GhostofAnakin

Instead of time limits where you have X amount of time to complete a quest or you outright fail it, I'd rather that some (not all) quests that perhaps require prompt action instead have certain consequences for any delay. For instance, if someone approaches you about helping their tiny village out because they're about to be attacked by a group of bandits, if you delay you don't necessarily "fail" the quest, but instead you arrive to find that the bandits have already taken over portions of the village, and the remaining villagers are holed up in the Inn. Had you arrived early you could have helped the villagers fend off the bandits before they'd set foot in the village. Thus, consequence for your delay without you outright failing the quest if you didn't get around to it right away.

Reading The Last Wish, the English translation of the book that the Witcher video game is inspired by. I picked it up for cheap way back when I finished The Witcher 2 video game, but hadn't gotten around to reading it until now.

What you don't realize is ... MARBURG IS YOUR FATHER! Just kidding. Or am I?

On the subject of enemy encounters, I prefer facing enemies that are difficult because of their abilities, rather than being difficult because a swarm of them come at you from all directions. I'd rather face a powerful mage and try and take him down, rather than 50 kobolds whose only real threat to my party is the fact there is so many of them. The former is a fun combat experience, the latter is just annoying, IMO. So I guess in relation (semi-related) to this topic, I don't want to see encounters made difficult due simply to increased swarms of enemies, but because the enemies have more abilities available to them that your party has to deal with.

I don't really know which poll option best fits my view, but I see the story of a game as what keeps me involved, but the combat of the game as giving me a chance to see how well I built my character's stats and abilities. That's why while I'm more story-focused, I still want the combat to be fun. It's a key piece of the overall progression of my character.

Alan, stop posting so much and get back to work on finishing DA3.

It's been a while since I did the romance with her (didn't in my latest play through), so I forget the "steps". But the part you mention is, I think, either one of the first steps or the actual opportunity to romance her.

I enjoyed it at the start, but it got kind of stale as I played farther in. I think mainly it was because a lot of the characters were kind of dull. The world itself was pretty interesting, and yes, the combat is fun. But the story and the NPCs, IMO, were kind of lacking depth. Speaking of which, finished off the carta for Bhelan and now am about to enter the Deep Roads once more in search of Branka. I switched Leliana for Zevran because Zevran's inability to even open the easiest lock was annoying me to no end.

I think release dates serve a valuable purpose, in that they keep the project on track so it doesn't start to become a "it's done whenever I get around to it" sort of deal. Flexibility is nice, as long as the project is largely on track but perhaps needs an extra few months of fine tuning. The release date just makes sure that that's the case, not just a case where the project fell so far behind schedule because there's no real target to aim for.

Haha the bolded part annoyed me to no end, especially in areas that I hadn't explored yet and thus enemies would trigger "off screen" surrounding that one character while the rest of my party was on a different part of the map. I probably should have been paying closer attention, but I shouldn't have to be too concerned when I click on my party to go through a door ten feet away and have to worry about one of them bumping into another, and deciding to take the long route to that room right in front of them.

In the Deep Roads in Dragon Age Origins. Playing as a mage. Zevran, at this point in my game, is a horrible rogue for what I need him to do for my party. He can't even open the easiest of locks at this point (I just recruited him and haven't had a chance to level him up on my own). I'm thinking about backtracking and bringing along Leliana simply to ensure I have at least one competent lock picker in my party. My current party of Sten, Zevran and Shale have very little in the way of party banter, as well.

Did ... did he open the article with how he used to be a thief? And then try and relate that to ... okay, I'm still unclear why he even mentioned that part of his questionable character.

Men are always being sexualized in games. Damn sexist gaming industry.

It's probably the eternal pessimist in me, but his tweet read to me like he didn't deny they were going with a more shooter direction, but that there would still be some inkling of RPG elements in it. Otherwise, he would have said a bit more to shoot down the "shooter direction" comment the person he was responding to made. My pessimistic forecast: ME4 (or whatever it is called) will make ME3 seem like a hardcore cRPG in comparison.

This was the response from the head guy at BioWare Montreal working on ME to a question on twitter asking whether the new ME will go in a more shooter direction. It sounds rather vague. What exactly does "the quantities may vary" even mean, in regards to what was asked?

A variation in enemies and their tactics would certainly be nice. Walking down an alleyway and running into the same five thugs I just dispatched a few seconds ago in a previous alleyway gets pretty tedious.

They were a part of ME2 and ME3's development. A good chunk of people in Montreal are actually people that have relocated from Edmonton (Quebec offers huge cost savings for tech companies, which is why so many are based out of there). Unsurprisingly, the Edmonton team is shifting onto a different project. The follow up question is then: were they part of the *good* parts of ME2 and ME3's development, or the parts that were responsible for the massive uproar?

Make sure to pick up all the dossiers on the various characters/factions. It really gives much needed insight into each individual that you wouldn't know had you just talked to them.

It's early on, so maybe it picks up, but I'm not noticing as much party banter with Sten, Zevran, and Wynne in my party as opposed to, say, a combination of Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan. The only one I've heard so far is Sten and Zevren talking about elves back in Sten's homeland.

Out of curiosity, what, if anything, has the Montreal studio produced thus far? I'm curious about what kind of product they've shown they're capable of developing. Might also give an indication of the ... direction ... they'll take the ME series.

I tended to switch between hubs, learning intel for each and meeting up with the various factions, before actually completing any one hub.

But despite the change in which studio is developing it, they had to keep Casey Hudson as executive producer. I think BioWare is actually enjoying giving the fans their fans the middle finger.

So their Montreal studio is going to be working on ME4? Didn't the Edmonton (main) studio handle ME1 to ME3?

There are a couple of missions where it's best not to just blast through the missions (especially the ones that suggest not killing "innocents"), but I can't recall it actually being punished severely.