GhostofAnakin

I just figure we'll find out in DA3 that Leliana is Andraste and thus her being killed near Andraste's ashes ... well, space magic err... fantasy magic and voila, she's resurrected by her own ashes and thus, explanation for why she's back.

Is Leliana returning a bug too? :D

I'm not much of a fan of Zevran's either, but since I'm playing a mage and every party needs at least one rogue, he's the only other option unless I want to drag Leliana along all the time. In an "ideal" play through, my party usually remains Alistair or Oghren acting as my tank, Leliana as my rogue, and Morrigan as my mage. Besides from anything else, that formation seems to have the most party banter as well. Shale's alright, and Sten's pretty good at combat. Wynne and Zevran are party members I only bring along if I go out of my way to try a different party combination.

I've always been in favor of optional tutorials. Nothing is as aggravating as having to sit through the tutorial on subsequent play throughs, and having no way to skip or fast forward through them.

Finally made my way to Denerim. Been mixing up my party formations a bit in order to unlock their personal sidequests. Thus far, only Zevran's doesn't seem to have triggered.

... Like Sawyer said in regard to his NV mod, New Vegas is over. That ship has sailed. Nobody's working on it anymore, the proverbial lights are off, doors closed, offices cleaned out, etc. Nothing is going to change from the complete/GOTY edition except for modding. You are barking up a tree stump with the mistaken belief that it is a standing tree. Which is all tangential to the fact that you're wrong on all counts simply because the game was written as it was because that was the story and those were the characters Obsidian wanted to convey. They didn't accidentally get their own characters wrong from the Akashic Record versions that exist in the universe that they're simply acting as mediums to express, they created the characters and designed the game as they saw fit. Mr. House clearly states that the NCR would invade the Strip if Caesar's Legion weren't a bigger threat, he clearly states that the Brotherhood of Steel is a threat, their only concern is keeping the flashiest toys out of everyone's hands but their own, and House has got some of the flashiest toys around. The BoS would kill House and then hoard his tech without recognizing the fact that House himself is far more valuable an asset than the tech he's produced, because he designed and produced it. House, again, states with crystal clarity that he had sent Securitrons to the area of the BoS bunker and they were all attacked and destroyed. The BoS has no interest in making contact with house to learn from one of the greatest minds of the pre-war world. Yes Man was designed to be a threat to House. Why would House want the ONE thing that can take his fledgling empire away anywhere near him? Every Securitron is already programmed to follow his will, Yes Man will do whatever anyone tells him. How does that benefit House in any way? And finally, House and the NCR already have a treaty and he explains its terms clearly. Your ideas are just bad. If you don't like House wanting the BoS, a legitimate threat to his position, destroyed, don't side with House. You can't have everything your way. Couldn't have said it better myself. I get that players want a plethora of choices available to them, but sometimes it goes overboard because the choices conflict with the beliefs of those characters involved. The OP's wishes, IMO, are a case of this.

RPG games. For the most part, I prefer RPGs more than any other type of "genre". So I'm not going to bother comparing Bio to developers who make games that I don't play, even if they're universally loved.

This kind of sums up why, as disappointed as I am with how ME3 turned out, and as disappointed as I am with the direction they took DA2, I still hope BioWare can turn things around, and why I'm not ready to jump on the "hope they go out of business" bandwagon. Perhaps their current games aren't as good as games of the past, but in comparison to what's available today, they're still near the top of the heap. To use a bar scene analogy: a bar you frequent used to be crowded with hot looking women, but over the last couple of years the women have downgraded from average to below average. While I might yearn for the days when hot women were plentiful, I'd still rather the average women stick around than be surrounded by a bunch of ugly trolls. In comparison to what other choices we currently have (no matter how much people wish it were different), BioWare's still one of the decent RPG developers, IMO.

Leliana and Sten in the same party is good for some amusing -- if juvenile -- chuckles.

I don't know. The controls during combat seemed pretty wonky for me on my 360 as well. Maybe not *exactly* those issues, but the combat certainly had its share of frustrating moments because of the clunky shooting mechanics.

