alanschu

1. Poison blade 2. Engage enemy 3. Run behind enemy 4. Backstab FTW! the instant win button for every encounter. No, the win button is cone of cold. The freeze effect lasts about a second longer than the cooldown on the spell. Combine the cone with rogue backstabs

I can understand that perspective. I'm not really sure where I stand on it to be honest. Though when I first encountered it the first thing I thought was "This seems like a really good idea," at least from a marketing perspective because it makes it hard/impossible to miss available DLC when some people (perhaps the majority of people?) might not otherwise know it exists. I don't know if it will annoy more than it promotes though. I hadn't seen it done before.

Yeah I asked about that at work (if there was one) but the person I asked wasn't 100% sure. The auto-updater type interface I thought was slick, and it seemed to be par for all of their titles since NWN.

As a note, I found a download (.exe file) for the Dragon Age Patch. I'm not sure if it requires you to be logged in to use it, but it seems like the idea that you need to be logged in may be misleading. Link

Perhaps I'm just a blind optimist, but I think that the fallout from a decision like that would be far too much to overcome. People are already up in arms about Day One DLC that's tangential to the main story. I don't see this as a slippery slope. Gorth, I probably wouldn't buy the game for $110 either

At 35 hours in, it's my favorite BioWare game. But you have to remember that I hate BG and found BG II bearable. I think the combat and characters are superior to any other BioWare game. I love the BG series, particularly BG II, and I also find the DA to be awesome. Not that I am as deep into the game as you yet, I am playing all origins stories first before deciding which one to continue for my full authentic experience. It will likely be the mage origin, however, which I am saving for the last playthrough, though I am not sure whether a human or elf would be a better choice for that in terms of quantity and quality of content available. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think you'll see significant changes in the amount of content depending on whether or not you're an elf. Things might (I never tried myself) be a bit more interesting in Elf areas (and perhaps other areas) simply because you're an elf, though. Things like conversation differences. Both the elf and the human will have pretty much identical backgrounds with respect to the mage origin though, IIRC.

I will agree that until end game, archers are not that useful.

I'm a bit baffled by people's sense of entitlement. Hurlshot, play through the game without the DLC. Let me know if you feel you didn't get the "whole experience." I'd be particularly interested in how long it took you to beat the game. I know that the optics look bad (I mentioned the same thing on the Paradox forums when people complained about some Day One DLC that was sprite models), enough so that I don't really support Day One DLC. But not because I think it's unethical, or money grabbing, or that they are intentionally leaving content out of the game. I don't support it because I think it creates an unnecessary negative backlash because consumers are irrational and selfish. Not that I blame consumers for being either irrational, or selfish. I fully admit that I'm a selfish gamer (we all are), and would wholeheartedly rather that the DLC was included in the main package of a game that I buy, preferably with no increase in price. Here's the thing. I started work there on June 10th. At that point, the main Dragon Age game was in content lockdown. No changes to the content would be made unless something was deemed to be broken and required fixing. The design and programming team were already working on the console versions of the game. Though, a DLC team had been formed to create downloadable content. When I started working, there was no DLC content available to load up. There was some minor hooks that didn't really lead anywhere at that time (Levi was in the camp for example), and they only existed on the PC version of the game. The content of the DLC was created after content lockdown had occurred. Had there not been a team created to work on DLC, it wouldn't have been created. After we had submitted our release candidates, testing and work was still being done on the content in the DLC. This is impossible to do on the main game after it has been submitted for certification. Relating back to Paradox Interactive, CEO Fredrik Wester (who's always been rather upfront and honest on their forums) took a lot of flak from fans claiming that he was gouging them for money by releasing the sprites. He valiantly tried to explain to the rabid masses that the content created by the artists was created after the game content was delivered, and had it not been for the idea of experimenting with DLC, would never have been put on the project to work on downloadable sprites for the game, they would have been put to work on something else. Naturally, fans weren't buying it. As for people not liking it... it wasn't exactly a trade secret that there was going to be DLC available on Day One. You can choose not to believe me, and I suspect virtually everyone will choose not to, but the DLC content would not exist if it hadn't been designed to be DLC from the get go. You'd just have the content that is comes with Dragon Age. I wouldn't be surprised if Day One DLC goes away (depending on how true to form people are with their hatred of it. If it gets purchased and downloaded like crazy, well, then I suspect it's here to stay), but I bet it just means that developers sit on the content for a month rather than releasing it on release day. Though I'm not convinced that this would satisfy customers, and think it's just as possible that they accuse developers of sitting on content.

