GhostofAnakin

The kill shot on the end boss thing is going to be tough though, largely because there's just so many damn people shooting at the same time that it's hard to gauge when to actually shoot to finish it off. I was able to get the Progenitor one, but that was a fluke. I basically had a rapid fire weapon handy and kept shooting and luckily scored the killing blow. Also, for some reason, the hellbug arkfalls are the ones that lag for me. The scrapper ones aren't too bad. Thus half the time I can't even move, let alone get the kill shot on the Hellion. I don't know if I'll get the 100 revives though. Not enough people seem to die around me, so I never have an opportunity to actually revive anyone. I'm at only 11 revives out of the 100.

Still plugging along with Defiance. Most of the pursuits are well out of my reach at the moment, so the only way I can raise my EGO is by leveling up my XP or my individual guns XP. Both are incredibly slow. It doesn't help that the lag during major Arkfalls has returned. So I pretty much can't shoot anything or land the kill-shot for the end boss (which is required to complete a pursuit for the Arkfalls). But, just partaking in an Arkfall yields a significant amount of XP. More than actually doing the story missions and side missions.

We wanted to do 3, because it gives us more time per project. What I meant by "what we wanted to do" was that fan outrage didn't crack an EA skin. I actually had considered emailing Aaryn Flynn suggesting we push to 3 projects to effectively move to 3 year dev cycle, only to have him mention it at the following studio meeting. So what happened to the one title per year schedule? There's no BioWare release this year, and only Inquisition for the next little while (unless the new ME game is set to be released in 2015).

How frustrating? As a gamer, I've got a very low tolerance for games that make me frustrated. I give up on games quite easily if I feel more like tossing my controller across the room rather than continuing on.

I use cloak as my EGO power. As for the rest, I've honestly never found a gun combination that works well. No matter what gun I use, it seems to take me 50 shots to kill someone. In fact, 90% of my kills are from leeching off someone else who has already whittled the enemy down to almost no health, then finishing them off with my weak gun. I finished a contract finally tonight, but like you said, it was one of those "Win 7 matches of [game type]" type deals. It didn't require me to be good. It just required me to have the good fortune of being on the winning side seven times.

The other problem is all Echelon contracts seem to be MP-related. Some of the bigger pursuit criteria include having a high reputation with Echelon, which can only be achieved if you complete their jobs, which have been (so far) only MP for me. As it is, I've currently got familiar status with all factions other than Echelon.

Why the heck would you buy DLC for a game you've stated numerous times that you didn't like? Almost every single post you've made about DS3 is about how disappointing it is, yet not only did you finish the core game, you downloaded and played the DLC as well? Seems kind of counterproductive.

Yeah, I officially despise the MP. I'll empty an entire magazine into someone and their energy bar is still half full, while he'll shoot me twice and I'm dead. Rinse and repeat, no matter what gun or shield I use. Only reason I even keep at it is because there are some pursuits associated with MP and I'm trying to (slowly) complete them. For instance, you'd think getting 25 kills in MP wouldn't be a big deal. Apparently for me it is. At the rate I'm going, it's going to take a couple of weeks for me to achieve that.

Defiance's MP is not for me. It's way too Halo-esque, in that you have to keep shooting the enemy because he's got a ridiculous amount of shielding, all the while trying to finish him off before he regenerates the shields. It just turns into a ridiculous game of jumping around and firing. It turned into more frustration than fun, as I'd ALWAYS see my enemy first and even manage to land a couple of shots before they can react, but because I suck at the whole "bunny hop and shoot" stupidity, I end up getting killed. CoD may do some things wrong, but the actual shooting part is, IMO, way better than Halo/Defiance.

The pursuits in Defiance jump incredibly from the middle tier ones to the upper tier ones. Tier II will have a requirement of having to kill 500 enemies, then Tier III will require 1000 kills. Okay, not that big of a jump. But then Tier IV will require 10,000 kills. So you go from being able to complete each tier in a couple of days, to having to grind for the next couple of weeks. For a game that seems to be based upon the "achievement system" to entice players to keep slogging along, they seem to have made some gaps between tiers too great in order to keep people aiming for "just one more kill". As it is, it's sort of "ah crap, I'm not even close to completing the next pursuit".