This might be okay for perhaps some of the rare, high level spells. But it might get a little tedious if you had to do this for common spells that are also low level.

Oh, the story is great, no doubt, but the combat is so unbelievably awful that I just can't bring myself to play it any more. Somehow they managed to make the combat even worse than in the previous games, if that's even possible. I think it's because they added sticky cover. In theory that should have been an improvement, however it's implemented extremely poorly and the game relies on it a lot. Plus, the controls in combat are even less responsive than in previous GTAs, which, again, is an incredible feat. Also, as with every successive GTA game, they focus more and more on combat and this only increases as you get later in the game. I like driving around, I love the story, but I just can't deal with the combat any more, it actually hurts (both physically and emotionally) to play the game it's so bad. I'm just going to watch the final few missions and cutscenes, and the ending, on Youtube and save my sanity. I think my feelings about frustration over the combat mirror yours. Inevitably, the excruciatingly awkward combat is the thing that usually deters me from finishing GTA games.

Actually I seem to remember that you might lose Shale if you side with Branka.. Looking at wiki that seems to be right: If The Warden sides with Caridin and Shale is there too, it can lead to the quest A Golem's Memories after talking to Caridin at the end of the combat. Strange. I sided with Caridin and talked to him after the combat, but that personal quest of Shale's never triggered.

As far as I recall, the mage who found a way to "reverse" tranquility died, and his knowledge of the process with him. So it'd have to be quite a leap for the writers to make it seem like such a widespread practice. Though, at this point, I wouldn't put it past them if it meant being able to tell their story regardless.

So I meta-gamed (is that the word) a bit when it came to the decision about the Anvil of the Void because I wanted to keep my party happy. I had Shale, Oghren and Leliana in my party, and was originally going to side with Branka and give her the anvil. But then Leliana spoke up against it, and Shale indicated she was happy we were siding with Caridin. Only Oghren had an issue, but he seemed to accept my decision. The end result? -10 approval with Oghren, +4 with Leliana and no approval gain from Shale! I was hoping Shale would certainly approve big time, given the fact she commented in a cut scene right after my decision about how it was good we were siding with Caridin. I should have given the damn thing to Branka.

I think in general this is why ME2's flaws get overlooked more than ME3's. When it's the middle installment of a franchise that has already been stated will have three parts, any WTF moments can be chalked up to expectation that it'll be explained further in the final installment. But when the third and final installment comes around and you've still got WTF moments, the proverbial poop hits the fan. Also, as stupid as the terminator robot was, nothing beats the annoying little star child for me.

Really, the only "filler" quests should be bounty postings. Any other quest you're given should have some sort of story tied to it, whether being part of the main story, or just telling its own little tale. But only bounty board quests should be "go fetch X item and bring it back for gold".

Or make smarter shopkeepers. Eventually, he should put 2 and 2 together to realize that every time your party comes into his store, he seems to have less inventory after you've left.

Just finished killing the broodmother in the Deep Roads, and now I'm on to find Branka. One thing I've found out that I didn't notice before: Cone of Cold seems to be the only spell that affects my own party with party damage/friendly fire turned off. Flames, shock, etc. don't do anything to my party, but if party members are in the way while casting cone of cold, they get frozen as well.

Seems Casey Hudson is trying to piss off the CoD crowd as well.

Minor tweaks from AP, including enemy AI that acts more intelligent than what we saw in AP. Also I'd like to see more open hubs. For example, between missions when you're buying new weapons/supplies, there's an actual market place to visit, full of other individuals including potential contacts. The disguises would then actually have a purpose, since you'd have to blend in.

The female Turian looks like Garrus with makeup on.

Gamers seem to get obsessed over the strangest characters.

Considering how Bio themselves seemed to drop/ignore/not pick up on much of what happened in ME2's main story, I'd say they also didn't get the point of ME2 either.

I wish they'd spend even a bit of time improving the combat. It's the one area I absolutely hate the GTA series (and one of the reasons why, even though the basic mission structure was similar, I enjoyed Sleeping Dogs more than GTA IV).