Tale

Engineer was fun and anyone who dislikes it is a communist.

Nobody knows. Shadow Broker is up, though.

The Dark Ritual is the largest hanging thread of Dragon Age.

I thought Beth did quite well with their stuff in Morrowind. The guy falling from the sky, the Indiana Jones egg.

Witch Hunt is released tomorrow. It may be a few days before I get to it since I want to do a complete DA run before I hit the final DLC. But I'll say this. If anyone spoils it for me I will use every connection in the games industry I've made over the years to see that you never enjoy video games again. And by that I mean I'll contact up a few old coworkers, some friends, and and have them ignore me while I rant like a madman.

Volo should stop lying then! I can't be held responsible.

You can't fathom to need to play a game more than 3, but you said you played it 28.

You can't fathom the need to do something you did? In need of soul searching, I take it?

...and i hoped for a tender "death by snu snu"-moment. Bioware, i am dissapoint. We all are, my friend. We all are. There's always Dragon Age 3.

I wouldn't even need that detail. Being in the car with a drunk driver could be considered accessory.

I enjoyed my Engineer run. Engineer is the only class where a companion has your special class skill and two of them do. So you can run around with Tali and Legion, sending out your little drones and hacking Geth for a small army. Too bad there's only like one mission where you can do that.

I'd be up for it. Are we going to run a gimmick? Glacier embark? Evil embark? Sky fortress?

They get enough slots simply from levels that you don't need to get that anyway.

Pretty much all the DLC so far except the day 1 DLC recycles areas.

I'd heard that the entire concept of Philotics and aiua has its root in Mormonism. Never studied Mormonism so I could be completely wrong.

I'm hearing a rumor that Gaider said Qunari females won't be appearing in DA2. Anyone have confirmation? It's a minor note. I don't recall if Sten ever said anything about their position in Qunari society.

No, you're not. Conservation of detail, people. Oh, there's a really important guy they can't stop talking about. He's dead, you say? He wore a mask, you say? Probably nothing. Did it really change anything, though? The bad guy in KOTOR was still the bad guy after the revelation. The bad guy in Mass Effect turns out to be something you thought was a danged prop. But it's worthless to do this comparison, really. Twists are cheap. Mass Effect wasn't a thrilling story. Neither was KOTOR. And that's all my point is. If the only thing you have to go to compliment a work is a single twist, then it's not an especially good story.

... Enders Game? That'd be awesome. Then we get into a war with some aliens, FTL communication, eventually FTL travel, and we all discover the Mormons were right.

Still my third (full, hopefully) playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins. Done half a third playthrough before, but not counting it. Then onto Awakenings and all the DLC. Just purchased the second expansion for Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers. Will probably hit that a bit soon.

I'd dispute whether that one was "clever." But that's less debate and more me being obnoxiously argumentative. I shouldn't particularly defend Mass Effect, but KOTOR wasn't exactly better. Twists can be useful for changing the direction of a narrative, but if they're what you look at when you compliment the work, then all it's working with are cheap thrills. Even Mass Effect had it's twists. The ship is the bad guy. The guy you thought was the bad guy is just mind controlled.

When did we come to start thinking of twists as substance? Was it in 1999? I feel I should blame Shymalan.

I miss my prophecy.

Golems is great. It's largely one area, but they do really neat tricks with it. It has little story content, unlike Leliana's Story.

ehhhh When asked if DA2 was going to be Mass Effect with swords, he makes a point of emphasizing how Dragon Age will still be about "hard choices" and "dark heroic fantasy." I've gone over it before, but those are the weakest aspects of Dragon AGe. There are no actually hard choices and the dark seems likes it's trying too hard sometimes. I'll grant that the Darkspawn and creepy and horrorlike, but above ground it's mostly people being gits. In my eyes, Dragon Age's strength lies elsewhere. Now, he's the writer, so the aspects of the game that revolve around writing are what he's going to focus on. So I shouldn't read much into it.

I just finished Leliana's Song, Darkspawn Chronicles, and Golems of Amgarrak. I have two things to say. 1) That was fun. 2) This confirms my computer is fixed. I'm looking forward to DA2 and will give them benefit of the doubt. March is too far away, though.