Calax

So... Amazon is having murderous good deals on digital games right now.. Soz i've bought the punchy fighty pack thus far (arkham origins, Injustice, Mortal Wombat and War in the North for 25 bucks) and am debating picking up another pack for 10 bucks that'd net me an extra Space Marine.

I think its terrible that Alan isn't active anymore, I miss his insights But I don't think his absence has that much to do with the timing of the release of DA:I Alan does work the tech support side of DA...

I think I put my finger on what really really bugs me about the whole Catalyst deal with ME3. In all three ME games what you're seeking is never certain. The Conduit on Ilos, What's beyond the Omega 4 Relay, and What is the Catalyst. However in the first two games it's explicitly stated that simply showing up at these locations does something good. The Search for the catalyst doesn't take priority at all, and the entire thing is built on a shrug of a shrug. You don't even know if the weapon itself will work and yet you're building it (or even if it's a weapon when you get down to it). I think that's just the major thing that I've been finding so frustrating about ME3, beyond the tonal idiocy that I've mentioned before. You don't really have a truely concrete goal, and the entire thing is way to gamey. "We don't know what this'll do but this is a video game so it'll work out somehow" the game cries at you when you play it. Because the devs had built up the Reapers to much and couldn't think of a plausible way for everyone else to win against them (even though you could, using Mass Effect fields, literally fling ships at your enemy and kill them...) ... I feel like i should write up a post mortem of ME3 and send it to Bioware.

You meet one in one of the DLC, and meeting him clarifies that the Architect from Awakening was one too. I thought one of the books clearly stated the Architect was a born "mutant" darkspawn? The internet tells me the only mention of the Architect in the LEGACY DLC is if the player killed the Architect, Anders (IIRC) indicates that the Warden-Commander knew that intelligent Darkspawn weren't to be trusted (or some such). Dosen't that fly in the face of what the architect says? "Oh we were always like this but keep getting enslaved to our base desires and then to the Dragon... I've just found a way to stop those base desires!"

In isolation, the Citadel DLC would work as an epilogue. But in the context of the rest of the game, IMO, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Setting up a shore leave party for your crew while you're desperately racing against time to stop the Reapers from destroying Earth? If they'd somehow worked the story where they could fit the DLC after the red/blue/green choice, then I could see it. As it stands, it kind of stood out as a weird thing to do in the middle of a universal catastrophe. That was my point. But IMO the game was the wrong tone from the get go compared to the rest of the series, than the DLC being the wrong tone. The entire series started and was built on optimism and hope as the general feel. ME3 hauls through and it becomes pessimism and a "war story". ME3 also relied on you having already met and boned with your characters to drive your interpersonal bonds. By comparison ME1 and ME2 were driven mainly by the fact you were growing to know your crew (although repeating the same "Collect a retinue to save the day" story would have been bad). Basically ME3 should have been a side story within the ME universe, rather than a primary entry. Because it was to much of a deviation from the style and tone of the previous games.

Played a bit of ME2 and the Citadel DLC for ME3. Honestly if they'd made the Citadel DLC the complete Epilogue for the entire series, I think it would have been much better received. I mean it's basically already an Epilogue it's just that the game in general isn't designed for a proper epilogue, so it gets stuck in there randomly. It certainly fit the tone of the two previous games a bit better (with VERY little pessimism as compared to the rest of the game, while the others are very much on the optimism side of things).

But... But... *singing* What happened to Miss Independent? No longer need to be defensive

Does Tigs even exist anymore?

There's a couple possibilities, the DVD non-anamorphic DVD releases from a few years back or one of the various fanmade despecialized editions floating around. Tale is correct. Some time ago, I bought the 2-disc dvd set of the original trilogy. 6 dvd set in all. There was the special edition on one disc and the original theatrical released on the second disc. The disappointing thing to this set was although the original movies were widescreen, they weren't 16x9 enhanced. But at least I have them on dvd. I have no doubt the original negatives exist and they could restore and do an original theatrical release version on Blu-ray. Hopefully, Lucas doesn't have as much influence as he used to. I'd wager a lot that if the originals were released in Blu-Ray quality that they'd outsell all of the special 'enhanced' editions. Lucas doesn't want to admit he done f****d up when he messed with the original trilogy I don't think. Will Disney release them? Considering the giant treasure trove of films and cartoons they were already sitting on before they acquired Lucasfilm and don't release I think it's very doubtful, but we can hope. Eh, they will but it'll be for a limited time only before putting them back in the "vault". Because disney is a pile of jerks.

I really wanted to like Payday 2, and it's a good game, but it gets repetitive fast. at some point you'll find yourself running Rats on overkill in an infinite loop trying to get enough XP to level up, the rest of your time will be spent doing quick runs of Jewelry Store to farm cards... after two weeks of this nonsense I gave up and unistalled. though, some new content was added a couple of months ago, so you'll probably last more than I did. True, I can see that happening... but that happened with both Left 4 Dead games too.

The Witcher is viable in here in relation to Inqusitor given they're both the same genre with the same sort of outlook (both wanting to be "dark" fantasies of the RPG variety). And yet you act like it was the specific subject of the thread. But just using the thread to crap all over an entirely different game because that game personally made you shove razors up your rear isn't exactly related to the thread. Will Witcher 3 look better than Dragon age? Probably, especially Geralt vs any player character in Dragon Age simply because Bioware is stuck to "create your own character" which means that the player character doesn't get as much detail as his companions.

By the same token, just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's just flat out garbage. People like what they like, and nothing you say will change that. Basically what I'm saying is, Your opinion is insignificant and unneeded. Especially in a thread that's not even about CDProject or the Witcher series.

