alanschu

I still need to finish lonesome road myself.

If you felt burned by the second one I'd probably encourage you (and anyone else that felt that way) to wait and see. We aren't really interested in scrapping everything we tried in DA2 that was different, so it definitely won't be DAO, though we do recognize DA2 had its faults compared to DAO (some more obvious than others). We're aiming to dial some things back to DAO style (while still trying some new things). Though where we actually land is actually hard to say since a lot of systems are just starting to come online and some of the stuff I'm really looking forward to (crafting!) I don't think actually exists in engine yet (that may have changed... I had the last week off for a holiday), so it was still mostly concepting and prototyping. I'm excited for DA3, but eh I was excited for DA2 and DAO as well, so take that for what it's worth. (I like to think it's a good thing that I'm excited for the games I work on, even if we're releasing games that destroy lives, kick dogs, and punch babies )

Good call I remember really wanting to play Martian Dreams and The Savage Empire, and they appear to be free. Though VI will have nostalgia pulling for it.

Since it was brought up in a different thread, my #3 RPG is probably Ultima VII which also didn't really have very interesting combat. But it's still the best "living world" I've ever experienced. I really should play Ultima VI again as it's actually the first one I ever played that got me into the series (even though I was brutal at the game and had no idea what to do. Though it did have better combat )

I don't know if it's the greatest, but it's definitely on my top 3 The downside to having played crpgs for many years is that some of the older ones tends to "slip" from your memory despite being masterpieces of their time. Is comparing a 25 year old game to a 2 year old game a fair comparison or should it be held up against it contemporaries? In the beginning was the dungeon crawler and it was good... First real fun "crpgs" (although I'm sure somebody today would shoot down the idea of calling the rpg's but that's a different can of worms), Temple of Apshai and Sword of Fargoal, which had gfx on the C64, followed by Rogue, where your '@' had to fight 'r's and 'k's while collecting '!'s and '?'s... all good fun Then I bought Lords of Midnight. Most awesome game ever and on my top 3 too. Later bought Doomdarks Revenge (the sequel) too and it was also awesome. Later came Bards Tale and Phantasie and it was still fun to play crpgs. Then I got hooked on the Ultima's, starting with III and being flabbergasted by the awesomeness of IV. Next one i played must have been VI and it was an instant turnoff, all style and no substance. I also played some of the SSI games (the 3 xyz of Krynn games) but the shops never had any of the other D&D titles (Curse of Azure Bonds, something about Silver Blades and some other), but it was still fun and atmospheric for its time. Last of the great games i remember from then was a gem called "Bloodnet". A cyberpunk rpg/adventure hybrid game featuring gadgets and bloodsuckers. Then came a long period where I don't remember the crpgs from. I vaguely remember some isometric continous world game on my Commodore Amiga, but I don't remember the name. Years later again I discovered Fallout and life was good. It was actually the game that made me cave in and retire my Amiga for a newly purchased PC (because the darn thing didn't run on the dos emulator on the Amiga). That was the beginning of my love affair with first Interplay and Black Isle when crpgs got their own division. PS:T and BG2 followed as did IWD, Fallout 2 and IWD2. Loved them all. I have a strained relationship with BG because I never really got into it and just play it for completeness sake. I loved VMBL and played through it a handful of times (Nosferatu being my favourite playthrough) and I also fell for the Witcher, completing that one a handful of times, trying different alliances and choices. I never could get into Witcher 2 though. Not sure what's wrong with it but it just doesn't appeal to me. I tried Mass Effect on an xbox and didn't like it, but eventually bought ME2 and found myself pleasantly surprised. Also got DA:O but skipped DA2 after trying the demo. As for ME3... well enough said about that in other threads. It was a mixed bag for me (and not because of the ending). Sadly Ultima IV just never did grab me. Ultima VII is probably #3 on my list though.

Finish it again, then. =p With a Malkavian ! I intensely recommend this.

Don't even get me started on how I was thinking Tali should be involved in the game!

I really hope it's with more cutscenes and scripting. Like the real XCOM!

