Monte Carlo

Of course, Rangers are very vulnerable to nebelwerfer and walking stuka spam, which are personal faves of mine.

I've been experimenting with the summon undead spell quite a lot. It's useful as in the skeleton you summon has a few skills linked to what it was prior to it's death. For me, the most useful have been archers - specifically crossbowmen, who make extremely useful 5th party members (they level up to only a couple of levels below your mage - at mid-high levels this is very useful) for a small mana tradeoff. My undead archer is a great mage disrupter and trigger-man for my virulent walking bomb trick (oh how I love it when that rank of pesky archers, already injured by other AoE spells, blow up in a shower of gore when I trigger one of those). Then I wander over and trigger my healing / mana spells that work off of dead people and voila! back in the game for more fighting if it's one of those scenarios where your party can't go into 'rest' mode because there are enemies nearby.

^ Yeah, it's like a clean NWN2 install, then an hour or so of historic auto-updates. Alan, if you want to catch up over the weekend we can have an extremely inept, attrition-heavy battle together. My current fave MP map is Lyon, which is urban warfare over three key bridges... lots of fun. You can be the plucky Bio Allies and I will be Ze Vermacht. PM me your account name and I'll do likewise.

My own tactic versus Ranger blobs is Propaganda War from the Terror support tree - it costs 100 ammo but it makes them wet their fatigues and run away.

My main concern is in my post a page back about where does the DLC fit into your original game? I would like to see a substantial expansion, doesn't matter if it's DLC or not. Then I can take or leave the smaller pieces of DLC. A XP gives you something substantial - this cup cake DLC can only really give you a semi-detached bit of a game.

^ Fail Alan, I've been measured, fair and open minded on the whole DLC issue.

^ Use your imagination. You storm a Qunnari citadel. You overthrow the Tevinter Imperium. You smash the demonic invasion of the Deep Roads. Yadda yadda.

Another glaring problem with what I shall christen the Cup-Cake DLC model (small, sweet but not very substantial) is the narrative issue. I finish DA:O with my 25th level character. Not unreasonably, I hope for an epic expansion that allows me, MotB like, to carry on a related story with my uber-powerful allies of yore. Then maybe another that allows me to play another origin in a different Ferelden adventure, maybe not as a Grey Warden. This obviates the issue of what and where I did in my original playthrough. Cup-Cake model? Er, where does that fit? My next playthrough? Squeeze it in when in fact i'm swept up in the final part of the story arc? (Can't save Ferelden right now, I've got an old battlefield to poke about), be compelled to keep save-games at different points to check out the new DLC? Seriously, this seems to me to be the biggest weakness - it actually puts me off more than cost. Cheers MC

^ I thought that the opening salvo of DLC would be priced to reflect release hysteria rather than be representative of everything they do... like a $5 an hour taxi ride. I'm still fairly neutral about it, but... ...It looks like that an XP (i.e. new NPC, skills, 10-15 hours gameplay etc) is on the way out in faovur of these smaller transactions. As I declared, serenely and sage-like, a few weeks back, we are seeing a new single player game that works like a MMO being born. It might well be a very ugly baby. If Bio releases a proper XP with a nice, big shiny adventure in it, something of the scale of MotB or SoZ then the Horde will be happy and have the choice to ignore these tiny cup-cake bites of DLC. If not and this model is it then I'm going to be a bit disappointed. Cheers MC

^ scratched record.

Oh dear.

^ The villagers are stirring, pitchforks and flaming torches at the ready. A few die-hard loyalist Bio shock-troops are fixing bayonets. It's getting ugly over there. I think some Bio fans are struggling with the realisation that XPs are going the way of pop-tarts, MC Hammer's trousers and neo-conservative foreign policy. Personally, I'll be interested to see how big this one is, just to see if Bio intend to knock out very short, relatively expensive content every couple of months. Because it won't work for long.

Return to Ostagar

^ I haven't finished, and if that's true then you're an arse.

Indeed, but obviously I'll be getting D3 too. I think it was leaked / early released on the DA Czech site and Google-translated by some Bio forum regulars. Hey, at least they can use all the original Ostagar assets for a fast turnaround...

Apparently the news is that the DLC is a new mini-XP for 400 Bio points (see? Now they have their own currency) which is about

^ Let me know when time differences allow and I'll happily give you a game. Trust me, I'm crap, there'll be no elite spam tactics from me.

^ I hear you brother. Why do you think I stopped posting there?

^ So what's the exciting new announcement Evil Chris was wibbling on about?

Hmmm, can you put rangers in Kangas for the ultimate spam? The only thing I've found that screws up ranger blobs is decent infantry to draw their fire backed up by two or three flakpanzers... OK you will lose at least one of those but you will drive the blob off, even AI ones. I am guilty of using ranger blobs. Although I am too busy with Dragon Age, I will see you on the battlefield soon Wals. Oh yes, I shall.

^ I'm going to make the first Nug NPC mod, before someone else does.

^ Bioware like to hype. Volourn never listens to the argument when he's in Bio shill mode - who said we wanted five different games? I just expected Bio to deliver on, say, 20% of the hype. Anyhow, in other news Chris Priestly is teasing the Bio faithful on the Bio-Borg site, saying people really need to check out the website tomorrow. The fix-the-rogues patch, most likely. Or some DLC to appease the hordes who weren't happy with Watcher's Keep (like unlocking it perhaps). Cheers MC

OK, I'm in the Brescilian Forest. There's no spoilers here, by the way. That's a Dalish Elf quest - as a Dalish elf I want a way to resolve that quest, either by a unique method of negotiation or by a slightly different battle (that might give me a new ally or make the end battle play out more in my favour). Furthermore, only that origin unlocks that quest route. Or maybe two, you might give a mage something in the forests that influences the outcome or the city elf. I'm not saying it has to be spectacularly different, but it adds flavour and granularity to the game.

^ I don't have issues with the DLC, then again I'm not an average gamer - I only buy maybe four or five games a year (at most) and play them to death. Heck, still have BG2 and Rome: Total War and Medieval TW:2 installed.

Yeah, I was thinking that my human noble wasn't getting due deference from the mud-smeared scumbag commoners. OTOH, yeah, I can't wait to start again with my shaven-headed dwarf gangsta in Orzammar. Oh, and a dialogue option or two different does not a difference make - I want to see a genuinely different outcome in the quest based on the origin. This was a big boast during development, ain't seeing equitable return on it so far.