Monte Carlo

I agree, that's why Bio shouldn't ignore it and why their 'blame the community' stance for some of the negativity is a PR kamikaze dive into a wall of flak. Successful companies use complaints as a type of performance metric - for every vocal complainer you've got a hundred who didn't like your service or product but didn't tell you. But they will tell their friends, it's reverse viral marketing. The people who do engage with you are therefore valuable, even if they didn't like your product. Naturally, you have to factor in the bat-merde crazy tendency of online gaming fans and haters but there is still some real data-mining to be done there as opposed to the in-game spyware they seem to be basing development decisions on. But, hey, it's about Q1 - Q4 and the bottom line. I give Bio two, three years?

^ :: shrugs :: I'd use the argument folks use here a lot - people who take the time to comment online are usually passionate and unrepresentative. I'm sure the haters have had their say fairly or unfairly and the results are skewed. Many people will have enjoyed the game and not bothered commenting - so the sales are the thing. However, it would be foolish to completely ignore the disparity. If EA continues to try to get more for less out of Bio - more dumbing-down, more asset recycling, shorter dev cycles then the whole point of owning Bioware in the first place seems to be degraded anyhow. Bio needs, like a fashion house or supermarket chain or car manufacturer, to create diffusion ranges to appeal to a broad(er) spectrum of gamers, maybe one complex title for every two mainstream products. Mercedes make an AMG. Not everybody drives one, but every taxi driver punting about in a ten-year old 'C' class knows its from the same marque. Edit: As for the gaming journo reviews : LOL. They are by and large shills.

When New York finally collapses into a lawless wilderness we can turn it into a giant penitentiary. Recidivist criminals can be imprisoned there in a dystopian society based on their values of avarice and brutality. Just don't crash your survival capsule in Manhattan, FFS.

The thing I'd like to know about Alistair is where he gets the hair products to keep that silly quiff going, despite spending most of his time wearing a steel, full-face helm. His haircut was enough for me to get him executed, honestly all you need is Dog and the golem-thingie to have fun in DA:O.

Is that really a scary, evil butterfly?

Just coughed a perfectly decent glass of claret on my keyboard.

OK, I'm going to start NWN2 tonight, my character concept build is a sort of skald / savage bard / heavy metal type adventurer with the obligatory Red Dragon Disciple levels for added cheese. Anybody got any ideas for a build and what about a few fighter levels? The plan is to complete the OC and go for level 30 into MotB.

When I was a student I had a summer job cleaning the maintenance tunnels of a large power facility. I think this might be where my thing about tunnels came from, as one day we had a strange LARPing type moment in the tunnels, but anyway I imagine it's still probably better than working in the games industry.

Station and generation rhyme. Keep up, I'm a gaming protest poet.

Sorry to sound shallow, but are there any attractive women working in the games industry or is it all hairy, overweight slobs wearing anime t-shirts and playing obscure 80's side-scrolling fighting games because it's so ironic it's cool?

Yes, I'd just sell everything, luckily it's a loot-tastic game.

I am mad, but at least I can spell.

Hey, Bioware devs don't seem to like RPGs but they're selling games like hot cakes Every genre is getting dumbed down for the Playstation Generation.

You taunt me so, but happily no. I salute you, sir. You are made of strong stuff, indeed. What I've seen and heard about the fixed camera, combat hordes, fixed PC persona and general EmoWare soppiness lub story BS makes this an astonishingly easy decision to make, to be honest.

Glenn Beck and gibberish goes together like beef and mustard, why bother even reading it?

I'm having that horrible "what character do I make" dilemma for NWN2. Have both XPs installed so there are lots of choices. I want a cheesy melee / sneak attack power-build, any suggestions?

You taunt me so, but happily no.

Thanks for all that Calax, I think I'll be picking it up next week mebbe. Apart from that, it's NWN2.

^ That's actually quite cool.

^ Hey thanks Calax, how is the AI?

Tell me, AKJ, is your car a hearse. Because a choose life sticker on a hearse would be kinda neat.

Anybody playing Shogun TW2, a mini-review puh-leez? I know Rosbjerg is because he's my newest bestest Steam buddy and it keeps popping up in a little box that he's playing it. Walsingham appears to be addicted to Civ V. It's like gaming meets the Truman Show.

Whaddidido?

When's the end of the financial year in the US? I bet it was an end of Q1 profit ratio type deal if it's March 31st like it is here.

I said NWN2 + XPs. I know it's unfashionable but i like both the XPs and think it's great that the same game could have two utterly different XPs like NWN2 did. MotB is fab.