Humanoid

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot. Seriously, partial reboot up to the end of ME1, but with ME3's gameplay format would be the cleanest way to do it.

Inspired by the Kickstarter discussion thread, MOO2, for the first time in about 7-8 years. Getting crushed on average difficulty a number of times, could only win (and easily at that) with the overpowered Creative perk. Never was particularly good at it, mind, and I remember the reason not loving it as much as I could is one primary annoyance, building bloat. Just so many uninteresting things to build by the lategame that it becomes a chore.

Got to admit I know nothing about the original but what interests me about that picture isn't what's in the foreground - it's that it looks like a city with its skyscrapers mostly intact. That, and how lush the greenery is.

Of course, and that's my expectation - but it's not like there's a whole raft of alternatives out there, hence it's always worth at least tracking the development status of anything out there in the genre.

If I had to choose between two story concepts with no context, one being a summary of DAO and the other of DA2, I'd choose the latter every time. I am an anti-epic storytelling gamer and choose the tighter, more personal narrative every time. Even at the most cliched level - either a game with a quest for vengeance versus a quest for saving the world - revenge wins out for me as the narrative driver a hundred times out of a hundred. The top two reasons I loathe DAO are narrative then combat. The top two reasons I didn't even try DA2 combat then level design.

I support "story mode" 100% - provided the non-combat bits of the game are strong enough to support that style of gameplay. The issue then with that original developer suggestion was because in the context of Mass Effect, it would lead to long stretches of non-interactive or minimally interactive cutscenes. And this is the image I think people are getting in the various criticisms in the last dozen or so posts with regards to that proposal. I maintain it would be a tremendous boon provided the game was developed from the ground up with that idea in mind, it just requires a broadening of scope in what people believe an RPG to be. And for context, my favourite CRPG of all time is still Ultima 7. How did I play the combat? I hit the 'C' button, all my companions would run off and squish any nearby hostiles, and I'd collect the loot. And I had a blast playing like that. On the flipside, I don't enjoy dungeon crawlers at all, hence my disillusionment at Skyrim and complete non-interest in the recent talk about Grimrock. "Legends" like Eye of the Beholder do absolutely nothing for me. My dream remains a CRPG set in a generally non-hostile world where non-combat solutions are the norm, and the combat is generally considered the side-option.

My list would just a whole bunch of ex-Origin/Bullfrog/Microprose properties - such as Strike Commander F-19/117A Stealth Fighter Privateer Crusader System Shock Syndicate Populous Pirates! Theme Park/Hospital Dungeon Keeper Darklands Transport Tycoon Covert Action Master of Orion Masters of Magic Machiavelli: The Prince Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix Jane's Longbow ...you get the idea. And a few outside that: Flashback Giants: Citizen Kabuto Betrayal at Krondor Arx Fatalis The Last Express Interstate '76 and some of the non-Core Sim-something games.

My trinket-grubbing self is a bit disappointed that the new $150 tier goodies are mutually exclusive - either pick a T-shirt, or a poster+coin+extra boxed copy of the game. Sticking with the original offering which was the latter but still, could have just thrown the shirt in.

That's why D&D armour doesn't come in L, XL and XXL.

Any changes worth doing a second trial weekend for? Or is it primarily affecting the max level players?

I wouldn't mind if looting any armor was just handwaved away. At most just have "scrap leather," "scrap steel plates," etc lootable from dead foes as appropriate - and *all* wearable armor needs to be crafted for one character and one character only (I'd say by a smith, unless they add professions to the player characters which I prefer they didn't) - from generic materials like that or from rare loot like monster hides.

Some laptops are built for more abuse than others - for the purpose I'd personally pick up a Lenovo X130 - it's just a ruggedised version of the popular X121 ultraportable (weighs a bit more naturally).

I for one like the implied focus on iOS. Not because I want to play it - I don't own a smartphone or tablet - but purely as a market tester. I have no intention of replaying BG2 on any platform - I'm burnt out on micromanagement of large parties - and have no desire to play BG1 (which I've never played) either. Instead I just watch in the hope of any potential success of a non-twitch RPG spurring other developers to explore this avenue for new games. It's the same principle in which I was happy to see Broken Sword 2 rereleased despite no new content (graphical and interface improvements only) - it was another step in the path that lead to Revolution now working on three brand new 2D adventure games.

In my aborted playthroughs of DAO (had no motivation to ever finish it), all the game did was make me loathe the nation of Ferelden and I'd like nothing better to raze it to the ground. Moving to any other locale, whether previously defined or not, would be therefore a guaranteed improvement. Not like dodgy French accents are any worse than dodgy ****ney accents - or German or Russian or Kiwi accents, whichever they choose to employ. Soft-reboot the series essentially, the setting is, at the moment, worth negative currency in my book and if it succeeds it will be despite it being a Dragon Age game, not because of it.

More elegant possibly would be having to choose companions in the first place instead of everyone of a given class getting the identical set of 5 cloned companions. Not a fan of that whole mechanic in general but I can see the design reasoning for it, allows a lot of shortcuts in balancing content. Would I prefer everything be soloable lone wolf style? Sure, but it's a hard thing to do.

