.

I found hard mode without chain shot or the assault rifle to be great fun but very frustrating at times. I don't think I want to think of the amount of times I got 1-2 shotted by some random guard I didn't notice until it killed me from behind or the times I did spot the guards but still got killed by them when I was forced into a fight. The most challanging thing for sure is either fighting in small areas or fights where hiding and taking everything out one by one really isn't a option and I had to try to go up face to face with the enemy even though they could kill me with 1-3 hits. Far harder then any other RPG I played in years to be sure.

I dunno to me They're a transparent obstacle put there for plot reasons, made annoying so that we, the players, can take pleasure in their eventual comeuppance. They're basically the tweedy police captain who is always hassling the hero cop into doing his paperwork and not embarrassing whichever corrupt politician happens to be mixed up with the villainous drug lords. Also, the best unintentional comedy in the series was the ME1 was Shep and Anderson insisting that the Council was crazy for not basing galactic policy on a 50,000-year-old unconfirmable psychic message experienced by exactly one person. That's just it; the council's complaints are rather easy to see IMO. They're taking a conservative approach and using what they can see and IMO have been consistent from ME1 to ME2 (and also I don't really think that Shep was wrong for fighting for what he knew even if he was the only one who knew it. Anderson might be the odd one out, but he basically supports Shep; something to the effect of "if you say it happened, then I believe you". I really should give up trying but every time I replay the game I still try to make Shepard have a decent sensible conversation with the council but someone always have to ruin it In the first game I try hard to agree with the Asari in the first council meeting when they made us a Spectre. We really don't know enough at that point for Shepard to point fingers and yell at them about the Reapers based on only a vision she herself admit she doesn't understand and some vague data found in a geth's memory core. In the second game one would think Shepard learned how the council worked already and just stick with facts. (Human colonies are vanishing, Collectors are starting to take whole planets instead of a few individuals) but noooo. The annoying part about it all though is that even when I carefully do manage to keep Shepard from ranting about these things to the council one of the companions will always jump in with a vision/Reaper comment. I so wish I could strangle them at times. They should let us go alone to these meetings in the third game [Edit] I mean what does Jacob know about the Reapers anyway to make him jump all over the council? It's also a bit amusing Shepard shows more respect for the illusive man then she ever did to the council.

Yep. You touched on the two biggest WTF moments that really, really rankled me. I still loved the game, but damn. Those were two really crappy "design decisions". I not only hated them, I actually resented them. When I finished my latest game, I sacrificed myself because that cad Alistair dumped me when he became king. Grrrr. Elitist cur. So I died just to be contrary... and because I wanted all my companions to file past my good-looking corpse to say nice things about me. But... but... Alistair just gave this windy speech... calling me his "friend" which made me want to leap out of my coffin and scratch his eyes out... and nobody else said a damned thing! They were all at 100% with me... and they couldn't find a couple of nice parting words?? From now on, Alistair dies. Oh, yes. He will always die. Bwahahaha! I reacted somewhat similar. Honestly first time I got to the Landsmeet and found out Alistair dumped my city elf if I made him king and seemed to resent me when I supported the Queen I dropped the game for about a week and when I returned I started over from scratch. I was so mad at him after that that on my dwarf I ended up with -100 influence with him and then at the Landsmeet I spared Loghain, supported the queen and told her to go ahead and execute him after as revenge. Since then I given him a second chance on my human noble once since they can have a happy ending of a sort but honestly I'm still mad at that character for how he treated my elf. For all his talk about honor and the like Alistair is quite a jerk and being able to get him killed is the only reason I find sparing Loghain a more appealing path in the end.

One thing I noticed about Mass effect 2 is that ever now and then they have these small bits of conversation where we can't affect things. It can go back and forth once or twice between Shepard and someone else without us choosing a response. It's not that often and I really don't mind it but I can't remember if there was any situations like this in Mass effect 1. Anyone else got this impression from the game and have any idea why they decided to go this way for the second one?

I would try not to get my hopes up too much if I where you. Don't get me wrong the restoration is a wonderful thing and some of the new contents is just amazing. Sadly as I recall it some of the stuff they restored feels a bit pointless and when I played it at least I couldn't help to feel that it was cut by Obsidian for a reason. For the the best stuff of the restored content was the small details that you hardly noticed unless you payed attention, those things made it a far better experience for me then the larger stuff they restored. ^^

I prefer it this way as well. First Bioware game that never made me feel silly while playing the low path as you call it. Or well there was this one time but small things can be forgiven. At least I didn't find a single beggar to bully for credits and that got to be a major improvement. I never really understood why someone would go through the trouble to get so few credits when it most likely can't even pay for 1/100 of their daily expenses.

