GhostofAnakin

I liked most of the Tuchunka quest, and most of the Quarian/Geth quest. The rest seemed a bit rushed. I also didn't like the fact that there were no "hubs" on the various worlds you go to. I know the whole "time is running out" was the theme, but I thought it was a bit disappointing we finally get to go to the Turian and Asari worlds, and the only quests on those worlds of note are tied to one mission (the main story quest).

I think it's a difficult balancing act. In order to appeal to a wider audience, certain features have to be added or changed. Since we're talking about the "CoD crowd", that inevitably results in more shooter elements added, as well as a shift to more focus on MP. But the problem is two-fold: 1-They risk alienating the current fans who like the games as they currently. 2-The changes might still not be enough to draw the newer crowd they're trying to draw in. So the result could be a game that the "CoD crowd" isn't interested in and the old fans losing interest because it's no longer the type of game they like in the first place.

Not counting whatever pledges have come in from PayPal, it's getting a bit iffy about whether they'll reach the $2.5 and $2.6 million stretch goals. After passing $2.3 million, it's come to a bit of a crawl. Hopefully a late final-week surge is in the cards in order to pass $2.6 million or so.

I think one of the flaws of the main quest in DA:O is that the antagonist (the dragon) is pretty boring. No real depth to the character, obviously, since it just sits there and roars at you in your dreams. It would take some re-working, but I think the main quest would have been a lot more interesting if the Logain conflict ended up being the actual main focus, with the eventual showdown with Logain being the "end boss" battle. He may not have been the best written villain ever, but unlike the dragon, at least he had a bit of depth to him and had what I thought was an interesting motive you could understand for doing what he did.

Combat is so much easier in BL2 with Axton compared to Zero. That automatic turret is the difference maker for me. I haven't had a single boss fight that's given me trouble with Axton, but had quite a few where I found myself running around aimlessly trying to regenerate my health and shields as Zero.

I really don't think we're talking about the same thing. Your definition seems to be more "middle" choice that's somewhere between the good option and the bad option. Kind of like, if the "good" option is to turn down a reward in return for returning someone's family heirloom, and the "bad" option is opting to keep the heirloom for yourself unless they pay you twice the agreed upon amount, then the "grey" is simply somewhere in the middle of those two options; return the heirloom but accept the reward. But that's not the "grey" I'm referring to. In mine, for example you are contacted by two different individuals, both asking for your help. Neither individual is "evil", but both have their own motives for increasing their power in a given region. The key selling point for the player is that both have consequences for you in the future. Maybe one guy can offer a lot of money, the other can offer you military support. So you have to decide which to side with based on what you believe you will need more: money or muscle. This is an example of a "grey" choice, because there's not really a good or evil option. No matter which individual you side with, you're not picking a "good" or "evil" individual. The decision is more about simply choosing whichever one could benefit you the best, without the player tipping the balance of the region more toward good or evil.

This is why I'm a big fan of tutorial levels that you can skip past. Mandatory tutorials/prologues get annoying on multiple play throughs.

I'm one of those re-loaders, at least on my first play through, if a party member dies and it's a game with perma-death. Mainly for me, it's because a]I chose that specific party member for their skills and want to see it through to the end and b]if there's a sidequest associated with the companion, or if there's background information associated with the companion, I'd like to learn about it. On subsequent play throughs, the gloves come off though.

I mean, in general I do agree that companions should sort of have their own ideas and mindset, and there should be some kind of thing in place where certain companions will disagree with you, and possibly even leave your party at some point, depending on your actions. But just the notion of them running off in the middle of battle both made me sad and chuckle at the same time. Hero: "Your reign of terror is at an end, evil doer!" Bad guy: "Oh yeah? And who's gonna stop me? You?" Hero: "Me and my trusty companions! Right guys?" *crickets chirp* Hero: "Guys?" *Hero turns around* Hero: "Wait, where are you ..." *The sound of feet running, then the door to uber powerful lich dragon's throne room slams shut* Hero: "Ah crap. I knew I shouldn't have stolen that old lady's gold ring."

The conical hats look much, much goofier than the robes. The robes make your mage look like he's walking around in his pajamas, the conical hats make him look like he's a mental patient walking around in his pajamas.

I really don't want my entire party running away on me in the middle of a tough battle.

I'm shocked at how excited a lot of those people in the BSN thread about the release are. I could understand perhaps if it was another SP DLC or even the announcement of a new ME game. But some of them are going nuts over what is essentially a few new maps?