Actually, the sad thing is that I bet they probably weren't. There's no shortage of 20 and 30 year olds that act like petulant twits as well. Furthermore, the kids aren't the ones that grew up with games like Baldur's Gate and I know for a fact that some of the people that got on . I think it'd be decidedly eye opening if anonymity were suddenly gone on the internet and people were immediately accountable for past comments. I can understand someone stating it was unprofessional of how Aaryn and Jen initially responded (it was), but to pull out the "but the children" argument? I mean, they possibly swore at children (that were being foul mouthed belligerents). To quote Kurtz: The horror the horror. People shouldn't need to change their cellphone numbers or deactive social media accounts because they're literally receiving emotional and physical threats, because she gave an honest answer to an interview several years ago. Part of listening to feedback is dissemenating genuine complaints and what is just loud and boisterous individuals that feel slighted. People wonder why it took a while to approve the extended cut, but we have to make sure it's not just some near militant group that vocal but ultimately quite small. It happens with every game (some guy told me that I should have been aborted as a fetus so that BioWare could have hired more competent QA before releasing a piece of trash like DAO), and you're deluding yourselves if you don't think it makes us (even on the DA team) go "Hmmm, that was quite the reaction ME3 got. In what ways is this bad? Are there any ways that it's good? What should we do differently and how should we do it?" Frankly for DA3 we have our own fish to fry anyways. I don't think DA2 is as good of a game as DAO, and it's on us to make it a better game. Since RPG can't even be consistently defined, it's probably best to point out that this is what you value in an RPG. There's no shortage of people that don't particularly care for combat in RPGs, and frankly BioWare's combat in some insanely popular games like KOTOR is frankly pretty lackluster. It doesn't stop many people from considering it BioWare's best RPG experience. Nor does it stop people from challenging that notion. Given that I find the best RPGs are the ones that enable the player to minimize combat, I frankly disagree with your idea that combat is essential to an RPG. That it's roots were in D&Desque dungeon hacks from the 80s that were all combat is irrelevant. To be perfectly frank, combat is often one of the weakest aspects of RPGs mechanics-wise, and gamers have historically been all too willing to excuse shoddy mechanics and questionable gameplay decisions. Alpha Protocol is one of my favourite RPGs but many of it's game mechanics (and I don't mind the Deus Ex/Mass Effect style of skill progression) are clunky and in many cases random. But the conversations are the best I've ever seen and the level of reactivity in the game is pretty mindblowing. I've already mentioned that PST's combat is pretty crap (especially early in the game) but it's my favourite RPG of all time. The best ending as far as I'm concerned is where you don't even fight the final boss (it's also what I loved about Fallout, which is easily #2 on my favourite RPG list) Lets look at another one like Fallout 3 (and by extension New Vegas). It's combat isn't particularly refined either. As a straight up FPS the AI often behaves absurdly and the mechanics aren't that great. VATS is a decent work around but it also allows "sprint up to the enemy as close as possible and blast all your shots at 95% accuracy at your opponents head" as being a viable tactic (I think it'd be better served to be on a bell curve where getting too close offers accuracy penalties to firearms since it's a whole heck of a lot easier to dodge a gun when it's 1 foot away as opposed to 15 feet away). Having said that I excuse the mechanics because I'm still able to have fun with the combat, and FONV added mods which made the weapons a bit more fun to play with, and had (unsurprisingly) some really damned good writing and excellent characters. Not to mention really well done player choice (probably the best in the biz IMO. I'd love for BioWare to adopt some of Obsidian's perspectives in terms of character choice as well as non-combat options). Having said that, DA2's combat can definitely stand improving. I agree with Nonek that encounters should be made more meaningful. I think fans are on the mark that they found waves frustrating, mostly just insofar as HOW the waves were implemented. Waves can still work, if there's a proper context for WHY it should be happening and it doesn't completely undermine the positioning the player has set up. A frequent perspective of fans on the DA3 forums is that they didn't mind the idea of having combat be more responsive and interactive than DAO's, but that we pretty much way over jumped the gun and need to dial it back. There are those that prefer DAO's combat to DA2's, and would like a middle ground, just as there are those that prefer DA2's combat that still think it would be better to "meet in the middle." Of course there's still those that feel DAO/DA2's combat is far superior and we should just use that, but those viewpoints are not as frequently stated since the DA3 forums opened up.

