Tale

There's a couple of positions I see on Saint's Row as a franchise that dislike 3 and, by extension, 4. 1) Saint's Row 3 didn't put enough effort into its world as compared to Saint's Row 2. And they forsee 4 continuing that trend. 2) Saint's Row 3 wasn't serious enough gangsters. I'm on the fence with 4. I'm not in those camps, I rather liked 3, but I'm worried 4 may be rushed.

When I actually play a game lately, it's Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty. I expect Heart of the Swarm to arrive tomorrow. I won't have completed my Wings of Liberty replay by then, sadly, as I keep getting distracted by the GoT blu-rays.

I've always wondered how those discount places got their keys. Figured them more for grey market than black. And unlike Prell, I'd definitely call products bought with stolen cards then resold "black."

I think he would have been fine if the moment he shows up, Shepard kicks his ass, and then dies. He deserves about as good a treatment as Jack-Phantom.

I've heard good things about FTL, but haven't played it myself.

Is Project Awakened not the game Midway was working on right before it closed down?

Reduced weight is what I remember, don't recall if they do more damage.

I wanted Legion. He is the most neglected companion in the franchise.

So does it have Legion and Mordin or not?

Bored of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer again. Gold is still the antithesis of fun. I like that they mixed it up, added new enemies, added weather conditions. Some of the new classes are fun, but the balance is terrible. And others are so boring, it seems like they just slapped powers on a model to fill out the list.

Hohohohoho, but you can't play the new classes without paying Bioware/EA for the privelige! Unless you want to play 6-10 20 minute horde mode (as if there's any other kind in ME3,) matches to accrue enough in-game currency to buy a Booster Pack that may or may not have a new class in it. It probably won't, and if it does, it'll be a garbage one you didn't want. Or one you already had. Best part about the ME3 MP Collectible Card Game? The cards are untradable! See, I would actually buy a DLC (so long as it wasn't above $10 in price,) for the main game if it added a bunch of the new classes for single player, because a lot of the new MP classes actually play differently from the vanilla ME1 class set that has gone unchanged. Also wouldn't mind getting some of that armor, mixing and matching the standard armor parts starts to look like ass (in the bad way) in the normal game. I'm mostly with you. I think that if they did this as DLC instead of microtransactions, I'd be far more comfortable with it and definitely more interested. I decided to give it another chance and some of the new classes are actually interesting. Though terrible configured. Like the Volus Adept has two extra powers, a cloak and a shield. Yeah, they're configured to the melee button.

World of Warcraft and Team Fortress also combine random items with token systems so you can buy what you want, crafting so you can buy what you want with an alternate currency, and some form of trading so you can trade for what you want. They're proven mechanics to make people feel like they have power over their progression and that it's not all a grind that exists solely to keep them playing.

I doubt Sony would follow suit. They would crush Microsoft if Microsoft goes through with it and they don't.

NWN holds a special place in my heart as one of the only games I can't really discuss without slipping into an incomprehensible rant. Which is why this will be brief. Dragon Age 2 has far more redeeming qualities in my eyes.

So I reinstalled Mass Effect 3. Thought I'd check out all the new classes for multiplayer and see if they may get me interested in it again. Right after it was done installing, I looked up the new classes on the wiki. "Oh... so the juggernaut's just another soldier. That's just a... nevermind." And uninstalled it before actually playing again. Good thing I don't have download caps.

I just did CTRL+F for "evil" on all three pages of this thread. Page 1: Not found. Page 2: 1 instance. Someone mentioning that EA is singled out because everyone else thinks EA is evil. Page 3: You. So here we have a three page discussion that includes people disliking what EA is doing and not one of them is calling EA an evil empire for it. What seems silly to me is that you're either misrepresenting those who disagree with it, or you're cherry picking parts of the audience that aren't even present in order to dismiss the discussion. Who are you arguing with here? Similar to "evil," nobody in this thread has said that EA needs to die. What point are you making by pointing at people that aren't even involved in our discussion? That's not far removed from bringing up the developers that fell under EA's management. It strikes me as simply trying to win over sympathies with off-topic commentary.

I'm with Sterling, I don't see how point out that people buy it or that it's consumerism is a defense. That's not a good thing, it is, at best, neutral. And given that what they want and what I want are in disagreement in this context, I can slide that neutral into negative without any qualms. When a company does something people disagree with, they are right to express their opinions.

I get to be a dragon.

Personally, I agree with you. I don't think the entire audience would. The mindset of "hours vs. cost" is one aspect that is completely product driven. Or the requests for sequels and franchises. Probably the biggest segment of the market views it as a product to be consumed, then tossed aside for the next one to come along.

I'm going to be skeptical that you've played that sparingly. I played pretty hardcore through the expansion that introduced Geth and I barely unlocked the Geth Engineer. And none of his extra customizations. It's absolutely sickening that my progression for the character and his weapons is dependent on a random number generator that I have to grind through. The game wasn't even fun enough to grind out the rest. But, like with lots of people, I felt like I needed to get it. You're frugal so you don't buy it. I'm frugal, so I stopped playing entirely. It's not a good game design to sucker in the people who can afford to toss around money without consideration by making progression obnoxious for everyone. I'm not even strictly against microtransactions. But that's not just microtransactions. If they'd had a way to buy what I wanted (and not used those stupid Bioware points), I would have even considered giving them money to support extra content. But it's a lottery. Which is a step too far in my opinion.

Yeah, you buy the best packs, but so what, that doesn't ensure you unlock what you want to. So you need to grind more. And more. And more. Another half a dozen here, another half a dozen there. Supplement, not replace. One pack is not going to do squat for you. You could need tons of packs, perhaps even hundreds, to really get what you want. It's an obnoxious grind. And using real money can help the grind speed up a bit.

If it results in more games having an unlock/progression system like Mass Effect 3 multiplayer's, then I won't even be tempted to buy EA games again. I seriously hate that system as much as I possibly can hate a game system. It's like one step removed from F2P "energy." Not back or forwards, just to the side.

Decided to play Divinity 2. Which was causing me no end of trouble (first time install, long startup load, oops, my anti-virus thinks it's stealing my identity because it has an autorun.exe, now my anti-virus is stuck trying to update exceptions, now my anti-virus seems to have gotten rid of the exe in spite of the exception, steam needs to validate) so I started playing Very Hard in Metal Gear Rising instead.

Boredom. I do some drinking every few months (I think it's been over a year in this case) just to see if I can understand the subtleties of alcohol better. But that does remind me, I have some character research to do on this very subject.

Discriminating taste is bought with experience. Mine is limited. I'm used to Jack Daniels. I bought Jameson. I can't tell you the difference. The concept of it having bite, let alone the bite having some sort of ancillary descriptor, is completely lost on me.