Monte Carlo

^ the GUI and radial controls for spells look very well done, am looking forward to the battles.... altho' I imagine friendly fire will be a bit of an issue.

Dragon Age's setting is fully fleshed-out and yeah, some of it will never get used but is sitting there in the background like the stock in a well-prepared broth. But... I like the gist of jjc's argument a lot. As DA stands, Dave Gaider has had the opportunity to live the Dungeon Master's dream and make the ultimate homebrew campaign world. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I get the impression that we MUST love Ferelden and it's marvellous NPCs, the games mechanics spring from this. It's the ghost in the machine. Thr NPCs are in a camp... is this a gameplay consideration or a 'LOVE THESE DEEP NPCs?' consideration? Probably a bit of both. OTOH, I love the BG series but loathe the Forgotten Realms. Go figure. It was for the reasons jjc articulated better than I could. Anyway, imagine my character is (say) the Dwarf peasant rogue dude from DA:O. Why should he know anything about anything? Why not just drop him into this huge, intricate, swirling world and see what happens? On one level the character might not be interested in legends and the Chantry and the Grey Wardens... he might just want food, loot and action. Alternatively, he might become obsessed with the minutiae and politics of the world (which is there if you wanted). He can investigate, find out more, be rewarded in other ways. As it stands, the gamer is likely to be fed Ferelden lore like a foie gras goose. I'm about to go completely off-beam now so bear with me. Do you like The Wire or Generation Kill? I do, a lot. They dump you in an alien world (a squad of American detectives, a Marine Recon platoon) and make no allowances for your ignorance of their mores. You have to catch up. You have to think (it took me until mid season-two of The Wire to figure out waht a Re-Up was). It's challenging and demanding. I know that sort of entry into a game is probably a bit too strong, but to capture the essence of the approach in a CRPG would be deeply cool. I'm not a Planescape fan, but this was one of the things it did well, and allowed me to discover at my own pace. Shame there wasn't any action to get in the way but that's another story. Cheers MC

Perhaps, but hardly true of the movies quoted - for example Star Wars is one of the most obsessively detailed settings ever and is all the duller for it. We know exactly who Indiana Jones is (OK, elaborated over a lengthy story arc) and so on. Big Trouble in Little China is an old favourite of mine, though, and it is laden with ambiguity. In fact, Kurt Russell's character is an everyman wanderer type.

I enjoyed your post, and this bit intrigued me. Would you mind elaborating / expanding on it a little? Cheers MC

I am already hording tinned food and bottles of water, already have the Mel Max beyond Thunderdome mullet.

^ There's the future for Oz... Escape from New York but with sunburn and really bad haircuts.

"Spiritual successor to BG" equals, I would imagine: large-scale, single-player, party-based fantasy CRPG with tactical RTwP combat. Dragon Age ticks all those boxes, and yeah a lot of the BG faithful are romance-crazy and DA ticks that box too. Personally, I think it means a bit more than just that. Bio has poured more marketing energy and love into this, I think they are trying to refresh the genre on a number of levels, so in much the same way that BG took Bioware in a certain direction I think they reckon DA:O will take them in the next direction. Whatever that is, but I suspect it's original fantasy IPs / franchises with multiple spin-off products. I'm expecting to see in the future DA: Tactics (I'd buy that for a dollar), maybe a DA FPS-style console game, DA 2, 3 & 4 and maybe even a Ferelden MMO. Super Morrigan Cart on the Wii would be cool. Cheers MC

...and it has the art direction values of South Park. Did like the Gorion / Sarevok tribute at the start, though.

You'd have to be deeply in love with Dragon Age to play that flash game. However, if we were talking Dragon Age Bubble Shooter....

^ No, the attic. My version of the UK is divided, broadly, into: London (home) - dirty grubby magnificent world city that has already gone all Bladerunner on my ass The M25 Londonopolis (home-from-home) The A303 magic carpet to the West Country (home-from-home with comedy accents and nice beer, but don't stop 'til your WELL west of Swindon!) THE REST (Thar be Dragons!) Honestly, I've heard of the North of England but I'm not sure I've ever been there, although I spent ten minutes at a WH Smiths at a railway station in Manchester. Cheers MC

Yes.

^ I ordered mine from Game, with my loyalty card bonus and their sale discount it was only a couple of quid more to get the CE.

Thinking about it, it could be a pretty cool way of playing a game and it really lends itself to RPGs. Think of it as the core game being the rulebooks of a RPG and all the DLC as modules / splatbooks. If a game was awesome enough, and the developers committed to it long-term, then it might be groovy.

I'm just a sucker for a tin collector's carton, plus I've been promised a tiny burlap pouch containing clippings from Dave Gaider's beard, a bit like a holy relic of yore. If you sprinkle the beard clippings over your keyboard whilst playing Dragon Age: Origins it gets EVEN DARKER AND MORE FANTASYIER than ever. You don't get that with your vanilla edition of the game, nor the console version. Cheers MC

I don't mind as long as the game is good and they're upfront about what you're getting for your money.

^ Just failed my Geek Lore check, what's Natal, apart from a S. African province?

^ In-game DLC, signposting optional stuff that looks heavily like progressing in the game is pretty rare. Although obvious once you think about it. In future games publishers will own your game - you'll have to buy it online, register it online, be online to play it and buy stuff online from within the game. In effect, you'll only rent this virutal product. I'm going back to hex-based wargames on a board with little minis.

It's the future, introducing MMO-style payment models into single-player games.

That's almost as awesome as strangling a bear while eating ice cream. [anchorman]"We bears are a proud race..."[/anchorman] Imoen chick, for me, is the NPC equivalent of someone running their nails down a chalkboard.

^ "You fiend!" Cool, it looks like you get to steal some artefact level l00t and slay some of the most apparently annoying and poorly-written NPCs in gaming history at the same time.

^ Lots of small things add up to big things. Having to put up with a NPC management system you might hate for 80 hours is like water torture. The drip-drip-drip of witty NPC banter, the splosh-splosh-splosh of wordy, self-important cutscenes... Hey, the rest of the game might be so cool that these things are barely noticeable. I just doubt it. Mee, I'm gonna find the least obtrusive, underwritten NPCs and just crack on because the scenery, quests and combat look just up my street. Cheers MC

In the UK it doesn't seem to affect your credit rating, in fact the bank and the credit card company constantly spam me with offers of crazy amounts of money I could borrow if I were stupid. Which I used to be when it came to credit cards, hey I missed out the time I hired a freaking yacht in Italy out of idle curiosity. That one still smarts. Cheers MC

I think the default hardcore mode is player + dog. It's the only way to fly.

*Suspicious glare* Doesn't sound very English to me. Are you sure you're English? I'm a native-bornLondoner, which is sort of English but not... quite.

I'm with gfted1 anyhow. Maybe you should get rewarded for completing key stage battles without dying, maybe there's an extra bit of loot lying around. Personally, I hate the camp idea, with these NPCs lounging around some notional campsite, following in your wake.