Maria Caliban

ME 2 outed on EA store I guess we can just lock this topic and use the current ME thread.

I hope he isn't all that angsty about it. It's hard to feel sad for a guy with a robot arm when the alternative is him spending his life as an amputee.

I'm not sure that's an offical piece. Looks like fan art. Here is the trailer. That image might be from the beginning, but it flashes by quickly.

It would. I'm hoping the rumor is off.

No, it has some party members and some non-party members. Really? A image taken by hitting prt scrn while watching a low rez video in IE doesn't meet your standards for game graphics? This is my shocked face. That said, what bothers me is the hands. Those hands are freaky. There's one elf in that image and he's male.

The Making of Dragon Age 2, part 1 According to Chris, they just had 20 journalists from around the world at the BioWare Edmonton Studios playing the game itself (not the demo) and interviewing the developers. We can expect a bunch of new previews before the end of the month. Fangirls are scary, yes.

Some people are very picky about voice acting. Then again, some people complained about Annah's fake accent in Planescape and Leliana's fake accent in Dragon Age: Origins, so one can be both pick and have a tin ear.

For a BioWare game, Dragon Age: Origins was mild when it comes to ego stroking. However, it helps that I played Mass Effect first. Though I thought Sten's 'I will not seek you on the field of battle' bit was nice. That said, it's been awhile since I saw 'the chosen one' in any RPG.

Or for Egyptian Pharaohs or Babylonian or Assyrian kings. Crap land seems to have done well for the Greeks.

True. I used the Witcher as an example because it's the only game I know of where you fight in a constant click-swing pattern.

Risen starts when you, a generically white looking dude with dark hair, wash up on a tropical island. There's one another female survivor of the shipwreck and your immediate task is to clear the area and make your way to a small shack for safety. The major locations on the island are a bandit camp, a city, and a monestary. Combat is like the Witcher in that it's about timing your swings. I found it repetitive and frustrating. The explorable land is small, the game is not that long, and there's padding towards the end. In some ways, it's like Divinity 2, but not as good. That said, I had fun playing it the first time. The story is basic but interesting, the factions are simple but fun, the quests are easy but fun, and I enjoyed exploring the island when my face wasn't being torn off by a random mob. Oh, and I liked the dungeons. The dungeons were well done.

The writers of the Divinity series can only conceive of one ending. One. At the end of the expansion, you might be fooled into thinking you've got a different ending than the previous three games. This is because they have a crowd cheering (though not cheering you), triumphant music playing, and a big THE END. Upon reflection, you'll realize that your PC has failed in their goal but apparently everyone is too dumb to notice.

Sure. If you never interact with Aveline she'll do her job, which is work as a city guard. If you don't interact with Varric then he'll continue his job, which is working for the merchant's guild. Following you around isn't Aveline's job. If you ask her to accompany you one night while you investigate some dwarven ruins under the city, that's interacting with her, and she's going to base her opinion of you on what happens while you're together.

Pfft. It's just Oblivion with swords! I've never heard of Dead State, Darkpore, or Bastion. Probably will pass on LOTR. I liked Risen. I played the original Sacred and it felt like a bad diablo clone as opposed to a good one like Torchlight. Thank you for the information. I have research to do.

Your hyperbole aside, companions and followers are very long sidequests. RPGs reward you with interacting with them for the same reason you're rewarded for exploring an area, talking to all the NPCs, adding runes to your armor and weapon, and all the optional content RPGs give you that benefits the PC. It makes no sense for an RPG to constantly hand out penalties simply because you're role-playing your character. This is akin to saying that handing out XP and loot for doing a quest is a trap the developers have put themselves in. They do so to encourage the player and to give them a sense of accomplishment. If BioWare wanted to not give companion bonuses, they would stop doing so. The Friendship/Rivalry system is not about whether a companion likes or dislikes you. If you have high Friendship or high Rivalry, the companion likes you a great deal. How about this? There are two Friendship paths. There's the Friendship path where you agree with one of their fundamental beliefs, and there's the Friendship path where you disagree. Perhaps they ardently believe in the Chantry while you think it's oppressive and corrupt. If you don't want to be liked by the companion, then tell them to leave or don't interact with them or do something they really hate and have them leave you. But if you're talking with them, taking them along as you quest, and helping them with their problems then the assumption is you're they're going to like you.

I don't have an XBox 360.

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showforum=80 I think we need more RPGs starting with the letter D! Thanks. I'd forgotten about that one.

PC Arr-Pee-Gees for 2011 Deus Ex: Human Revolution Diablo III Dragon Age 2 Drakensang: River of Time World of Warcraft: Cataclysm The Witcher 2 Probably will pass on: Two Worlds II Arcana - Gothic 4 Am I forgetting any RPGs?

Sex is always an easy target.

Auto-attack. You control companions. Limited zoom out. Possibly only during combat.

Does bukkake refer to anything other than a sexual act? I'm not sure what it has to do with pirating.

Right, now that I have some energy drink in me... The Friendship/Rivalry mechanic! David and Mary were kind enough to explain the system, and it seems like an improvement over the DA:O Approval mechanic. BioWare saw two problems with the approval system. 1) You could only get a mechanical benefit or more follower conversation by agreeing with your companion, which led to players feeling punished if they RPed their PC honestly, and 2) You could gift spam a companion into liking you. The Friendship/Rivalry system lets you disagree with companion's fundamental viewpoints while still getting a benefit and being able to progress the relationship. For example, if you spoke with Leliana, you would gain minor Rivalry points by saying that you didn't believe in the Maker. With Morrigan, you would get major Rivalry points for staying to save Redcliffe. As you progress along either path, there are bonuses. Rivalry path ones usually improve the companion (as they struggle to prove their viewpoint is better) while Friendship path ones usually help the PC or the group. Friendship/Rivalry is not the same as like or dislike. With high Friendship, Morrigan would see the PC as smart and ruthless, and with high Rivalry, she'd see the PC as soft-hearted, but she'd still respect their power given they've accomplish so much while letting weaker people leech off them. Companions might still attack you under specific circumstances. At the end of the Rivalry path, the companion will typically confront you one last time. They might leave, you might reach an understanding, or you might be able to persuade them to your viewpoint. This would be akin to hardening Leliana by convincing her that her time with the Chantry was a lie and that she's really a bard at heart. As for gifts, companion gifts in DA 2 are all like Morrigan's mirror, Sten's sword, or Andreste's Grace for Leliana. They're individual to that character and trigger conversations. How a companion reacts to a gift depends on whether you're a friend or a rival. For example, if you gave a follower a sword, a friend might react with gratitude while a rival might scoff at the notion that they need it and tell you to keep it.

Is there something wrong with my post?

People on the BioWare boards have been asking for a romance with their sister. You know, sometimes I worry.

I love Steam, but I hear it's evil and a monopoly that will devour all digital distribution and send brick-and-mortar businesses out of business. But those brick-and-mortar establishments have been mean to me for years. The last time I went into a video game store, they told me I couldn't pre-order a PC game. They'd get a shipment in (they didn't say how many) and I'd have to come in and hope I got a copy. And Steam lets me back-up my games if I want a hard copy. And after I authorize my game I can play off-line. They have lots of sales, and their friends grouping lets me set up games of L4D2. This is worse than when I found out Google was evil. Evil should be like Microsoft: Annoying, buggy, inconvenient, and behind the curve!