Sannom

Although note that Lucas will still be 'blocked' by big enemies like cyclopses and dakkenweyrs. Those things won't let him pass, but they will also be hit multiple times.

The weapons are stance-specific, and thus their effects only affect your character when he/she is in that stance. It's kind of logical, after all why have their bonuses when you're not using them?

So, Steven Heck and Deadpool are voicing one of Batman's saner foe?

I think the wording confused him/her. We're linguistically wired to expect 'vulnerable' after 'leave'. It's easy to miss the 'in'.

Yeah, it's funny because I think DS3 has some good old BG2-like side-quests in Raven's Rill, with Gunderic Manor and the Crypt of Heroes being entire dungeons dedicated to side-quests, and they are off the beaten path, even if not by much. Of course the player will always receive the quests, but still, I thought it was nice. Unless I missed something mandatory to do in those dungeons? For example, do we have to complete Gunderic Manor to get our second companion after the bridge? I'm playing Katarina and wanted to do the Manor with Lucas, but he wasn't at the bridge. Also, funny that you get a bigger insight into Leona's character by doing her quest after freeing Raven's Rill. But later, there are no more of those. More dungeons like that in Stonebridge at least would have been nice!

Shield Bash is an excellent damage dealer in the early game if you double its damage, and it's still very useful against some enemies (Dakkenwyrs, Cyclopses) thanks to the Stun effect. The Empowered ability is also nice against multiple, weak enemies. Blade Dash does more damage than Wind Shear, and it was still the best way to get rid of those pesky two-armed Azunites soldiers : one Blade Dash one side, then another the other side, and no more enemies.

(1) Problem is that those people made themselves heard after the demo came out, and that was two weeks before the game was released. And even then, most of the comments were on the "OMG this is nothing like DS1 and DS2, this game sucks! You ruined everything, Obsidian! Again." side. Nothing constructive. As for the ones who had some ideas, they were basically asking to redo the entire game. In two weeks. Ah! (2) Your ideas aren't uninteresting, but they can be pasted upon every RPG in existence, be it the Elder's Scrolls series, Bioware's games or Diablo series. You're basically asking for a RPG that will have every aspect of every sub-genre of RPGs, even those that could contradic each other. That's unrealistic and bad.

You shoud know by now, that thing doesn't work! It always sets back to 'on'.

Isn't it always the case?

I think it has more to do with the dialogs in Dead Money, it's not the first time he mentions 'dying a little bit inside' from watching people cut through the dialog in order to get the XP.

Change to Casual then save again.

Option screen, I think. I think it's the first screen that appears. I know I changed it in-game. I played on PC though.

I don't know about that, I made a run-through in the forest too, but that was because those were kicking my ass!

It's funny, I went to Normal for that fight but I really was thankful for the halved damage she did to me rather than for the bigger damages I inflicted her. That dreaded that spear throw in Hardcore, not so much in Normal.

So now you're comparing the DS series to Napoleon?

I think I gained it on the Archon of War myself. Or the Archon of Vengeance. One of those two for sure.

I think I would disagree with you there. New characters seem the kind of stuff a DLC could be good for, especially if they simply work on the base of a scratched character. What I could really see in an expansion is more powers by stance though, along with a follow-up on the story and new characters.

With or without the accent?

BG2 is probably the only one that I feel didn't have problems in its pacing. Great and long side-quests that goes off the main story path, specific dungeons and areas for those, etc. Yeah, DS3 really has only one of those 'filler areas', the swamp, and that's over pretty quickly. I wouldn't have minded more Gunderic Manor and Tomb of Heroes though, big dungeons that are actually 'optional'. Heck, I think some RPG should go back to BG2's model, linear story but a huge chapter filled with optional quests... that you kinda have to do anyways if you want to have a good shot at survival. Not just 'four main hubs that you have to complete in any order you want'.

Brand recognition mostly. Kinda like 'correction fluid' is commonly called 'Tipp-Ex' or 'frigidaire' (shortened as 'frigo' with a hard 'g') has become a synonym for 'refrigerator', Kleenex has become short for 'paper handkerchief'.

Hasn't Georges Ziets (Creative Director on the game) shown a strong interest in Eastern Europe and its culture with Mask of the Betrayer already?

Question : why do you single-out the X-Box 360 version? All versions had one or two very small patches that came out without any changelog.

I liked those, at least when you managed to get some unusual set up. The one where the Prince is dangling from a chain over the head of one gard, with another one not far, with the Prince jumping between the two, was really good. Awesome Button, but in a good way, as in it really felt awesome.

Weird, because from what I understood from Sawyer's Formspring answers, Obsidian is paid a certain amount of money for certain milestones that were fixed in the contract that both parties signed. None of the sells profits go back to Obsidian unless the contract included a bonus if the game is particularly successful. And apparently that's how all of Obsidian's projects worked. It's a former employee of Obsidian that said that Sega was really talking out of its ass when it said that there would never be an Alpha Protocol 2. Basically, that's not their decision to make, not anymore. Yeah, Dungeon Siege 3 have mixed/middle-ground score for the major part, with a few good ones (8/10, 4/5, 80+/100, the like). No the huge gap that Alpha Protocol, between reviewers that would give it a 2 out of 10 while others would give it a 8, and sometimes even a 9. It's pretty much what was expected here : middle-ground, nothing noteceably bad or good.

It seems to me that DS3's intented audience, and by extension the gameplay, were very clear. Combat-focused, gamepad-focused, not too much distraction in the shape of dialogues or secondary gameplay, a strong combat system. And the audience were the gamers who liked console ARPGs like the Dark Alliance series or some recent X-Men games. (1) I thought Square Enix was in a bad shape financially, with the joke that was Final Fantasy XIV launch and other assorted disasters? Obsidian, if already paid by Square, is probably safe. (2) Sega doesn't own the Alpha Protocol IP, it has gone back to Obsidian.