LOL. Some torpedo boats fleeing Hong Kong (which I just lost) stumbled upon the Chiyoda and sunk her! While losing 3 ships themselves. It's "only" a light carrier at this point, but I'm sure Japan wasn't planning on such a loss this early!

They're both greedy. As human beings I expect them to be. Why wouldn't they want what's best for themselves? It's silly that you would think that any party is being benevolent here. My statement on whether or not the players lose has nothing to do with whom I think is or is not right. I just feel that the owners are in a stronger position than the players. Especially if clubs are losing money. Note that the big contracts and whatnot are misleading. League salaries are directly tied to league revenues. So the truth of the matter is we don't actually know how much money any of these players make. It basically just amounts to a really complicated dividing up of a pie, and in this case the pie is precisely 57% of the revenues. It does compute. It's actually very simple and I'm surprised you don't see it. During the season the owners are in direct competition with each other (to not be would actually be collusion) when pursuing free agents. It's known as tragedy of the commons. To not fully utilize the CBA as it stands is to limit your franchise. Ironically this results in a weaker team which may not be as successful financially if the fanbase isn't particularly devout (nevermind that the league is gate driven and going deep in the playoffs makes a team a large amount of money). Couple this with the fact that the league has a mandatory cap floor that requires that a team spend to a certain level, so in some cases an owner cannot even choose to be more frugal. Although the thing is, they could literally sign the entire league to league minimum, and the way the CBA is set up, the players will all get their salaries buffed up (or dropped down) so that they earn 57% of the revenues. Just to illustrate: League revenues were $3.3 billion dollars. 57% of that is $1.881 billion dollars. There are 23 players per team, for 690 active player (including the scratched players on the active roster), and if they all made "league minimum" a fan would *think* that they're only making $525,000 dollars. But with the salaries being tied to revenue (and each player making the same salary), they'd actually each make $2.762 million dollars ($1,881/690). This is 4x the amount of money that they'd make with their contract. It complicates the issue on how much money the players are making. All signing the huge contract does is obligate a team to pay a slightly bigger piece of the pie in total. The obvious issue is that while the league revenues increased by 50% since the last lockout, it obviously didn't increase evenly. What likely happened is some of the really rich teams ended up getting much, much, much richer, and while there is some revenue sharing, it's evidently not enough. I think that, personally, the league should go full communist if they want to keep a 30 team league, but obviously the richer teams aren't going to want to subsidize the more struggling franchises. If they want to keep parity in the league though, they either need a MUCH stricter salary cap (that is dependent on the revenues of the lowest earning team... and the players aren't going to want that) with no cap floor, or better revenue sharing. Either that or the league needs to recognize that the struggling franchises just aren't able to cut it and contract the league.

I would but I'll need to see if this is just a "flash in the pan" because I suspect all gaming will be interrupted by XCOM

It's on both. It's not difficult to understand why fans would side with the owners. They see the players as already making a very comfortable living, and with salaries directly tied to revenues, they are guaranteed to make money, even if their owners are losing it by the truckload. If 15 teams aren't making money with the current model, it's not hard to imagine a lockout when owners will actually make more money by not having an NHL season. Seems evident that the growth of the league's revenues were not very evenly distributed. The league needs some intense revenue sharing (which the owners of the big teams probably aren't too keen on) or contraction (which the players probably aren't too keen on) to stay with their current model. With 15 owners making more money by not having an NHL season though, I suspect it will be the players that lose again.

LOL just realized that the enemy has mined Bataan as well XD (Note, I figure at least you're reading these Gorth )

I'm sure Boone misses you. EDIT: I saw the lottery winner get chased around by a bunch of radscorpions my most recent playthrough. Was entertaining.

4 of my own subs have hit mines off the Bataan peninsula in the first 3 days of the war! (This is my own minefield) SO MUCH RAGE

My subs keeping hitting their own mines in Bataan. It's actually pissing me off...

I think most people just think of "boxed copy" as being anything physical (even if it's just a DVD case). I think they'll only pursue something like this if Project Eternity is stupendously successful. Even then, it's possible they'd have to make arrangements with a publisher just to help with the distribution channel (although Obsidian would haev a ton more bargaining potential). They may do "made to order" boxed copies, though, if demand is high enough (expect a price premium). Kind of similar to how they are doing them now.