I wouldn't say "most games" personally - cutscene incompetence is pretty pervasive in the genre. I'm not silly or cruel enough to go find a link to TV tropes of course. But at any rate, as much as I hear bad things about the plot in ME3, I, having recently attempted and failed miserably to get back into ME2, can't help but wonder how much of it is due to the rose tinted glasses viewing the previous instalment. ME2 had mostly ludicrous storytelling and I'm finding the gameplay nowhere as good as I remember it. Hopefully my cynicism after that dismal experience will make the final instalment a relatively pleasant surprise.

I have to admit TOR has somewhat of an unfair handicap when I compare it to its competitors in that I actively dislike the Star Wars setting, and issues like the above "lightsabres or bust" approach do nothing to help that perception. In the end, the game would have to end up the best option despite the setting for me to even consider picking it up, and there's no real sign of that happening. Not having fun with my preferred CRPG class equivalent because of the setting's conventions is one of the first nails in the coffin for me, not insurmountable an issue, but then I look at the alternatives - unless I want to play a Jedi/Sith (which I absolutely do not want to do), I don't see anything else worth trying even if the trial weren't time restricted. It's not like I like any of the other attempted MMO settings either - Warcraft, Star Trek, LoTR, Conan - my opinion of them ranges from apathy at best to mild condecension, but it's a handicap nonetheless.

I know I said I quit it a week or so ago, but over a boring Easter long weekend I managed to pick up DX:HR again, like it again, dislike it again, then quit it again. The good: Wandering around Hengsha doing short stretches of main quest interspersed with segments of sidequest was fun, probably my preferred mode of gameplay, with a pacing that suited me. The bad: Leaving the quest hub to infiltrate Tai Yong Medical, which in itself was a chore, then being ferried straight off the the Picus infiltration with no break, nothing to mix it up, and what felt like basically repeating the exact same thing in a different setting. Felt like the Deep Roads all over again. The ugly: Learning that the planned new quest hubs after Hengsha were cut out of the game, and that all I'd be seeing from now on would be minor retreads of the previous two hubs and there was nothing else that I would like in what remained of the game. In the end then, I wrapped things up with the sidequesting in Detroit part 2, and am fairly certain I won't be coming back another time, having now the knowledge that I've played the best parts of the game and leaving nothing meaningful on the table. Anyway, if Australia Post don't stuff things up, I should be receiving ME3 this week, both knowing exactly what to expect of it and not having any idea what to make of it. I'll give it a fair shake then if it's a bust, W2EE arrives in little over a week which I know will take me through the rest of the month. EDIT: Urgh, typical, just when I thought I got a reasonable deal at $36, ME3 has dropped down to ~$24 now. That's fast for a new release.

There are choices unlike other MMOs, but the consequences are immediate and pretty much just a number in your light/dark meter - e.g. a quest has you deliver an item to NPC A, then NPC B gives you an alternate offer for delivering the same item to him instead. In the 15 levels I've played, none of those decisions came back in any way (no idea if they might later on given I only played for the trial weekend but if feels unlikely). That's about as extreme as the C&C got in my time with it, and they were exceptions - mostly the choices were just Mass Effect-esque nice vs jerk response as you complete the quests. That's not to say it's not a reasonable motivator - as a smuggler the class questline drove the character pretty well with trying to get your ship back and get back at the guy who stole it (who naturally has cutscene immunity every time you encounter him). That said, I also found the combat unsatisfying and generally a chore - mowing down pack after pack of three-to-four generic thugs to get to a generic computer console to click on - repeat ad nauseam. The Gunslinger subclass feels like trying to shoehorn cover-based combat into an engine utterly unsuited to it, and the scoundrel felt like a melee class who only used guns instead of melee weapons because the silly Star Wars setting isn't accommodating to melee classes who aren't force users. Didn't have the energy to try another class during the trial - I made the mistake of spreading my effort back in WoW into sampling basically every class - but if I ever got the full game it'd be with something else that feels less awkward.

And the customers of the various financial institutions, retailers, and telecommunications companies on that list also have long time and repeat customers, so it's not like they're anything special there. But yeah, as a non-American I'm not familiar with half those companies so it's hard to get a proper perspective, but it sounds like a fun concept. Personally though I would have voted: 1) Facebook 2) Google 3) Apple 4) Paypal 5) Sony 6) EA

Also Ubisoft in non-evil act shocker!

The thresholds for doing more stuff contribute to the backended delays too - it's not hard to see someone willing to kick more in if they know in advance that a certain feature they really want has had its activation threshold reached. Y'know, stuff like MCA's involvement which I can easily see as being the difference between someone kicking in $15 and kicking in $100 - but they won't risk the $100 if there's any chance that they won't reach the target ....which can lead to a bit of a Mexican standoff really. Another example would be a Mac user holding off on the Double Fine kickstarter until the Mac version was guaranteed.

Unless I fail at reading between the lines I think it implies that it's a DLC with no actual gameplay in it? Just the cutscenes and backdrops?

Except Origin will lock you out if you even attempt to mod ME3 - http://social.biowar...7845/2#10648995

You see, Gamebryo has so many issues with alt-tabbing out of the game causing hangs/crashes/general-bugging-out, therefore making this type of content comparatively much more valuable for its convenience than for competitors with more stable engines.