The early reviews for Resident Evil 6 don't seem very good. I know, I know. It's "professional" gaming sites. But still. A 4.5 from Gamespot surprised me.

I don't get this mentality at all. Limited number of slots of inventory in the IE games was a flaw in the system, rather than a feature that should be kept around. A single arrow should not take up the same amount of inventory space as a suit of armour. That's what encumbrance is for. One of the cool things about arrows in some of the IE games were all the different effects you could find on different arrows, which was undermined by the fact that it took up so much of your inventory "space" to carry even a handful of arrows of a few types with you. With regards to the bolded, my idea wasn't for a single arrow taking up an inventory spot. It would be a quiver, which would hold however many number of arrows (20, 40, 50, 100, whatever). Secondly, it doesn't have to be exactly like the IE inventory system. It could very well be more similar to the NWN inventory, where bigger items took up more space. So if the inventory system was like the latter, the suit of armor would still take up more space than the quivers, but if you decide to carry a dozen quivers, eventually they add up to take up more space that could have been used for armor, or a huge battle axe, or whatever. So limited ammo doesn't have to equal exactly what they did in the IE games.

I can't remember which tier of skills it was, but I've been putting points into the category that deals with the turret. So hopefully that includes the HP for the turret as well. Even if the turret doesn't do much at higher levels, it's going to provide a good distraction for enemies to focus on so I can pick them off from a distance.

This exactly. I think one of the tiers even outlines that Obsidian will send that backer a template to fill out. Which means Obsidian can ask them to fill in specific items, and thus will be able to incorporate the answers the backer gives with what they're already doing. It's not like they're going to expect the backers to actually code or program anything.

I started up a different character in BL2, this time using the commando. I think it's a lot more enjoyable with that automatic turret he can spawn. It definitely makes the fights much easier.

Have they indicated how fast the musket-type gun is going to fire? I'm assuming it's not like a spell from the IE games, where once it's used it's out of service for the rest of the fight. So if it's slow-firing, it should be quite powerful. In essence, with a party of melee characters, the musket companion can take out the "big" enemies at long range, while the melee guys make sure no one comes near him/her as he's doing so.

But that's why I said the different difficulties have more limits on them, and would say as much when you go to select that difficulty. So you'd know going in (once you select which level of difficulty you want to play) what kind of "forced limits" there are on you. For example, the topic of "abusing rest". On hard difficulty, it would say at the start up that there are limits to resting, gold counts toward your inventory weight limit, you have a limited number of saves per game, etc. Whereas the easy setting would have no such limits for those items. So you'd have a general idea what each game difficulty will impose on you, and you select your difficulty to fit whatever play style you want.

It would be kind of cool to see Obsidian reach the $3 million mark. It'll be close, though. 12 days left and around $700 thousand to go.

Well, because I'd assume it would say which "limits" are present in the description of the difficulties when you first start up a game. So the player would know what kind of limits to expect if he chooses "hard" difficulty over "easy". Keep in mind, it's about allowing *all* people to have fun. Some folks simply don't want the game to be incredibly difficult. Some do. Should the former category then give up and not play the game because the developers catered to just the latter category?

A gripping plot for me. The story is what draws me in, and keeps me drawn in over the course of however many hours it takes to finish the game.

I think that's where the different levels of difficulty come into play. At the higher levels, these limits can be put in place. But at the lower levels of difficulty, I don't think developers should limit a player's ability to play "cheap", so to speak. IMO, it's about player choice. If I "choose" to have very strict limits placed upon me, I'll play at a higher level of difficulty. If I "choose" to rest for 40 hours straight or not have to worry about gold taking up space in my inventory's weight limit, I'll play at the lowest difficulty. If the developer decides to put restrictions, period, then the player no longer has as many choices about how to play the game.

You don't like it when enemies use parachutes to jump down out of the sky?!

I agree completely with this. Different players find different ways to play fun. If one player wants to save before every encounter, then re-load a game if he fails whatever he attempted, then he should be able to. Because for that player, the game loses its fun factor if he's not able to do that. The developer can limit these so-called "abuses" by implementing mechanics as described above, whereby the player will have to live with certain consequences if he decides to rest for 40 hours straight (village he was tasked to rescue is now burned to the ground, people dead). But the option to rest for 40 hours straight should still be there. But I don't think the developer should arbitrarily limit pretty much everything just to keep players from doing "cheap" things.