LOL nice. The first couple of days are so time intensive.... SO MUCH TO DO. On the plus side, I consider forgetting to do stuff to be part of the "Allies caught off guard" haha

Just how emotional am I getting? You seem to be pretty emotional! (We could go all day with this btw ) As for making excuses: You're dismissing it as being "well people are just stupid." Yes, that's making excuses, especially when BioWare employees aren't able to also just be people. I'd rather speak my mind (which it seems like many people actually want us to do, in retrospect) than just spit out what I think would be best for corporate policy. The amount of people that PM'd me hoping that I wouldn't get fired for speaking out against the ME3 endings was baffling (it outpaced my Gmail spam at one point), when the reality is I didn't hear a single word from anyone on the ME team aside from a friend going "I see you posted on the ME3 forums!" I'll agree that the internet lets people spout off and say stupid things without consequence. Doesn't mean they aren't stupid for doing so. I'm not really a big fan of Anita Sarekeesian, but the public response many of those people made towards her kickstarter is epic facepalm worthy too. I don't lose sleep over it if you're concerned about stuff like that, but it's certainly a negative reflection on the gaming community and one that I'll speak out against because I feel that saying nothing is the worse option. You can rationalize that I'm being overly emotional about it, but I have no way to prove otherwise so you're free to feel the way that you want. Quotes were deliberately taken out of context, and years old, to go on a crusade. Planescape: Torment taught me just how non-essential combat is to an RPG. Since it only detracted from that game and I consider it probably the best RPG experience I have ever had (and I'm really looking forward to Project Eternity). I find it interesting that rarely is combat what I find fun about RPGs, especially since I can find combat (often executed better) in almost any other game as well. In fact, RPGs that provide compelling non-combat options are typically more interesting. I'd like to think so. I'm not entirely sure though. I've noticed most people dismiss the outspoken types as being teenagers (I remember friends in my WoW guild calling the Horde a bunch of 12 year olds because they always ran into people that would gank them and corpse camp them and stuff). I'd bet money that these people are probably closer to a decade older than most people think. I mean, numbers man is still an asterisk! >.> Usually several! I don't think I really use asterisks, but I am certainly not afraid to speak my mind as I've gotten older. It's actually spread to real life (rather than just on forums) which has actually cost me some friendships, but in retrospect they were kind of faux friendships anyways since clearly I felt the need to get something off of my chest.

DAMN YOU GORTH! Currently making sense out of the new changes to WITP and sorting out Dec 8, 1941... I see upgrading planes to a different type (than the expected upgrade) now costs PP.

I used to be an Assange hater, but as time goes on, less so. I've obviously become a pinko in my old age!

Yikes. Lost Prince of Wales to 6 torpedoes (Often I can save her...) and the Repulse is pretty screwed as well. I lost the USS Tennessee which is an older battleship. The Maryland and West Virginia appear to have survived (so far....) but Japan might do another attack on PH.

Some day I really need to sit down and play a campaign through from start to end Seems as though I patched the game at some point lol. Guess I'll have to start over

It's not really flattery lol. I do think there's a problem when I catch myself thinking "fans are stupid" all the time though. Hanging out on the BSN has opened me to a ton of jabs and snide remarks, but in general most of the people aren't actually so bad. I'll wilfully state that DA2 was a subpar game and we can do a lot better. But you'll never convince me that the way the Hepler situation played out was "overstated." You can't tell me "BioWare shouldn't be surprised people are mad at the ME3 ending" and then somehow prevent human beings from acting like human beings with their personal twitter accounts. I suppose it was eye opening that apparently we need to all behave like celebrities and recognize that many of them can't even use a twitter account without recognizing that people are going to stalk and attack it. I think it's a sad state of affairs, however, when I feel like I shouldn't even bother with twitter because I happen to work for a video game company prevents me from doing other things that human beings often do. That you're willing to make excuses for these people says plenty though. Under no circumstances should the things that were said ever be said to another human being. Though you probably got the nice shiny version that you read about on the internets. All because some people fabricated a position in order to attack her. The whole situation sickens me and while you may say "You need to just roll with the punches" I hold people like Aaryn no ill will for standing up for a friend regardless of his position at BioWare.