HoonDing

At least in real life, it always matters. You have less control over where rounds are going with increased range and felt recoil, but your level of control (or lack thereof) doesn't change terminal ballistics. Soldiers with assault rifles don't just hold the weapon at hip level and blindly fire in the direction of enemies. Even an M16 or M4 with standard peep sights can regularly score tight three-shot burst groupings at 50 yards in the hands of a competent shooter. Whether this needs to be modeled or abstracted in games is definitely a separate issue, but the person to whom I was responding implied that placement was not a factor with inflicted firearm damage but did think it made sense for melee weapons. The practical effects of ballistics -- whether it's from a baseball, a bullet, or a piece of shrapnel -- always have to do with what specifically is being hit, at what angle, with what applied force, etc. It's not just a matter of the ft-lb of force at the point of impact. You're effectively breaking apart a complicated living machine, not hitting a cube of ballistic gelatin. I explained myself not thoroughly enough... I meant to say that in VATS one can target specific body parts with firearms, but with skill at 100 one does more damage to the same bodypart than with skill at 50. It's this I have trouble with explaining. Melee/unarmed in VATS doesn't allow one to target limbs and one can merely target the body, so I surmized increased damage at level 100 could be explained by 'imagining' that during the VATS animation one would hit more vulnerable body parts compared to lower levels.

Seems I'd want a setting more alike to the Witcher. It's mayhap understandable why BioWare would refrain venturing unto those grounds, considering its fanbase.

If D:A were really 'dark', i.e. based on Game of Thrones or LOTR heavily armored women would be an exception rather than the rule. When it comes to women warriors everyone uses the example of Jeanne d'Arc but she didn't fight, just carried around a banner and afterwards she was burnt at the stake for it. Women could carry the title of knight, but weren't allowed to fight. D:A world is supposed to have a dark, almost barbaric medieval feel (say Europe during the dark Middle Ages) yet there is no inequality between men & women. Of course, if it were like this a lot of female gamers would explode in rage, but at least it would be something refreshing and realistic in a RPG. Women becoming warriors in spite of society is for instance an important theme in LOTR. EDIT: one could even balance things out by making the 'magic' only available to women and making men mad, like in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

Guess the huge piggy bank must've given them away.

The only complaint I have is the way the heavy armor & weapons look. Looks like it came from World of warcraft of Fable, not very medieval at all. If the French walked around in metal like that and carried around such weapons, they wouldn't even have made it to Agincourt in time in 1415 to get their butts kicked.

Honestly, after watching it I can't see what the whole fuzz is about. Hard to judge any of that without context. It's the culmination of a romance plot, obviously it's going to stink when one hasn't experienced the whole development. Romeo & Juliet at the balcony is also corny when one only focuses on that one scene. Seemed to me the delivery of that Morrigan was deliberate - maybe she's supposed to be the powerful, but socially awkward sorceress. *shrug* Also, seems the dragon lady is voiced by Captain Janeway.

Imo weapon damage should only be dependent on the condition of the weapon, hence on repair skill. When you're out of the Vault, you normally have a pistol in 100% condition so it's normal you can do a fair amount of damage on petty enemies like Raiders. That's actually how I thought it was until now. *shrug* I can't think of any viable explanation for weapon damage increasing with skill for ballistic weapons.. at least for melee/unarmed one can say that damage increases with skill because as skill increases one gets to know where to hit where it hurts the most.. IIRC Morrowind's weapon damage was determined by a roll, the 'to hit' depended mostly on attributes like strength & agility and less on skill - Oblivion turned this around and fixed the weapon damage.

Fake British accents FTW. I like all BioWare games. But then, I'm but a lowly casual gamer.

I like to keep it simple:

I don't mind Dragonforce, but the problem with them is that all their songs sound the same. It's always like their albums consist of one long song split into segments. There are a lot of power metal bands more talented than them who don't get any attention at all. For instance, Dragonland or Olympos Mons.

Excellent adventure game with survival/horror elements. I liked the nightmarish chase scenes in this game. Just like in a nightmare, one moves literally at a snail's pace. Also, similar to nightmares enemies always break through doors just as one is about to finish shoving a closet in front of it. This game should not be played in the dark, unless one has a bucket of clonazepam at hand.

Rock & metal. The same could be said for Lost Horizon.

Star Trek: Bridge Commander was a pretty good game IIRC. Never finished it, though.

System requirements announced: 20 GB HDD? What's this, AutoCAD 2009?

French chick is angry because you slept with the Book chick, she just acknowledges that she can't stop you from doing it. Apart from killing either of you, of course, but it seems that's a no-no. Huh. These BioWare romances really are over my head. I am going to pick myself the "Marriage of Figaro"/City Elf background to avoid all that.

There's a newer video of the dragon fight on IGN: Link Lettucia?

Those last songs you've posted seem more fitting for Dragon Age.

Here's the real story: Link

I don't get this. Are the women clairvoyant?

It's hard to find your way around them rooftops when you're being chased by 10+ SWAT agents & shot by a helicopter. I always ran into a dead end at one point leading to a reload - finally stopped playing at the beginning of chapter 8, couldn't get past the enemies in the beginning. One of the more frustrating games of the recent years - I probably died more than a hundred times just trying to jump on a passing train. Good fun!

Actually, he solved most problems with the old-fashioned brawl:

A Star Trek RPG similar to Mass Effect could easily be made. There's enough races that could be used as antagonists threatening the known galaxy -- the Borg, Tholian Assembly, Breen but most interesting would be Species 8472. The player character could be some 'veteran' or 'newbie' Starfleet officer sent off in a ship travelling around several planets looking for allies & clues on how to fight the 'evil'. Just PLEASE not another gundam Picard fanservice fest. Captain Picard.

Problem is probably your laptop having onboard graphics..

A Star Trek RPG similar to Mass Effect could easily be made. There's enough races that could be used as antagonists threatening the known galaxy -- the Borg, Tholian Assembly, Breen but most interesting would be Species 8472. The player character could be some 'veteran' or 'newbie' Starfleet officer sent off in a ship travelling around several planets looking for allies & clues on how to fight the 'evil'.