Finished all the co-op related pursuits in Defiance. The last one actually unlocked a cool looking armor. No other pursuits are within range for me, so it's going to be days or even weeks of slogging through to complete the next one.

Her banter with Isabela if they were both in your party were arguably the best in the game.

The problem I had with DAO's beginning is it felt like you were forced to play through two introductory sections, instead of the usual one that most games throw at you. First you had the origins, which was about an hour or so to slog through. Then you played through *another* intro in the Warden/Ostagar stages. The game doesn't give you any freedom until after that part, when you're on your way to Lothering with Morrigan and Alistair. IMO, the double intro (even though that's not what it was meant to be) is the single biggest hurdle I have preventing me from starting new play throughs. Every single time I attempt a play through, my goal is to "just get past Ostagar" before the fun begins.

I'll be honest, whenever there's the option to choose race, I almost always play as a human. In DAO, I think I attempted a couple of elf play throughs, but only finished the game one of those times. I've yet to play as a dwarf. Even with ME, with the "outcry" from some on the Bioboards about being able to play as a different race, should BioWare implement that, I'd stick to a human. Then again, if given the choice, I always choose to play as a male. For me, taking on the "role" of the character also seems more natural if that character is the same gender as I am, and thus would react to things -- especially when Bio pushes romances on you -- the way I would. The only "stereotype" I don't seem to fit with is the soldier class thing. Class selection is the one area where I'm all over the map. I'll try all classes, and I won't necessarily stick to the same class as my "main" character.

I'm finding Defiance really addictive. I don't even know why, to be honest. The story is "meh", the combat is kind of clunky and mediocre. Maybe it's just appealing to my completionist side, with so many things to do and so many things to try and achieve (for instance, trying to unlock a certain outfit because my current one looks like garbage).

And please, no parachuting-from-the-rooftops bad guys this time. Basically, I just want them to combine the best of DAO and DA2, while subtracting the worst of each game. Is that too much to ask?

One thing is for certain; I hope that any sort of "grand" or "majestic" cities we come across in DA3 (calling it that just for Alan) are actually, you know, impressive. Unlike DAO, where the talk was of how impressive Denerim was supposed to be, until getting there and seeing a tiny little village market with maybe a dozen people milling about.

Heh, the Defiance servers are at it again. Apparently the server is busy and I'm in the queue. My estimated waiting time is ... get this ... currently 33 days. I think that's my cue to turn off the 360 for the evening.

I don't know how you can defeat that endboss in BL2 with anyone other than the commando and his auto turret.

Son of a .... If there was ever a "dream game" that I'd wished would be made, that was it. Thanks a lot, Lucasarts.

Gah ... that kind of sucks. There's a really cool looking armor you can unlock for your character in Defiance, but you need to meet some ridiculous number of kills to unlock it. I just don't know if it will keep my interest long enough for me to be able to reach that goal.

Just played my first co-op mission in Defiance with 3 random individuals. It reminded me of why I avoid playing co-op with folks I don't know. They speed-ran through the entire map and so I didn't even get a chance to see half of what was there.

I've often wondered about individuals who send hate mail or who threaten developers with physical harm over a decision made about a video game. I can understand not liking a decision and engaging them in a discussion about it, but those folks who go beyond that to the point where they seem unstable?

Is that set in an alternate timeline? Booker and Elizabeth don't seem to know each other.

My character in Defiance is almost at level 700 (EGO), but the weapons I'm using are the ones I found way back at around level 400 or so. I just can't seem to find high-end weapons that are close in level to my character. It's making combat difficult since my weapons don't seem to be doing much damage. It's also getting more difficult to level up now, since most of the "easy" pursuits are done and all I'm left with are the long term ones (ie. kill 10,000 enemies).