alanschu

Female Sith Inquisitor is amazing :D

Haha, well, a lot of great and awesome stuff can go down on Alderaan if you're a bounty hunter (I played with a psycho one and it was pretty disturbing). The Jedi Knight quest there was fun as well, and I enjoyed the agent's time there too. I agree that Tython is a bit underwhelming. Actually IMO it seems pretty evident that the starting planets for the Force classes were the first planets built. Although Korriban is still okay, I still find it weaker.

This is why I'm not a big fan of the term lazy (a term I've seen applied to the Beamdog guys too) because there's issues or things aren't the way someone wants. I know Nathan on the team and I know they've been working their asses off, even if it seems they just went and ****ed it all up for no reason according to some.

But how will we feed the DLC conspiracy!?

I think there's that too. I myself only chipped in on two because I am not really finding a shortage of games in my gaming time at the moment. I am resolving to clear out the Steam backlog actually.

I actually really like TOR's art design for some of the planets. It seemed (perhaps unfortunately) that they got progressively better as the game went on in many cases too. I remember on an early build when speeders were borked and I wasn't using them, so I had to run around Alderaan. Was slow going, but wow was that area ever lovingly created.

Thanks. I'd appreciate further updates.

My point regarding game mechanics for you was more that, for an RPG, it seemed like that is what you want out of an RPG (which is fine, you're not the only one either). There's even some school of thought that the more drilled down and tactically versatile the combat becomes, the less of an RPG is because the human game player is exerting too much control over the PC. In this regard, they would prefer something like the original Wasteland combat. We all like to apply labels and I find it interesting, but I think I echo Gorth that Jagged Alliance 2 is about being a tactical turn based shooter, although you straight up classify it as an RPG. I wouldn't disagree that any of the games would be better with deeper combat (although I suppose we may disagree on what it means to have "deeper combat") but it does come down to various shades of "Is that what I would prefer?" If I had a choice between another location/act in Planescape: Torment, or better combat mechanics, I think I'd be hard pressed to vote for the combat mechanics. In other words, in the fun world of finite resources, there's probably a greater chance that you would find greater satisfaction than I would, if a ton of work was put into the combat system. I'd probably enjoy the changes, but at some point I do bet there'd become a critical mass where further work/focus may be an improvement for you, but now start to take away from it for me. I imagine the situation is similar for you with respect to conversation voice acting. We probably are both okay with NPC lines being spoken, while further focus on that has the PC lines having VO which is typically something I don't mind whereas it's something that takes away from the game for you.

I know I've already posted it (in this thread!) but I don't care as I am listening to it right now. Because it's awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ0LAs9KiXc (I still love how I can mentally hear the mech startup sequence talking to me. It literally gives me goosebumps haha) EDIT: From the game:

The tricky part is what exactly is the "fun" of an RPG? You seem to greatly prefer the combat mechanics, but simply because one is a fan of Baldur's Gate 2 doesn't mean that they enjoy it for the combat mechanics. I understand the AD&D rules, and in general I found the combat of Baldur's Gate enjoyable, but it's not my primary reason for playing the game. Fallout's combat was interesting and fun (if tedious in larger fights with dozens of NPCs), while I found Arcanum's almost punitive and not particularly interesting nor fun. I have never finished Arcanum and it's in large part because I find the combat so frustrating, which is such a shame because the setting and lore to be magnificent. The level of detail of Planescape: Torment, with its rich atmosphere and fantastic writing (phenomenal characters), makes it my favourite RPG ever. The Icewind Dale games have the best combat IMO, but they are also my least favourite Infinity Engine RPGs. I think RPGs tend to be quite versatile in what they can deliver and whom they appeal to. I did just want to make one more comment regarding complexity, however. You seem to have equated Go's search space with its complexity. That there's a lot of permutations in the search space does not make a game more complex, as its rules (how you play the game) are pretty straight forward. One could make a strong argument that Chess is more complex, in that there are pieces with distinctly different movement rules, special rules like en passant, castling, and various restrictions on when these moves may or may not be done. The search space of Chess is a lot smaller than standard 19x19 Go, however. Go players can become professional at a younger age, and beginners can make reasonable estimates 60 moves into the future, while a chessmaster tends to max out at 10 moves into the future. (Source) When computing scientists talk about the complexity of Go, they are talking about the search space complexity.

I have actually seen someone state how they encourage pirating EA games for the explicit purpose of encouraging EA to create increasingly draconian DRM which would ultimately undermine EA and see them eventually go under. I think it might have even been on this board, actually.

Was playing some Payday: The Heist. I was having fun and holy smokes is it hard!

