alanschu

An interesting way of looking at it. There's that "swagger" factor, I suppose. Would Ali have that? I am in agreement with stuff like Intellect however.

Agreed :D If they're planning to make a spaceship that doesn't land, why bother making it so aerodynamic? I mean, wings? in space? for what? extra target? Normandy SR-2 is too... earthy IMO. It was designed like it was made for terrestrial flight. Doesn't the Normandy still land on planets? Although the reality is probably more along the lines of someone simply saying "I like the way this looks" rather than any strict adherence to plausibility. I typically built spacecraft that still had "wings" in games like GalCiv II and other games like that, simply because I liked the way they look. There was probably a degree of visual familiarity I had with it as well.

The game itself is all right. I do suggest for the second character to NOT make an archer. Just saying If you're a fan of the setting, I think you have a good chance to enjoy it.

You can actually tell Morrigan to pike off and she does. Though I don't know if she returns to offer the dark ritual or not.

I agree, but that's an IE build and a very powerful one. Because in the Infinity Engine games, intellect had its application and for martial classes, it was irrelevant. When we're talking about "low" scores, I don't think a 10-12 applies. That's average, which is nothing exceptional, but perfectly within reason that being exceptional in something else would still be valid. I'll grant you that Charisma (and probably Wisdom) likely doesn't do so hot in terms of, well, any sort of combat ability. If we maintain a strict adherence to D&D rules (for lack of a better option), the best way I could make their viability work would be that those characters receive benefits not directly relating to combat. I don't know how Charisma would necessarily work (for any class... To be honest I found Charisma as the primary stat for classes like Paladin's in 3rd edition silly too), though Wisdom could be one's ability to learn (gain XP). I won't disagree. But we aren't playing a PnP campaign. We're playing a CRPG akin to the Infinity Engine games.

The Inquisitor game sort of had stuff like that. Though it had other issues that ultimately stymied my playthrough. (If you pick it up, just save yourself the hassle and play on easy!)

Nah, I suddenly got a "gift pack" that had 3 cards. I assume from the game due to some sort of retroactive reward. Unless someone gave them to me without knowing.

While not caring about the cards, I am also vindictive and a giant troll, so I obstinately refuse to trade my cards with those that really want them. Probably the only person I would give them to would be someone that didn't want them at all!

Just as a note, there is this: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inquisition And yeah, there was some trepidation about using the name, since some will see connotations to the Spanish Inquisition. Though personally I think the name fits, and it was actually pretty well received in focus testing with the most common concern being "Well, I can see how other people may have issue with it, but it doesn't bother me."

That's how Canada's GST works too.

The chantry itself is fractured and hardly the entity it was in the past.

No, it's potentially problematic (and thus depressing for some folks) because it tends to fly in the face of reality and tends to dispell that ever elusive, highly desirable element of verisimilitude that makes for a more substantial, less "gamey" gaming experience. Weak fighters, non-dextrous rogues, less-than-bright wizards, etc. are both oxymoronic and insipid. They are indicative of a system designed to cater to people caught up a in a highly relativistic and overly fantastical mindset that leaves the rest of us shaking our heads with a mien of distaste and wondering what happened to the idea of a game designed by and for adults. If you're looking for verisimilitude, I'd argue that intellect should be the primary attribute for pretty much all the classes. Weak is a relative term here. If we're talking about a range like AD&D where your attributes can be 3, that's one thing. But if our characters aren't severely handicapped (and I use this term specifically) in a particular attribute, that's something different. A huge failing of the AD&D IE games is that intellect is essentially a "dump stat" for so many classes. And I do not consider that good game design. At the time I was much more of a power gamer, and aside from some annoying issues with Maze and making sure Mindflayers didn't focus me too much, my 19/19/19/3/18/17 Paladin (eventually Cavalier) was exceptionally powerful with virtually no weakness. Talk about "gamey" experiences that compromise verisimilitude.

That may be so. Though that's a bit of a red herring, since the fact that there may be better reasons to ban a country doesn't mean anything if the original reason being discussed is still applicable. Though I am pretty ambivalent to the idea of banning Russia or moving the Olympics since I doubt it'd accomplish much and in general, as stated, the Olympics represents a time when the world seems to hate each other a bit less (in most cases...). The definition of bigotry: From Wikipedia: "Bigotry is the state of mind of a bigot: someone who, as a result of their prejudices, treats other people with hatred, contempt, or intolerance on the basis of a person's ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics." Merriam-Webster: "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance " Dictionary.com "a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race " So I suppose that maybe Dictionary.com can be applied. Though the idea of being "intolerant" of those that are intolerant of you is pretty specious application of the term "bigot." It's akin to saying (Godwin time!) that a Jew would be a bigot for disliking the Nazi's based on their beliefs. Except that the beliefs are directly persecuting oneself. As such, I contend that a gay person that dislikes people for their intolerance of gays is not a bigot, lest you wish to concede that you yourself are a bigot for being intolerant of those that are intolerant towards others that are intolerant of them (naturally, I'm willing to concede that this makes me a bigot as well! ) Who is doing this at the moment?

Yeah, BWE effectively includes Montreal (which is a bit confusing, since Austin doesn't fall under the same studio). It's more a manpower/general manager thing. Montreal is no where near as big as Austin or Edmonton, and Aaryn is the GM for both Edmonton and Montreal.

I don't think these need to be mutually exclusive. I don't know any of the details of the arrangement, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rights were fully obtained, given the Steam service (as opposed to, or at least in addition to, Origin).

Timeframe? I was completely oblivious to it (only spent a short amount of time on Interplay's forums. I mean, Sawyer made his own mod for FONV, but I don't know if that necessarily means that Obsidian is actively trying to woo modders.

Is it depressing simply because it's different? Or would the game be stronger if a variety of character archetypes open up a variety of different ways to play through the game?

Continue reading the thread.

While still technically BioWare, the Austin studio is effectively a different studio. Outside of lending a hand from time to time, it'd be akin to worrying because DICE is making Battlefield the same time we're making DAI.

Stalker!

We wanted to do 3, because it gives us more time per project. What I meant by "what we wanted to do" was that fan outrage didn't crack an EA skin. I actually had considered emailing Aaryn Flynn suggesting we push to 3 projects to effectively move to 3 year dev cycle, only to have him mention it at the following studio meeting. Are you confusing bi-annual for biennial? Or do I not understand the math for how releasing every 4 months gives you more time per release? However that works out to a 3 year cycle, I am happy to hear. But also very curious as to how. Errr, we wanted to do 3 projects, so that we can roughly release one a year and take 3 years to make each one. I thought it was inferred when people were talking about "annual releases." (which would mean one BioWare game a year) It seems I misunderstood you. EDIT: Yeah. Since in my mind we were talking about "1 release per year" I totally read your "do two releases a year" as simply "work on two projects at once."

We wanted to do 3, because it gives us more time per project. What I meant by "what we wanted to do" was that fan outrage didn't crack an EA skin. I actually had considered emailing Aaryn Flynn suggesting we push to 3 projects to effectively move to 3 year dev cycle, only to have him mention it at the following studio meeting.

We ended up transitioning from having to worry about that by expanding the number of projects that we work on, actually. It was definitely something we wanted to do. There's a lot of reasoning behind DA2's schedule (which I cannot discuss), although most of DA2's issues IMO (which I am more comfortable discussing) was that we weren't as committed to doing a shorter, more focused game (which would have worked for the time frame), and being caught in that middle ground hurt it too much.

After X2, X3 (and the various other follow ups like Albion prelude) just never grabbed me. :\

Would a 50% Origin sale suffice?