Unfortunately I'm not sure of any particular way to measure the dps. I'm surprised that people are feeling this way but it seems to be a concern. At work almost everyone considered the dual-weapon rogue to be a more than valid build throughout the game. I'll touch base on Monday.

What is it that makes the rogue such a handicap in combat?

Haha, I like the "average ping > 100ms" Because they have a lot of data supporting that Of course, the only person I plan on playing multiplayer with is my friend who lives nearby, and we always get about 30 ping despite always connecting to Listen servers Having said that, their decisions are rather odd (IW that is). I'd be surprised if the game didn't exist at retail.

An intelligence check?

I don't remember the part specifically, but he probably doesn't say anything (unless it's a cutscene, but this doesn't sound like one). If the player has an animation during the cutscene though, then yes, hitting escape does skip the animation to put the character where he should be when the dialogue line is over. This never struck me as odd though. I mean, skip the dialogue, it skips to the next part, right? Otherwise you'd run the risk of having the person talking about something when their character is literally not in the correct place on the "stage" to be talking about it. I suspect you're probably missing fewer lines of dialogue than you may think you are though.

Then you're probably not skipping lines of a conversation. What might be happening though, is you're skipping a cutscene. Sometimes they are placed seamlessly at the end of a conversation (example: During The Joining). I don't think those dialogues are kept in the journal.

It was linked earlier in the thread.

Heh, the IGN article is interesting. Call it for what it is: You don't want to release Modern Warfare 2 on Direct2Drive because you don't want to have your customers see the Steam store and essentially help advertise for Steam. Declaring it a Trojan Horse is a red herring, and could pose risks of libel accusations. At least GamersGate was honest enough to state why they won't be supporting it.

There is nothing stopping you from giving Morrigan a healing spell. In fact, it's usually the first thing I do. Morrigan may not have immediate access to the Spirit Healer tree, but the most useful healing spell is a tier 1 ability. In fact, I also give Wynne offensive spells.

I find early level Baldur's Gate to be more difficult.

Actually I don't concede that. If you want me to be generous, I'll concede that some people, with additional confounding variables, may find it easy to make the transition from make believe to reality.

This is on steam by the way Wait. WHAT? How do I get it it? We can be like Bonny and Clyde. Times two. Just to be clear, I am selling my extra copy haha. But if you're interested we can try to work out an arrangement. It is CDN$40, and the base game alone on steam is US$50.

I did. Since I play CoD games for their single player, I still intend to buy it at some point. I need a new video card first though.

Well, tied with my other top damage dealer, a mage with AOE abilities (as a rogue I also had AOE abilities). It was certainly enough damage that I didn't have issues killing guys, except in tough fights where it seems my entire party would have issues. Growing pains referred to me learning how to play the game effectively. On later tests at the beginning of the game with me as a rogue, I have no problems playing the game. At least on Normal difficulty. I think we had different builds. Giving myself some strength (I think I ended at 26 or so) gave me access to some very powerful weaponry that exceeded the damage value of pretty much every dagger I found. It could be I didn't find particularly sweet daggers, but I dropped guys quickly with my swords. Once I had the skills I wanted with dexterity, the bulk of my points went into cunning, so I didn't feel I lost out on much by not having the dex damage bonus with daggers anymore. I can't compare my damage with Oghren or anybody because my party was primarily me, Alistair, Wynne, and Morrigan. On a personal level, I disagree that a specialized combat rogue is not good at combat throughout the game. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point I think. EDIT: I'll concede that a warrior is probably more survivable, not just to start, but throughout. This is because he'll typically have the most hit points in addition to much better armor.

Yeah that is the case. I didn't even think of gaming it the way that you did, but the specializations are actually tied to achievements. On a personal level I think they should have been character based, but they weren't. If your profile unlocks it, it becomes available to all characters.

HAHAHA. Like I said, I'm 90% happy

That will happen, but if you don't have subtitles on, I believe you will miss the dialogue (you can go back into the journal and see the dialogue history though).