Maria Caliban

What is that? No, I'm saying that the problems people have (and not just with DRM, with games and systems and whatever else) are never as widespread as they like to think. I agree with this. If someone can't play a game they bought, they're going to protest long and loud about it. How people install a game and then start a thread about how easy it was to install and activate? And to some extent, I wonder how many blame the DRM for non-DRM issues. Despite what many PC gamers would like to believe, the average PC gamer seems to only be slightly more computer literate than the average PC user. Sure, there are people who make their own computers, always update their drivers, frequently run full virus and mal-ware scans, frequently defrag, and clean their registry and even reinstall their operating systems every couple of years. Those people are the minority. It's much easier to blame a technical issue on DRM than it is to constantly maintain your computer and troubleshoot any problems.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Hands on, Part 1

*thinks about all the games she's only played once* *thinks about the games she's never even finished* *stays very quiet*

Interview with Mike Laidlaw Apparently, they found that quite a few people quit the game after about an hour or two, which is one of the reasons for the revamped intro where you go immediately into the story/action. Art Nouveau: Dragon Age II And the DA:O art team succeeded admirably. As I understand it, it's more complex than that though as I know there were three project leads. First guy wanted a sort of 'Conan' feel, which why Ferelden was described as backwater and barbaric. The early concept art is from that time. Then they went to 'generic/LotR' style, which is where most of the work was done with the gothic plate and very earthy color tone. Lastly, Mike came on and wanted to make it darker, edgier, which is why you got the massive blood splatters, the blood dragon logo, the MM This is the New Sh*t theme, and the finishing animations. Mike has been the lead for all of DA II.

I had Aveline solo the orge as Bethany and my PC (if rogue or warrior) ignored it and killed the darkspawn. With shield wall active, Aveline doesn't need you to cast heal on her. I removed Bethany's auto-cast of fireball so she wouldn't use it too soon. The darkspawn will rush toward Aveline. When they're clustered around her, cast fireball, use a high damage melee attack from your PC, and then have Aveline use Taunt. They'll ignore Bethany and the PC then. Continue to auto-attack until fireball is off its cool down and hit them again. That killed the first wave for me without the PC or Beth being damaged. In the demo, I opted to give Beth heal, fireball, and the passive increase to fire damage as it increases her auto-attack as well. I didn't put any points into her willpower but stuck it all in magic to give her more oomph. I never ran out of mana but if I did, there are always potions. The rogue flask that causes dizziness is great to pick up. For THW, the passive Giant's Blow a more impressive damage booster than the text suggests.

While I liked the demo, I felt the two-handed warrior was the weakest of the classes. I started a thread on the various flaws I thought it had and how it didn't seem to 'fit' well into any party role. A number of other posters, many of whom like playing two-handed fighters in general, agreed with my assessment. Then Stan Woo replied and I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else had the same feeling after playing the demo.

It also helps that it's tradition. You didn't download the demo yet? For shame, Volo!

Okay. So if my warrior is breaking the laws of physics and my mage is breaking the laws of physics, why is my mage's lawbreaking inherently superior to that of the warrior? If my mage can cast a fireball at a group of enemies, how about my warrior charges at them and knocks them all down for the same amount of damage? If my mage can cast mind blast and daze a group, how about my warrior give a bloodthirsty cry and dazes them? I see no reason why mages should be better just because they have magic. They might be better at some things because that's the strength for the class, but giving them the best damage, crowd controll, and buffs just because 'they're magic' seems to ignore all the obvious non-realistic stuff the game already lets the other classes do.

If I can slam a sword on the ground and knock people off their feet, it's obvious I'm no longer working within the constraints of what real world swordsmen can do. If there is, it might take a while as the schism between the mage/non-mage sibling is apparently part of the story. Indeed. It's not fun to be obviously inferior in combat in a game that's probably 80% combat. Yes, I know that. But those images aren't taken from the demo that was just released.

Graphic comparisons. Taken from here

I'm not even sure what the tracker in the site is for. It seems to be PC downloads. That was supposedly a hardware issue they've already dealt with. I only encountered it twice, but I heard some people had multiple loadings per cutscene. I actually asked for a click to attack for PC users but they said no. Now that I know what the targeting is like on the PC, I have to agree. You'd think they'd take a page from ME 2 and implement sticky targeting. Yes. I thought they were going to bring the rogue and warrior a bit up to par, but that just seems to mean the rogue archer is now also overpowered.

Not sure what you're talking about. It does.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47900/ Demo on Steam.

Damn, filthy Europeans. I always know that it's you bragging about your obscene download speeds because you put a comma in the middle of your numbers instead of a dot like ALL GOOD, GOD-LOVING PEOPLE DO. *is getting 40kbps on average* They have a few mirrors up now and gamershell has a torrent. But yes, they should have put it on Steam. Chris came in and posted, "We didn't expect to get 1,000,000 hits per second!" It's amazing how time and time again, their servers are inundated with requests and they're always surprised it happens. I don't think there was any doubt that they'd get one million sign ins.

