HoonDing

Evil Bethesda lying at the root of Obsidian's (supposedly the only hope left that can provide us with "true" AAA RPGs) future smash hit. Ironic?

Does Morrigan get pregnant without the Dark Ritual, then? Without the Dark Ritual, isn't there an ending where she becomes the advisor of the Empress of Orlais instead? All I'm saying is, it's useless to have an ending where the Warden can sacrifice herself, when the story is clearly supposed to continue in an expansion & DLC (and most likely in DA3). It's like Mask of the Betrayer, which assumes that for some reason evil characters would always choose to defeat the King of Shadows rather than joining him.

I forgot how much I hate xkcd. But do carry on.

Huh? It does? Since when? Awakenings & Witch HUnt.

Is she dancing?

Guess what... there is no nation in the world that hasn't lost a war yet.

Funny to expect meaningul consequences in a game that revives dead characters and assumes all Wardens agreed to the Dark Ritual. So in DA3 Morrigan is likely to return with her little Bhaalspawn. If there is a canon story, they should just say so. :butthurt:

His name was Lares.

The Nameless Hero actually had a male thief companion in the Gothics as well... who knows, maybe that one went "Edwina" in Forsaken Gods.

Average age in the audience: 13?

Fighter/mage is awesome in Risen, just as it was in Gothic 3. Freeze lizardmen & ash beasts, then chop them up. Makes the entire game a breeze. About Arcania however: Who's the woman next to King Nameless Hero? I recognize the rest, which makes me fear it's someone ported over from Forsaken Gods. Anyone played this expansion?

Yeh, it's an awesome game (my favourite path was Keepers -> Lizardmen -> Highmen), but the sequels are terrible. There used to be a very vibrant community as well, with tons of fan-made adventures. Also one of the best video game soundtracks.

The Renaissance was an era of great scientific & cultural upheaval in spite of the Church, that nearly ruined it with the Inquisition, the 80-years war & 30-years war. Basically there was nearly 200 years of non-stop war during the Renaissance caused by the Church's fanatism. Before the Renaissance, the only big war was the Hundred years war, which was solely political. Yet the Church left a mark with the Crusades that exists until this day... without the Crusades, mayhap the Christian west & Muslim world would've been not so much apart as they are today. Also do not forget how the Church destroyed a fledgling new religion in the Languedoc, by instigating the genocide of the Cathars. If this religion could've spread more through Europe before it was snuffed out, it might've changed the entire history.

It's probably easy to include combos & special moves like Prince of Persia: Warrior Within & Severance, but then it would be even harder to pretend that they're still RPGs.

It wasn't better in Risen or Gothic. It's unrealistic fighting generic animals that will dodge almost all your incoming blows and if you do manage to get a hit in, taking about 1% from their health while the animal (regardless whether it's a vulture, hedgehog or a giant gorilla) will kill you in one hit. Melee combat is terrible in almost all action RPGs, which is why I usually go for archery/magic. I only enjoy it in the Witcher & Two Worlds. Oblivion ruined it with the level scaling.

I'm going to give The Old Republic a try, and also definitely the Secret World. I'm curious to see what was so important for Ragnar T

When Pete himself takes the wheel, you know this game will be serious business, indeed.

I have the impression that most stuff rather happened in the DLCs (which I all skipped). DA:O has nothing significant happening that's not restricted to Ferelden, which is just a backwater that nobody in the rest of Thedas cares about. My Warden(s) merely killed a dragon and may have rattled some kettles on the political scene. And that's about it. I don't think the imported saves will lead to anything more significant than in ME2, where occasionally one bumped into some old friends and/or foes and had bit of a chit-chat.

The game seems CPU bound. I have a quad-core Phenom 9500 2.2 Ghz and it runs on about ~30 fps on high settings. Changing video settings barely does anything to the framerate. I think sub-par writing & voice acting actually work in games like this, where most people you talk to are peasants, soldiers & other mercenaries... they should sound awkward & boorish rather than talk Shakespeare. The same goes for Two Worlds & the Gothic games. Though I heard that the German voice-over in Two Worlds & Arcania is actually pretty good.

Civilization IV? Sid Meier's Pirates?

One of the screenies might spoil the game for those that did not play yet.

It's just a chase sequence. BG&E 1 had a couple of those. And you can't really stick one label on BG&E's gameplay, anyway. The only other game I think of that offers the same amount of varied (and fun) gameplay, is Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

It seems BioWare zenimaxed the leaked trailer.