I honestly don't mind limited activation or internet check to activate while the installation runs because the few games I brought with that all seems to have removed it after a year or two once the hype is over. However with this it seems like a permanent thing you never get rid of and that is unacceptable for me. One reason is that for one reason or another sometimes even fast connection internet is down and I want to be able to play or be entertained then as well if I got nothing else to do at the moment. The second reason is that if they use servers like this I'm not entirely sure what will happen when the game start to turn old. Will it still be possible to access those servers for a 10 year old game? Or in the worse case, what will happen if the company fails? I trust some companies to look after their customers even when everything fails but these guys are really not one of them. >_>

You can choose not to wear a helmet but you lose one armor bonus if you do. It's no big deal though. Most of the stuff the helmets gives are things like 5% health or the like. Most of the time I personally never even show myself once the shield fails since health can go down very quickly and it's annoying to reload.

Has anyone managed to do a character with almost no renegade points at all? I still managed to get 1/5 or more of the renegade bar filled on my paragon character and that was while waiting for the lengthy interrupts to pass. The story just seems made for a renegade character in many ways. I also noticed a lot of the renegade choices are really the same stuff you would have been doing as a paragon in Mass effect but in a harsh way. In the first game renegade came down as xenophobic or just plain out of control. Here I often got the impression a renegade is just someone that cares about the people in the galaxy but use harsh means and sometimes bully people into doing what is good for them instead of bullying people into doing whats good for you.

It amazes me how bad all the preorder armors look. The one I look seem to stand out in a bad way far worse then the crappiest color combination I could create on my own. I'm also not sure if they are even worth wearing for their bonuses Other then that though the game is proven beyond what I expected so far. Might just be because I'm not used to these kinds of combat systems since I get bored by games such as Gears of war for their lack of decent storyline.

Anyone know how to aim the ballistas on the consoles? You can aim with the balista?

As far as bad guys go I think Loghain was at least better then Malak even if the Arch demon wasn't anything but a random dragon to kill at the end. Something I noticed lately though when I tried more and more origins is that no one in this game gives me a good reason for why I want to save them. Most people I liked at some point turns out to be jerks when I try a different origin Knight-Commander Greagoir being the latest one that I liked until I did the mage origin. Now I wish I could shoot a fireball in his face as soon as I see him. I think Dragon Age's greatest flaw is creating a good motivation for why people want to take up the duty of the Wardens. The people are extremely bad at giving me reasons to care about saving them and few origins make me think I owe Duncan anything for taking advantage of my characters situation and forcefully recruit me if he have to.

Well true and I would prefer that too but then again. When was the last time Bioware did a major villain that wasn't 100% all bad? Most of the time it's their job to look ugly/be stupid as well so nothing new there. I think in some ways we should be happy they can still talk at all. Oh well. I shouldn't bash Bioware so much. I really do enjoy their games most of the time even if I wish Obsidian would finnally release a new one for some variation as well.

While I havn't read the book this is one of the things I still had no real issue with.

Believing is one thing, conducting a proper investigation is another. I just have to say that in their defense it's not their fault C-sec, the citadel police force is pretty useless. I'm not sure if those guys can do a real investigation even if asked to. ^^

Sorry, I meant after Virmire, not sure why I wrote hours tho. Ah well at that point I'm fully with you. I'll just don't like how it all starts but at the end at Virmire there should be some strong evidence that should at least be looked at before dismissed. The idea of having another Asari, possibly a matriarch investigate Shepards mind occurred to me a few times as well. Then again, the council never really accepted the idea of a human spectre. It was mostly a political move I believe to cover up the fact that they messed up with Saren and give them a bone so they don't complain about getting no aid with defending their colonies.

Not that hard with facial paint and skin tone. Thing is even is even if they believe Shepard had the visions and the data recorded in the Geth is accurate there is no real reason to believe the reapers really are a threat at that point. We do find evidence for it later but at this stage all they have to go on is a 50.000 year old damaged machine made to suit a race other then human that might or might not been stored with something useful. There is a vision in it sure and Shepard can tell that it's of machines killing people but that could mean anything. As said for all we know it could have been the prothean version of a bad b-movie. How do Shepard know for sure that's really the reapers? From the movie they show us in the game it's very uncomplete compared to the one we get later in the game. Humanity also given quite a bad impression of the whole thing before with the way Anderson tried to present a vision that had nothing to do with Eden prime as evidence against Seran at the first meeting. Also even if all that is true and the geth truely are trying to bring them back there is few reasons to believe they can or that it's necessary Saren's goals. There is a lot they have no idea about at that point and everyone but Shepard and Anderson can see that. Anderson is also heavily biased against Saren for their history and seems desperate to hold on to anything that could bring that bastard down. So I really don't get why we can't get a option to not press the issue about the reapers since the council already given Shepard everything she/he needs to bring Saren down on their own. It would have made a lot more sense to make the strong argument for the reapers later after finding out and meeting Sovereign to me. Sadly at that point Shepard already acted like a lunatic quite a few times so while the council is useless and the turian is xenophobic I can't fully blame them for not trusting everything about the reapers from day one.