Nepenthe

Really hit the death nail on the "Indoctrination Theory" that so many people have been pinning hope on... Not really. It gives them the opportunity to retcon, should they choose - precisely because it's so vague. I think the original (later changed!) ending of Fallout 3 got a rather similar feedback. In fact, the similarities of stupidity and self-sacrifice by the hero are present in both endings. As for your second point, you might remember me as the guy who enjoyed actually Dragon Age 2. I've now joined the haters, when it comes to ME3's ending. This is definitely it. In a worse game, the endings might be something I could live with, but this is, until that point, IMO Bioware's best game. Very much this, too. It would appear so. I'm not sure if it's even starting to sink in now, or if they are still in damage control, but I think from Casey Hudson's post, it's become obvious to them that they have to do something. Maybe they need to go to 4chan trolls to do their high level plot planning for them, since the Truth guy is still giving them the best exit I can imagine. I think your analysis is right on the money, but it does give me hope, that, with time, they might understand what went wrong. In fact, this calls back to your and Raithe's earlier epic/tragic point. It looks like they view ME3 as a tragic struggle, when in fact it's epic.

I'm definitely back in anger after seeing bits from "final hours" on social.

Ok, Tale Lee Roth was the first to reach "Acceptance".

Nope, it was just the normal titles. And this is a clear move to push Beamdog... they've learned well from Valve and EA. Good for them. I hope the imac pics weren't just obfuscation.

Exactly how I feel. Its not that I didn't enjoy playing the rest of their games, its just that they were like most other games - play, uninstall, forget. Not their fault you have unrealistic expectations. It is and it isn't and that's the most diplomatic reply you're going to get. Some other developers did manage to meet them (my expectations) later, so its not all about my "impossibly" high standards. The same developer creating classics for the ages more than once is already highly improbable. In Bioware's case, they did it twice. It's just how creative work happens, never heard of a band than managed to keep making awesome for more than an album or two, either.

Probably not exactly universally, but they did have a mass of sympathizers and funders in the US, most of whom would have been described as "regular, honest folk" in general.

Exactly how I feel. Its not that I didn't enjoy playing the rest of their games, its just that they were like most other games - play, uninstall, forget. Not their fault you have unrealistic expectations.

Depends on the time frame, 4e is getting replaced with a new edition in the very near future (this year, I think?), so the most likely choices are either the 2.5e with sorcerer n' stuff or 5e.

Especially since cerberus has them.

Wasn't BG:EE already datamined in the steam registry? Or was it something else? Guess you guys'll just have to buy one of the Apple versions, if that's the case.

More thought went into that comic strip than into the three palette swaps in-game.

Hope he's not implying that, since Bioware has nothing to do with BG any longer.

Sounds like I'm a few steps behind you, been having weird work-related dreams all week, now feeling a bit under the weather and some growing muscle pains. Tempted to make a joke that surrounded by lawyers, nobody's going to send me home, but they did do it the last time I was sick, so...

So, especially looking at that Imac in TO's twitter feed, we're probably looking at PC (steam etc.), Mac (App store), ipad (ditto) and mebbe Android.

Explain, please, for the fiscally illiterate. What sense does it make that I pay local VAT for a foreign-produced good or service? Is that a side-effect of tax evading prevention measures for int'l commerce or what? Doing a million things at once, so not gonna be an excellent explanation, but: This is within EU, so it's not "foreign" in the classic sense any longer. Customs union and all that. And it doesn't apply to every mom and pop shop, but to major players like Amazon UK and Steam (and even in the case of Steam I'm assuming, but evidence fits theory, to quote Mordin). Just means that if you do a significant amount of business from one EU country to another, it sort of counts as being established there for those customers. In the case of Amazon UK, it also means that the actual sale prices vary.

That wasn't the ending, that was the 4chan troll master.

IIRC, Eidos Montreal had a similar clause for DXHR, but it was less of a suicide move as they're a subsidiary of the publisher, so it's just personal bonuses that were at stake.

It's VAT inclusive and your initial arguments are correct. The VAT levels vary, but that just means that Swedes with their 25 % VAT get it actually for less than other people. ie. Actiblizzard takes the hit for differing VAT rates. Or, dependig on your viewpoint, if the average price becomes higher ex-vat, everybody else outside Sweden takes the hit for them IIRC that's also the reason why, say, Steam can't allow you to buy games outside your area. Since their sales to a European countries exceed a certain threshold, they have to charge VAT for that country. Kind of like when I order stuff from Amazon UK, they charge Finnish VAT (at Finnish rates) from me, because they also exceed this threshold.

Looking at the "they changed the ending because of the script leak, and are going to do a (free) dlc with the real ending later" rumour, it does have the advantage of allowing them to fix the mess with their face intact, if they so choose - even if it hasn't been planned all along. I think I'm Bargaining, now.

Meh, you'll have the old version and all the mods, the new version won't take that away. I've only every used fixpacks, widescreen and unfinished business, anyway, I know I'm not alone in this.

I'm sure I wont, My two last attempts to play through the whole trilogy has ended well before the end of BG1 with me screaming "no more!" Don't get me wrong, I love the games, but theres just too bloody much to me to handle. There was a time I could play games that take 100h to finish, but those days have disappeared somewhere mysteriously. I'm afraid that's been the situation for me for quite a few years, as well. If there are two games of that length I'd play (again), it would be these two, so I'm definitely aboard. There was a massive license battle between Hasbro and Atari (I believe), which resulted in the D&D license going back to Hasbro and resulted in an extended break in D&D titles over the past few years. I'm thinking Baldur's Gate rights might have been the sweetener on Atari's side, and in that case, development on these could have started early-mid last year.

Ascension fully rolled in. Boom.

Site's back up, showing the zeroed countdown. :D

Still better than Lazarus station. Or the DA2 intro.