The piracy won't require any group to crack it, no. But it'll be something that can be easily shared if it truly has no DRM. I'd be skeptical that the rates differ much as well.

I think the idea that the justification of doing it to bypass DRMs, as well as sticking it to the publishers and whatnot, is no longer valid. I'm curious how the rates will differ (if at all) though we likely will never see the data.

So just yay non-sequiturs then. It should be noted that I am a fan of striploin steaks. Remember this the next time you post NKKKK.

I liked the first but the second terrified me. Anyone here verify it's worth the time <.<

Eh, at this point I'm willing to let the issue drop. (And in retrospect, I don't know where he got the quote. Maybe I did say it! )

Humanoid gets the like. Where as you have failed me for the last time, Admiral.

Could be, I haven't played the campaign in a long while, but aside from the Pripyat missions, I don't remember much in the way of huge shifts in the gameplay. It's also possible that lower expectations (if that's possible?) after the first playthrough just helped?

I actually haven't played this yet. I don't know where my KOTOR 2 discs are, but I did pick it up off Steam for dirt cheap a few days ago. Does anyone know if it will work with the Steam version?

Meh, maybe I read too much into things. It seemed like quite the non sequitur, but it's all good. In general I agree with the idea of good games garner good sales. Although I don't think you'll find much disagreement when people on this forum feel that a game like the latest Call of Duty's isn't a very good game, even if it demolishes sales records. Whereas a game like PST is easily my favourite RPG of all time, but wasn't a financial success

The assumption that that requires little effort is incorrect though. It's not the same as simply "make the camera go up." We could have done that, but it causes issues with art (in particular). Dragon Age 2 was a game made on an aggressive schedule (and for all the faults that went with that, IMO it's on BioWare, not so much EA, to own up to it). One of the advantages of the more fixed camera is that art (level design mostly) doesn't need to take it into account when building levels. Level design, especially with the Eclipse engine, is one of the slower iterative processes. Hence why dungeon/cave spaces were created as one larger map, with different sections of it used in a not so great attempt to stretch resources (and the harsh critiques towards BioWare are entirely justified for this as far as I'm concerned). The higher vantage point and camera flexibility means you'll need to worry more about what art looks like from wider angles. Take a look at this picture (best I can find, sorry), and there's stuff that can only be visible with the tactical camera. I'm not convinced many would have been content looking down into a blank void instead, and it certainly couldn't just be left blank as you'll get all sorts of graphics artifacting and it ends up coming across as a broken window. So you have the tactical camera, but it's not the same as the camera in Dragon Age Origins. So as lacking in variation as the levels in Dragon Age 2 already are, would the tactical camera actually vastly improve the enjoyment of the players that wanted it, even if the current level assets weren't designed with it in mind (this is akin to the curtain being pulled back and seeing the "edge" of the map all the time. Or the alternative of less levels and/or of smaller size? It's fine to think this is a stupid decision on our part, and you can hate the development schedule and blame us for making a game in too short of a time, or that DA2 was built on 3 platforms simultaneously instead of on PC first with console ports. It's not entirely accurate to think it's as simple as flipping a switch to allow the camera to move and assume that it'll resemble what was given in Origins.

Then why bother mentioning your history of pirating our games? The post you responded to had nothing to do with EA, nor BioWare, and certainly not me. Yet you decided to specifically call out that you've never pirated a BioWare game, and that I should be mindful to remember that as I help make Dragon Age 3. Are you saying that you would pirate Dragon Age 3 if it wasn't very good? Because if you're not, then the entire context of your post seems to be undermined. If you've never pirated any BioWare games, and still won't do so regardless of the quality of Dragon Age 3, why should I keep it in mind while at work?

Meh, if you really want to pirate our game go for it. To me, it seems silly to waste one's time playing a game that one doesn't actually want. If you do want the game in some capacity, always remember that you aren't a slave to playing BioWare games (or gaming in general). Life will go on and I encourage you to take part in activities and games that you want.

It's still idealized talk. What are these options that take little effort but "vastly improve the enjoyment for some sect of players?" That you can logically deduce that an option would be desirable and therefore cause people to purchase a game doesn't make it so. Especially given that games are the sum of their parts. For example: If the game is balanced for "hard" difficulty with no FF, but includes a FF mode that hasn't been considered in the slightest, doesn't mean that someone that prefers Friendly Fire is going to be satisfied. If it ends up being too easy to hurt your teammates and unintuitive, people will feel burned by it. They won't be satisfied, even if in the absence of Friendly Fire option they may claim "all we need is a friendly fire option." Gamers (people) are not rational.