Tale

I chose free shipping from Amazon. So it'll be a few days for me.

You win this round, rodent. No really, fair point.

It would be anti-competitive to brick and mortar stores that have stricter schedules.

-RPS That's TWO good news stories about EA in a week. Now as bad good news comes in threes, what'll be the third? EDIT: Don't see any reference to it, so I assume it's not the case, but it'd be nice if the policy applied to retail keys registered with Origin - i.e. being able to reclaim the key within the timeframe. Just came to post this, but was beaten. I really don't see them letting you reclaim CD keys. That requires a whole other function out of their hands to turn into a refund.

Depends on the term.

But if you'd called a white guy a "cracker," a few eyebrows would have definitely raised.

Well, hard to not be offensive if you're essentially insulting someone. Talk about what a character does, not what they are. Unless they're abominations. I don't think one has to be so progressive that you can't call out demon possession.

The point is that when you express your hate with a slur against homosexuals, it seems like the hate is about the homosexuality.

I'm unique in liking the wave combat of DA2. It forced you to adjust your tactics in a battle, even if it was something as simple as repositioning your mages. The downside is it was every encounter in the game, so there was no variety.

4 additional games is kind of a big addition. I expected Dead Space 2. I thought maybe a DLC as well. As for donation, as long as you pay over $1, you get the games, then there's the beat the average. The entire amount can go to the chairty. No option to even have money go to EA, though you can do Humble tip still.

Intuitive at the most basic level, no. Intuitive if you've played around with other editors to an advanced degree, yes. This is a whole new editor with a whole list of weird quirks. Those props and walls aren't actual 3D objects. They're 2D images every last one of them. And rotating is really just going through a sequence of related images or mirrors. The biggest quirk, however, is that placing props near the seams of two wall tiles is wacky. It really doesn't like that, so you have to place the prop in the middle of the tile or finesse it with alt+keypad to get it where they're not clipping. And by "intuitive if you've played around with other editors" I mean "you know well enough to view the tutorials and reverse engineer the existing maps." You also need to be somewhat familiar with scripting logic.

This is my third map for my Shadowrun Returns project. You can probably guess that I dissected the secret lab. The current plan is to have this be the base of operations for most acts. It's actually the home of the PC's partner. Where I made a 3 story luxury home for the PC with a basement tech lab, for the partner it's all tech lab. The design is meant to be expansible in case I need to use it for something else later, like a combat area. I'm thinking the empty entry area can be made to look more interesting by turning it into a cargo receiving area. I've decided upon some design rules. 3 2x2 tiles or 6 blocks is minimum for a travel area. 8-10 blocks is the general for an action area. The game tends to reserve one block near walls, so 6 blocks drops to 4 with both sides. After this, I plan on doing my first area that will only get used once!

I still like action games. But we're kind of saturated there. I even have my action based party RPG games in Dragon's Dogma. I'm hoping we see more tactical footage in the future.

That I can agree with.

To be literal here, any game for humans has primates for an audience. I don't think tutorial length is why they'd be getting rid of jumping. That sounds like a control restriction, they ran out of buttons on the controller. And they're not precisely wrong about turning players off with complexity. A game has to catch your attention pretty quickly. I won't say why, I don't know precisely why, but if you have a choice between multiple games, you check them out and see which ones catches your interest quickest. I imagine there's some complication in getting a tutorial that's interesting off the bat for lots of game types, especially those that focus on mechanics over narratives or cinematic experiences.

If you have to compare it to something, it's party based Dark Souls, but that's really not very accurate. It's a lot more forgiving, less focus on boss fights, no PvP. It's really its own thing right now.

Been playing Dragon Age: Origins lately. But am trying to get back to Shadowrun Returns mapping. I'm starting the third map, which I think I'll be able to reuse in all acts, so I'm both excited and intimidated.

Good luck to Mrs. Hepler, it's sad to see her go. I would say something about how the blame for DA2 being on her was misplaced, but really that is irrelevant. Even if it was properly placed, it's no excuse for the harassment.