I think, in this day and age, one of the main points of game design in an open ended game like this is to deliberately prevent "gimp" builds from being made. Everything has to be viable in some way. It's part of the reason Diablo 3 became much less user selection and more "you're a XXX you get YYY at level ZZ". Simply to remove the fact that people who don't know anything about a game will probably end up finding a way to utterly annihilate their chances of success compared to other builds by putting points in the "wrong" stats. Dragon Age got around this too by having the player just become a god among men and the game just roll over and give up for the second half of the game because even a "terrible" build would just maul their way through almost anything coming at them. As To PoE, I think one of the things they'd have to do is something akin to this or a tutorial about building a character. If they don't they could create a game that is very easy to make difficult for new players, and if this game is going to be commercially viable, they have to catch new players. Backers are great and all, but the thing is by offering up the game to backers as part of the backing, they lose a portion of those who would actually buy the game, thus they have to work harder on the other end to make it viable to players who normally who wouldn't normally pick up a game like this, or who have no experience/nostalgia with the game types they're trying to emulate. After all, since the IE games popped out an entire generation has been born and are now entering highschool.

Titanfall (Gen 4 level 42 or so), Payday 2 (only about three hours but plan for more) Metro:Last Light, a bit of ESO and WoW in that mix as well. Mostly just waiting for the 27th when watchdogs hits stores. Payday 2 is surprisingly deep. Do you want to go loud or quiet? Take Hostages or just let em escape? And are your skills in which classes? And what load out do you want to rock with? Also you can totally customize your mask to the point of lunacy. Overall it's fun but you have to have your four friends to hang with. Although I've been playing with "goons" from something awful so Meh.

Would Crysis be a good one? It's more objective based than you guys are making out, but it does have the MASSIVE sprawling maps that are wide open.

... You all make me wish I had a vcr and my old vhs tapes from the 96 pre-special edition releases.

It's there to create sympathy. You feel for somebody who's tossed about by forces rather than a guy who's forcing the plot because we've been taught that those who use their power to flat out drive the plot are the Villains... usually

So you're okay with the state tossing people into jail for hurting people's feelings ? To be honest I don't think anyone has actually been jailed in South Africa for offensive comments but people have definitely been fired. We do take it seriously but funny enough the UK has prosecuted more people with real jail time. I think the consideration around jail time depends on what you say? But you are supportive of prosecutions of people for "offensive" and derogatory comments. Alrighty. I meant to comment earlier on this but I got side tracked. I don't think you should necessarily go to jail for offensive comments but it does depend on the circumstances. For example in the South African context we still have issues of racism. This is an example that really happened. About 18 months ago a black women took her two kids to a rugby game. At the end of the game when she was leaving a group of drunken white men surrounded her when she was leaving and started verbally insulting her in front of her children. They threw beer at her and used several racist slurs. But they didn't actually hurt her but they utterly humiliated her and her children and they were all understandably distraught and in tears Now why should be people like that not go to jail? What rights do they deserve? So.... You're saying South Africa has the same issues as the United States? Where we have a case on the books about ensuring that even the KKK gets the free right to hold a rally in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood in Illinois?

FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE!

I think that the basic point is this: People are going to be **** to one another no matter the context, and hanging a sign saying "I am [insert any tag here]" is just asking for those who you disagree with to pick that up and run you down with that as their main offense in the "wars" of the interwebz. It'll get especially bad if you say "Well I have this personal opinion and because I'm [insert tag her] you have to do what I say because it's effecting my [tag]". Or to give that more context If you say "I feel armor that shows off my chest is demeaning and I don't like it so you should remove it because I represent the female population!" you're gonna get jumped on. And Bruce, One of Gifted's points from a few pages ago was that the minute we start making "minority only" group, we create an area where the "non minority" of the white male becomes the one discriminated against because he has no "group".

And Russian Bombers are buzzing US borders.

The problem with Attack of the Clones is that the movie just kills all momentum with the romance plot. And a point that was made recently by the Nostalgia Critic (who did an episode about the good points of the prequels) is that nobody in the Prequels are really terrible actors (except for maybe the kid Anakin). Most of the problems with those three films can be traced back to the direction, which is pretty terrible when you get down to it. RotJ suffers by the fact that they threw in Ewoks, and there was a huge mood whiplash between the Endor segments, and the space battle above. If the entire movie had stuck with the tone of the space battle (fun romp but with that undertone of "OH CRAP" going on) then you'd probably have one of the stronger segments of the entire series. But instead to break it up with the comedic bits on Endor, and it just becomes a problem. I don't think Abrams is going to mess this up, as I stated before. The light hearted space opera that Star Wars tends to be, is right up his directorial alley. I mean, the big thing for him is that his movies tend to stick with the fun aspect and pacing over big dramatics. Recently we've been hit with a deluge of things that should be fun (Marvel movies, I'm looking at you) that instead are choosing to go with heavy themes and discussions. The fun factor is still there but the movies aren't existing just to have fun (ok, Thor 2 did), instead they spend a lot of their run time pointing at a variety of things and going "SEE!? This is a parallel to the world!" I mean, Neither Trek movie really was aiming much higher than popcorn actiony romps, which is what we really want with Star Wars is it not?

ZTo be fair. in the directors commentary for Trek 09, Abrams specifically mentions that they watched and patterned the new movie after the Star Wars movies rather than the old Trek ones.

Soooo.... I bought this and made a Breton DragonKnight. It's interesting but I don't think it'll really come alive until I can pop in on my friends who are playing from my WoW guild.

They were xeno-galactic enemies, how turned out to have come from a living planet within the galaxy. They literally left, pulled a uturn and came back and didn't realize it. The Vong were a stupid threat, built up to much at the start, then by the fourth or fifth book they were treated like any other enemy. Then there was the whole sacking of Courescant... which was totally reverted after the meta-arc was done.