alanschu

Yes that is definitely a concern, based on past actions. I don't know how much $4.5 million is to a guy like Polanski.

I think a lot of it might just come down to application. I haven't used all the spells, but I actually found spells like Death Siphon/Death Magic (mostly Death Siphon though as I liked the mana regen), and found Earthquake to be quite useful at CC, and was a spell I routinely had Wynne cast in my first playthrough. She also kept Spell Wisp on, but I agree that the Mechanics made me wonder if it was worth the mana cost. I also liked to combo drain life after vulnerability hex, and it works really well if you've gone Arcane Warrior and is a decent damage spell as blood mage (though the healing you get from it is mitigated by having Blood Magic active). Though it's usually my "other spells are on cool down" damage spell. The reason why I like it is because sure, I can drink a potion, but this lets me still hurt a target while healing myself. The guy in my room has talked about Miasma a lot. He seems to like it. It's hard to say how effective it is due to combat mechanics not being obvious. I agree that Shapeshifter was underwhelming. The only time I ever used it was when Morrigan's mana was dropped and I didn't want to use a mana potion. Even then I never got past Spider form. I don't have any real experience with the later abilities in that tree but I wouldn't think they'd be significantly better. I think a big difference between us is our willingness to use potions, so I probably appreciated the spells that would regen mana and health a bit more. I typically found myself saving my health potions for Alistair, and in general did not have a whole lot of mana potions so I always saved those for bigger fights. I imagine Death Magic is good for an Arcane Warrior that is tanking, but I liked Death Siphon for draining up bodies to keep spells going with Morrigan. I agree that Drain Mana does not seem like a useful spell (especially if it's not instant like entrerix says). If I'm out of mana I prefer to just staff attack while I regenerate. You'd have to drain a load of mana doing this but I suspect you probably don't. I haven't really paid much attention to the rejuvenation spells, but they don't seem to rejuvenate very much at all the times I did look. I think stamina regen is being looked at in the upcoming patch. I'll take a look at some of the ones I'm less familiar with if I get a chance tomorrow. I'll also see if I can talk with someone about some of these spells like Mana Drain and the regen/rejuv ones.

Not surprisingly the gay romances are both bisexual characters, so I don't think much time would have actually been spent there that would have gone elsewhere, as we can agree that the romances are likely a guarantee from now on. From a cost analysis I don't think it would be too much.

My understanding of bail is that it's a deposit. Wouldn't he just get the money back when he shows up to court?

If you read the article, the headline doesn't even make sense. They quote GayGamer.net's comments that give BioWare kudos for including it. They don't really seem to criticize the game for including it.

She _IS_ artificially too powered for a reason though. It's not the most elegant way since a player likely doesn't know it's coming. I think we need a better way to implement a situation like that one.

This is true, though a scientific theory isn't just a guess (pissed me off when people seem to equate it), so anyone that falls on the scapegoat of something being "just a theory" when discussing scientific theories doesn't know what they're talking about. Theories are predictive means that have ample evidence supporting them to make those predictions much more than random guesses, or even hypotheses. Why exactly two masses "gravitate" between each other isn't known, and there's plenty of examples of things that seem to disagree with our current predictive models. Though that doesn't really apply to the certainty with which we see and feel gravity's effect on us. Though you bring an interesting point because people always fall onto the crutch of "correlation does not equal causation" to dismiss stuff, which is a bit of a copout a lot of the time. Having said that, my own ignorance (and arrogance) hasn't led me to believe theories of climate change are as solid as the theory of gravity. The unfortunate thing about your smoking example is that there are examples contrary to many people that have people smoke a lot, that do not get lung cancer. Though I'll definitely agree with the notion that smoking greatly increases the likelihood of getting lung cancer sufficiently to lend the idea of there being a causative effect, when controlling for certain things. In this regard, the theories behind it just aren't refined enough. Gravity is the same way, but nobody cares about the fact that various orbits and whatnot aren't accurately predicted by various models. Though that's my mindless preamble since I'm not disagreeing with what you say

I felt that rogues were needed in my party. I have never been able to proceed through either game without one, mostly because I find myself getting frustrated enough to not want to continue without one. You say it's possible and that's fair, but in my experience it wasn't. Not within my tolerance levels anyway.

In my experiences thief characters seemed more useful, and perhaps more "necessary" in Baldur's Gate than in NWN. Although by Thief character I was content with Imoen. Just someone that could disarm traps.

Which spells in particular did you find were useless?

And the economy for that matter.

My skepticism is regarding any causes for change in climate.

Haha, my skepticism doesn't have me being dismissive either though

I think it's silly that every person you can seduce in the game is bisexual. It's one thing to have access to have homosexual and heterosexual romances, but I think it takes away from the setting to have anyone be available to being seduced regardless of the sex of the player character. To look at Dragon Age, there's no indication that Alistair would be interested in a homosexual relationship, and I have no problems with that not being a viable option because it makes his character consistent. Zevran, on the other hand, was pretty up front about being rather indiscriminate, so it makes sense that he'd be bisexual. I'm also in support of characters that would have exclusively homosexual romances (though I doubt that would happen), as long as it makes the character consistent. I think it would have added to Bloodlines if seduction had been better thought out than it was. With someone like Jeanette, sure it makes sense. But every person you bump into a bar is willing to make out with you regardless of gender doesn't seem particularly plausible. On the whole the dialog in both games is pretty well done, but I'd give the edge to Dragon Age.

Assuming they are effective at making sure he doesn't disappear, I don't have an issue with him being released on bail. Of course, he's shown in the past he's been willing to do it in the past. He forfeits the $4.5 million if he doesn't show up, but maybe that's chump change for him.

Although is this "that" new? I thought that they had changed to "Climate Change" because it wasn't necessarily "Global Warming." I have always been rather skeptical of it personally.

Tsk tsk climate change people. Tsk tsk.

I played the demo of BG&E but it never really captivated me. IIRC I was driving around on a boat and was generally not understanding WTF I was supposed to do haha.

Haha playing around with Blood Mage. Certainly good at making me feel powerful

I'm sure I'll survive without Yahtzee in the meantime

Site is down for me.

I would chuckle if there was an easter egg in ME2 about the DA planet actually existing

I did have to chuckle at it being called "secret" haha.

Could be either or. I suspect any sequels that continue along this story line would probably be a bit like Mass Effect 2, in that party members from DA1 wouldn't be party members in DA2 just to limit the amount of options for potential party members.