HoonDing

I'd recommend Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry (dark heroic fantasy done right) & Tigana standalone book to everyone. Best fantasy ever. Of more recent authors, I particularly enjoy: Elizabeth Haydon - Rhapsody Trilogy (scifi - fantasy) Naomi Novik - Temeraire series (Horatio Hornblower meets Dragonriders of Pern)

World of Warcraft meets Elric of Melnibon

They could've tried something similar to their Star Wars MMO: a CGI trailer that has nothing to do with the game but blows everyone away, for instance a LOTR-like Helm's Deep or Pelennor Fields battle on Wagner music. *shrug*

Dude, I practically know this game by heart! If "The Secret World" is as successful as "Age of Conan", it might never even arrive.

OK, I'll write something up that would make even David Gaider cringe: "The world of Ferredram, created fifty thousand years ago by the two brother-gods I'frei end I'dei who both courted the goddess I'draa (both belonging to a pantheon of ancient powerful beings) -- when the goddess got tired of the two brothers fighting over her, she issued the challenge that who-ever could impress her the most with a creation of his own would have her hand. Both brothers then set to work, using all of their minds to create two worlds, named Ferre and Dram -- but after labouring for millions of years the brothers noticed that the worlds they had created was imperfect : Ferre was filled with flame, Dram with completely filled with ice. Realizing that neither would have the hand of the goddess this way, the two brothers decided to reconcile and merge their very divine essences into one, creating one new god -- and one new world, the world of Ferredram, where the magical fire & ice came together and formed the frugal essence of earth. Pleased, the new god then went to seek the goddess to ask for her hand, but the goddess refused, claiming that the agreement she had made with the two brothers millions of years ago was void since the two brothers were absent. Feeling tricked, the new god then was so enraged that he hit the goddess in rage, and she fled the divine realms unto the world of Ferredram. Frightened, the goddess then decided to hide forever from the god and to do this, she took many small clods of earth and into each one she distributred a part of her own soul -- making the clods into the first inhabitants of Ferredram known as the Idraar. When the god's rage finally ended and went to seek the goddess to beg her for forgiveness, he noticed the Idraar on the world of Ferredram and realized what the goddess had done. Both ashamed and sorrowful, he then decided to become the protector of Ferredram for ever, as part of her essence was in all its inhabitants. The god then took parts of the earth himself and made many new races & creatures to serve as companions for the Idraar, who became plants & beasts. But when the Idraar noticed that new creatures came to their world, they saw in it the hand of the god and a great fear came upon them -- for their souls all originated into the goddess's very essence and hence they remembered what the god had done to them, and this caused a schizm into the Idraar; one part managed to overcome their fear and met with the god, learnt from him and eventually accepted him, but another part refused to meet with the god and instead came to hate and fear him. These peoples fled underground and grew distinct from their kin, both in demeanor and appearance, and eventually became mortal enemies of the Idraar known as the Uthrar or "Forsaken", who would eventually rise from the depths of Ferredram and battle their former kin for domination."

So... beautiful. I've been replaying TLJ

Little did those reporters know that that fly was in fact North Korean espionage microtechnology.

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.