That is, no sarcasm, a definitive argument against my saying that it made it clear. So I do need to change it. I won't pick over what I meant and how you interpreted it was wrong. If it's distracting to see, then that still drags the message down. It's a bit broader than just wanting to see new people in new places. I'd like the epilogues to be taken seriously. I don't want my choices and actions to be undone, nor do I wish to see the choices I didn't take, but others did, undone. I don't want to see characters betray previous characterizations. And I want to explore wild and imaginative places with characters that present new ideas. Bring back old characters is a risk on all of those. Cassandra is an interesting exception. She seems designed to cross games. She has no epilogue, no actions or choices involving her, and she was barely seen or characterized. Isabella and Merril for DA2 are similar, but seem to have achieved those things incidentally, not by intent. Anders, however, expresses most concerns I have. His epilogue is ignored, the character is vastly changed, though with an excuse. To say I disliked DA2 Anders, however, would be a lie. I just think I would have liked him more if there wasn't the DA1 Anders hanging over his head. And maybe not just a little bit, I really have no understanding why he or any of these other people are all in Kirkwall at the same time. This isn't a game killing problem for me. This isn't my "why DA2 sucked" button. But they are still a bunch of little things that I think can help improve the franchise. At least it's not Legion's recharacterization.

HE WAS A HERO! *shakes fist* And a real human being. I've held for quite some time that the best way to write any human being is to write several characters and have their voices all come out of one mouth.

HE WAS A HERO! *shakes fist*

So, is it a faithful adaption? It sounds from this and the few other impressions I get is mainly that it doesn't take advantage of the medium. It's still just a boardgame. That may end up being a mileage varies issue as the boardgame can get expensive.

I don't really mind Leliana's presence personally, but it is a very well known example, making the communication of the issue clear. It's a simple example that gets the message across. I could go into a variety of issues it pops up, such as small world, lack of agency, retconing of epilogues, and recharacterization. But that makes for a far more long winded post than I felt like going into at the time. And I've probably rambled at length about each of those enough. Honestly, I think people may be sick of me doing it. I get that what part of you're saying is that it's about the dialogue. How the people talk to the developers affects how the developers interpret the data. That's absolutely fair. I've had my speeches on the problems of NSR. And if that's all you're talking about, that's cool. You and I agree absolutely on that point. I'm not sure that pointing to deathblows is noise, but I'm willing to consider it. But it's not just Leliana's head that is a problem of that practice. For me it's more about wanting to see new people in new places. There's a whole bunch of issues I feel I can draw on in support of that argument. I tried finding it myself. Perhaps I jumped too quickly onto taking it for true. I hope it's not.

My problem is two points: 1) Nothing can be done with an old character that can not be done with a new. 2) It risks the player agency they say they are going to respect. Case in point; Leliana. Tatiana, the trained assassin and right hand of the Divine, could have done everything in Dragon Age 2 that she did. And nobody would have had cause to complain of her head growing back.

They could axe save imports if they stopped doing cameos entirely. Is there really any reason why Isabella, Merril, and Anders all have to show up in Fereldan, Kirkwall, and Orlais at the precise time that things are going on in these nations? Unless these characters all turn out to be demi-gods that exist everywhen and everywhere, it's a little silly. The world can not possibly be so small that if they feel the need to have an abomination, Dalish Keeper, and sexy pirate, there's no one else. I simply can't comprehend the argument that these characters have to be brought back to decrease complexity. It's like Vivec showing up in Cyrodiil. I said it before and I fear saying it again. At this rate and unless they start killing everyone in Inquisition, Dragon Age 4's cast will consist of Magister Anders, Wynne and her female dwarf friend, a mabari, Velanna, and Oghren. You'll run into the Dalish elves you recruited from DAO who have taken Merril in. The only new members will be Duncan's long lost twin brother and the son of Ser Jory.