I assume that the moderators didn't know it was legitimate. It was the weekend, so they might not have been able to find someone to ask. It's not downloads, but sign-ins.

I played 2H warrior once and DW rogue once. While rogues are squishier than warriors are, I found their basic CC ability and single target damage made the beginning much easier. Instead of investing in frost and heroic aura, I gave Bethany the passive fire elemental boost and the rain of fire spell. For the last battle I went fireball + rain of fire + Varric's AOE arrow attack and wiped out all the normal mobs. Four more enemies spawned at the back of the chantry so I left Aveline tanking Hayden (boss) and had everyone else fight the spawns. The fight went from being about 8 minutes long to 3 minutes. I wonder how a two mage party would fare. Will the full game have combat tactics configuring like DAO? Yes. However, I can't read German so I'm not sure how I'd do that. I believe one person indicated you could go: 'Cast Fireball at 2+ enemies that are attacking 1 ally.'

Again, the control freakery is a fairly recent development. It used to be a nice company to interact with, now it's a sort of prissy, precious type of outfit. And as somebody who loathes the collected works of Joss Wheedon, I'm sort of seeing the link. Usually I'd feel the desire to defend BioWare, but I the Whedon dig makes this comment fine in my eyes. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the settings. I noticed that AA was off by default. It didn't look 'craptastic' to me, however. Yes, the combat is more fluid. It's also easier in general. Combos are available right off the bat (I like this) but the mage AI is aggressively stupid* and using a power will sometimes cause you to stop attacking. * During the battle, the mage will seek out clusters of enemies to target if the AOE flameball/frost spell is available. This is good if it's the cluster of enemies you're fighting but bad if it's a group of archers or a group that's just appeared on the field. Nothing in the demo is as bad as the Deep Roads. It's PC, XBox, and PS 3. The XBox and PS 3 only update on Tuesdays.

Gamestar, a German magazine, came out today with the demo on a CD. BioWare is deleting threads talking about it. I think that's a bit silly.

Hawke can take skills from both trees but companions cannot. None of the inventory screens I've seen have the ability to switch weapons.

I thought the beginning with Cassandra and Verric was well done. I'm not sure what you mean about Alpha Protocol being better. I'm going to guess there's a strong level of hyperbole there because the majority of Alpha Protocol's cutscenes was someone standing or sitting while they talked. And the sex scenes. In the opening to DA II we have: Man being dragged by two other men Man being slammed onto chair Woman waving book Woman throwing book at face Woman slamming knife into book Close up of fingers touching the pages Along with the usual facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language. Compare Varric's movements to Michael's during the interrogation: Michael sits in the same position throughout the game, never moves his hands, and talks. The man with him stands (in one spot) or sits and talks. I want to say he sometimes smokes.

I like reading reviews. I don't think they're rubbish... Actually, I do think they're rubbish. Let me start over. Reviews are subjective so in order to utilize a review, you need to know where the reviewer is coming from. Because they think the same way as you do or you're aware of their tastes. I think a good review can point out various aspects of the game and examine them in a useful way, even if you don't agree with what they say. However, the main function of magazine and internet reviews is to tell a consumer if they should pay money for something or skip it. In that, game reviews are rubbish. They doubled the cinematic team for DA II and there are more cutscenes than in DA:O. However, the cutscenes are also more class specific. For example, there's a scene where Hawke murders a qunari in a chantry. We've seen the mage version with the staff, but there's also a warrior version and a rogue version. Companion interaction will also have cutscenes as well as the conversation between Varric and Cassandra.

Two magazine reviews. PC Games gave it 88, pros and cons: + very well told hero story + varied followers, each with their own stories + great dialogs with moral decisions + exciting boss battles + martial-arts-fans should have great fun with possibly the fastest (or fast paced) battles in a fantasy game - ...but old-school RPG players might have their problems with the flurry of activities in battles - limited class progression with fixed skilltrees - poor level design with one-to-one copy-pasting of whole quest areas (I assume they mean the areas in Kirkwall have day and night versions) - unsatisfying ending Gamestar gave it 87, pros and cons: + thrilling storyline + great dialogs and quests + coherent / consistent game world - some fiddly battles - less epic as DAO Their conclusion: great RPG, a little weaker than DAO Source. German.

What Divinity 2 and Mass Effect 2 taught me is that if you have a failure ending, it has to be good, while an ending where you win can have some problems and still work.

I find it strange that he let Carver and Hawke fall, waited a minute, and then used Aveline's Taunt ability. ---------------------- Some of Aveline's Talents from her unique Guardian tree: Serve and Protect is her "Friendship" Ability: Watchful Eye is her "Rivalry" Ability: Guardian Abilites include "Immovable" An upgrade to that, called "Unstoppable" reduces Attack Speed and Movement to -3% per hit. A passive called "Indomitable" A Sustain "Bodyguard" Retaliation An upgrade, Retribution, increase the dutration and damage. And the description of the tree itself: