Tigranes

Contradiction WHOA DUDE

This is... very weird. The arrangement, that is. The exact form of arrangement is going to be crucial, because right now it sounds like Red Eagle is taking all the higher-level positions and give direction on story and overarching design policies, while Obsidian provides the infra, manpower and expertise necessary to make it happen. Not as extreme as being outsourced, but you wonder how 'Obsidian' the game will be. Feargus seems to be going for some wacky deals for the company, from KOTOR2/NWN2 to New Vegas to this - I can't tell whether this is an effort to keep the cashflow and Slam Dunk flow going, or being innovative and accelerating company development... I guess the end result will judge. Wheel of Time books are indeed bloated, but as far as high fantasy settings go it is thus very very well developed and has quite a bit of potential. I'm actually excited about what Obsid writers could do with quests and dialogue in this world.

Sure it does, the top hat always wins. You wonder if lyrium addiction or some other form of in-lore 'mage-control' will come around in DA2, since the sentiment that 'mages are OP' seem pretty widespread, and Bio does have a tendency to listen to widespread sentiments for good or for ill. As i keep harping on every time this comes up, some form of bodily instability or progressive destruction would be very much appreciated...

Oh. I guess I sort of see Palin as that stupid kid in primary school. Everyone knows she's a little bit thick, no need to laugh uproariously about it.

And that's the last we heard of Guard Dog.

Go ahead, perform it. No, really. Unlike the movies, if that was really the case (i.e. fairies) we as a society will probably make it happen.

Um... I'm sure you will have an "Away" or "Appear Offline" function?

Phantasmagoria, anyone know bout it? TA is not there last time I checked.

Don't diss Hurlshot, man. He's Red Arrow. Finished my dwarf gunslinger playthrough of Arcanum, there were some odd lags with high-res mod near the end and you clearly feel the pain of cut content in the endgame, but it's still damn good. It's a real pity about the story because I thought its 'twist' was the best delivered, the most surprising and the most realistic of all RPG story 'twists' in recent times - it's entirely logical that The only problem was once you found out the real baddie his motivations didn't make any sense at all. He had great voice acting and $ spent into FMV to tell his side of the story, would have been nice if it was more than KILL EVERYONE CAUSE LIFE IS PAIN

I wonder whether you actually have 'too many encounters' in DA, i.e. how the actual numbers, and the pace in which you get them, compare with older RPGs like BG2, IWD series, etc. I've just been playing Arcanum and the random encounter frequency in the Glimmering Forest is insane. The great thing about DA world map is that you are locked onto one encounter per trip, same as BG2 I think - in Arcanum or Fallout you could get 20 encounters in one long trek. And compared to the waves of enemies you get in both IWDs, I think DA wouldn't come out on top in terms of numbers of 'grinds', actually. It's just the loading times, and maybe the ways in which the battles/interface are designed that just makes it feel more grindy (e.g. waiting for corpses to become lootable in DA vs. instant in IE) Apart from the Deep Roads I don't think it's that bad at all, esp since combat is meant to be a big draw for the game. Anyway, once you learn to minmax you can do super awesome damage with warriors, rogues and mages. For those who want their mages to be less awesome I recommend looking up some form of lyrium addiction mod, something that was meant to be in the original game. It's an in-lore solution that works quite well, I think on paper.

I think this is the big one. DA2 is surely going to use the same engine, just with souped up graphics. They are clearly using ME to get the short focused visceral cinematic experience down, so DA2 should have clearance to be a bigger, more sprawling RPG adventure. More classes and character options in general, more imaginative enemies and tactical set pieces (remember, BG enemies were just walking fleshbags compared to BG2's mage setpieces), and nwo the lore is in people's minds, to do more crazy things with it. I agree with starwars that the lore had good potential to be used for good quests and good quests.

It's all been embarrassing and stupid, actually. Obama uses a teleprompter like every other famous person on TV, Palin was an idiot to point that out. She was even a bigger idiot to have 'lift American spirits' on her hand. But then the White House guy takes the cake for making a terrible joke of it and writing on his own palm. Grow up, nobody's impressed.

To me that's the first thing the developed world need to wish for when they get a genie in a lamp, but... yeah.

We get it, you two. He thinks rogues are worthless and the he thinks they're not and he's wrong but he says he never said he said rogues are worthless and he's wrong for thinking he said he thinks and Move on Haven't touched this after 3 playthroughs, sort of seen all there is to see and I think there just isn't enough variety in DA to encourage a lot more playthroughs than that. Granted, my copious use of respec mods meant I experienced the maximum number of character style combinations more quickly, but at this rate I'm not even sure if I'll bother with Awakening. Just seems like the relentless flow of DLCs and products and whatnot are meant to keep me pumped but the core gameplay has already run dry.

Exactly.

I suggest that the best way is to slowly change the design of cigarrettes so that they become larger, more unwieldy, cumbersome and goofy. I saw a couple of people lighting up with one of those middle eastern long pipes that you have to sit down and plug a hose to your mouth for. Actually, I think those look a lot cooler, but if your only option of smoking was huddle up and get a lot of it back in your face while you hose it up...

Main point is that there is a reason for Blizzard / battlenet to do this - Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft are all about multiplayer. If you read the kotaku article there's going to be a lot of ways in which that persistent connectivity is used to improve gameplay. I also don't see anything that says you HAVE to be online all the time while you play?

Why are we seriously contemplating that interpretation? WTF? Of course it's not that.

Krezack. One part Aussie, one part gamer, ALL RAGE I guess the whole thing is a question of degrees - you already stop people smoking in public places because of second hand smoke, and it's really quite a given in society now that second hand smoke is 'unnecessary harm' to others. But third hand smoke? Do we really need to go that far? I think that's why we're getting the whole car thing. Really what Hurlshot's been repeating makes the most sense to me. The culture of smoking - what social forces can be exerted to slowly erode its hold on society? Just look at the representation on films, for one - drinking is still the 'cool thing to do', but we see just as many representations of excessive drinking ruining lives and not being cool, now. We really never see instances of 'uncool smoking' or people getting ill through smoking in media narratives, even though it is just as realistic. I'm not saying it has to be deliberate or, god forbid, a quota, but if you can write people getting checked into alcoholics anonymous or having trouble with it in your TV scripts, why not someone who gets cancer through smoking? It's interesting how it just doesn't come up.

Pidesco you troll. The thing that always strikes me about these kind of debates, where there is an intersection or conflict between religion/culture/tradition and law is... many people take it as granted that law supercedes them all. It's as if it was a core requirement of a rational Westernised human to naturally place the rationality of law over the rationality of any culture or religion... except for particular instances in which the rationality of the majority culture or religion is pervasive enough to already be a part of the rationality of law, which makes the whole thing even more, ah, irrational. That's not to say it's wrong. I just don't see why we have to foreclose the whole issue and suggest that of course law prevails. The most pragmatic compromise would be to take what Hurlshot says and just present pendants, wooden daggers and whatnot as alternatives. If it so happened that the Sikhs themselves adapted to the changing times and decided the wearing of daggers is not quite so sensible an option these days, and made such a compromise, it would be the best. But if it has not yet happened with the Sikhs as a whole, is it right for the law, and of the law, to force it to come about? Oh, that wasn't an ironic question. I don't know.

If you can assign hotkeys to each of these, total win. If not, not sure if they can be used fast enough? I guess you can use VATS to 'pause' and give orders. (e.g. F1 = toggle melee/ranged for all followers, F2 = toggle melee/ranged for follower #1, etc) Like Van Buren, it's not your story as the Chosen One, but its a story within which you exist, and there are other players with influences. (Does that mean the return of VB's 'rival adventuring party'?) 'Rebuilt world ' / 'Factionism' guess seems to be righter and righter, I'm super hyped.

DA2 scheduled for Spring 2011, according to EA. Bio's becoming a Super Factory! Boo, that's true, but in something like DA where some players will use third person view and leave it all up to the AI 6 party would have been crazy.

I've heard/read this a lot, but in NZ I've never experienced this. We do have bans on smoking in public places, restaurants and cafes, but it just seems to be the status quo. Everyone accepts they gotta go outside for a puff, and nobody actively shows their dislike there, either. I don't know if it's different in other places and smokers have to put up with active 'discrimination', but if it's anything like here I think it's overdoing it. I'd love to know how it is elsewhere. But ban on smoking in public places is just common sense, I think. I don't want to get in the way of other people's hobbies or addictions or whatever, but I really hate the smoke, it's repulsive to me, and then there are the health things. I've been to internet cafes in Korea - lot of the 'up town' ones are pristine or have a smoker's section, but in some back alley ones they give you an ashtray when you walk in (I was 13! I looked 13!) and everyone, literally everyone, is in this enclosed space with blinds (for PC screens) smoking their ass off. Mainly I think if you never have to be in close proximity with a smoker, and smokers have common sense, it's fine.

I liked the combat demo. I liked how they're releasing it even though a real demo will come later, and how much support (3 versions?) there is for it, and I was surprised at how well done it was. Value can be determined in ways other than the market model: that is how the market changes. After all, this system was set up only because quite a few people asked to be able to donate. Hurlshot, that's the impression I used to have as well, but its surprising how much interest they get from publishers. edit: Checked that out, but there are only $25 and $50 options and I didn't think it was worth 25USD (counting exchange value). Oh well, I'll do it when they let me donate the amount I want.

That's good sales, certainly well enough for Bio to stick to their current approach (one cinematic-storyteller franchise, one 'traditional' RPG franchise). Good news.