Nepenthe

I've never heard of the first one, but the second one just displays the wrong message in the journal after being completed, according to Bio. So yeah, it's bugged, but "text is wrong" bugged and not "flags are wrong" bugged. Of course, in a binary choice, you can just remember to reverse the decisions to get them right for ME2 to fix it.

They haven't been too particular about releasing patches simultaneously so far, have they? Can't remember about the big ME2 patch, though, pretty sure the DAO patches were all over the place. Did ME2 even get a big patch? Conrad Verner was never fixed, either. The size of it could be subject to debate, but it was the one that changed planet scanning to suck a bit less.

Mostly 3rd act stuff. Merrill's companion quests there are bugged (though it's not 100 % not working, it was fine for me on the first run), there's a quest which is not listed in the guide and is not working, so it's kind of iffy if it should be there in the first place. Most of the serious bugs are not quest-related, imo.

They haven't been too particular about releasing patches simultaneously so far, have they? Can't remember about the big ME2 patch, though, pretty sure the DAO patches were all over the place.

You sure he's not brooding? Looks pretty sulky to me!

Starting to look like a delayed Day-1 patch, with the apparently more unexpected things (like the broken bonus system that is stretching into a lot of different abilities, like Isabela's Thumbs Up) rolled into it. Of course, having trouble fathoming why they wouldn't have slapped the already done stuff in with the 1.01 they released, anyway. DLC plug-in points?

The spellcasting sounds were better in BG1. I prefer the basic story of BG1, as well, but that's more subjective and the execution in BG2 is light years better, anyway. But the spellcasting FX are definite.

IMO just the fact that you have NWN on your list there proves that its nostalgia. I tried replaying KOTOR the other day to see how much of my impressions of it were nostalgia or it actually being really good, but unfortunately I couldn't get sound out of it no matter what I did. Having trouble running IE games as well, which could possibly give me some serious bias for the current gen games, which work fine for me. Of course, it seems to me like the reverse is true for a lot of people, with some people having reached a "spurned lover" stage.

Nostalgia.

At least on the PC version (oh the irony) you can view "key decisions" in the save file you are importing. Or key details. Or like some stuff picked out. For me that included the end decision of Witch Hunt.

I had the end status of my Witch Hunt playthrough at least mentioned in the "key decisions list". The problem is that some of the DA2 calls are for approval ratings in the origins savefiles, which get nuked when a character is transferred into DLC. I hope that they let somebody who is not a complete idiot give this a rethink and alter it in the patch.

You are still playing it on a single-core machine in spite of the dual core minspec? Coz, running it on a dual core win XP rig (and thus being limited to DX 9 anyway) it has been about as solid as any PC game I've played in the past 10 years. The scripting and import bugs, OTOH, are holding me off from starting my third playthrough. Even though I'm hankering for one really badly.

Oh yes it was, dumbed-down sold-out console game.

See, that's where you made a critical error. You're not supposed to think more. ;P

I have this nagging feeling that consoles are related. The combat gameplay vid we saw a month or two ago had an UI that looked like it had been pulled from console DAO. We'll see.

Is the main issue with gore that "it's not realistic" when you are in a story by a guy who's other masterpiece is "Hard in Hightown", a serial about a dirty guard on the edge?

I'd go with Hungarian, but the two look really similar to me.

i would LOVE a return to turn based combat in rpgs.... i think we're going to be waiting a while though You'll just have to play Dragon Age Legends.

Somewhat. How do you think they are organized and then move forward to produce a final product? Now that I actually have the time to answer this, it looks like Bio Edmonton operates essentially two line organisations, one for each of their main franchises. The only people I see moving between the two are the QA guys. The DLC teams appear to be mostly ad-hoc on a per release basis, so that you have a core design team supported by people "on loan" from different specialised teams within the line organisation (cinematic design, writing etc.), while the main organisation is working on the next iteration in the franchise. Whether the core team is also composed of people in the normal ME/DA line organisation appears to vary. I lack the information to comment if this was the model adopted for Arrival, or if the addition of a new studio meant that Edmonton only provided strategic oversight, and possibly some writing HR assets for the project. Judging from how pedestrian the cutscenes are, I'd say that at least the cinematic design was either handled by new guys, or whoever was doing it from Edmonton had A) a lot to do B) was phoning it in, anyway.

Do I need to recommend a good book on the subject? I'm not exactly sure how this is related to the point I was trying to make, about one franchise being clearly treated as a cashcow (DA) and the other one given more TLC - on a strategic level.

Somewhat.

Considering that Arrival is still aeons better than that abortion, Pinnacle Station, and the overall quality difference between, say, DAO and ME2 DLC, and I share this sentiment. I cut ME2 a lot of slack due to its role as a 2nd part in a trilogy, which means that ME3 has to be awesome.

I kind of used to, but the frenzy team Bashir whipped themselves into around DA2 release was downright... boring. Couldn't agree more with the 2nd part of your quote there.

Thought I'd give the place another chance. I've gotten a lot of good information here over the years, and Obsid have made some really great games over the years. Too bad the people in their forums feel the need to bash games they haven't played.

BioWare Edmonton? I'm not sure if you're trying to be hysterically funny in some parallel universe or are just unaware that Arrival was made by Bioware Montreal.