Nepenthe

What's it with all the trolls. Their bridges get closed down and they are looking for a new home?

Yarp. The problem is that the information is obviously getting released to retailers, so holding back on the official press releases when said retailers are basically leaking the info is in my professional opinion not a sound way of doing it. Of course, I'm a transport lawyer, so I probably know as much about this as Joe Sixpack.

I totally agree with that! Realistic or not, I always envision Moscow with snow cover. I don't envision Moscow as a snow-covered, but then that's because I know that Siberia is like 7 time zones away and that Moscow gets summer heat waves that can kill the elderly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Moscow I'll keep seeing it with snow, record-warm winters over the last two years notwithstanding.

So now we've moved from insider knowledge to insider lack of knowledge. Probably developing real life applications of red alert 3 soviet tech, then

Sorry, but I will criticize any- and everything, whether it's made by some hack or by the awesomest game designer of all time. Nothing is above criticism, at least for me. Did you strike a pose when you wrote that?

I kind of doubt it, certainly not for that kind of money. I still think it's a calculated bid to build an actual RPG division into EA, under the supervision of the (so far pretty successful) former Bioware joint-CEOs. Last time I looked that division had a new studio in Montreal with no projects announced. Going to be interesting how they consolidate the different studios.

Instead of quoting, I'll just give a big 'Here here!' to Tigranes's post. Pity if the game gets postponed, as I was really looking forward to playing it, but I don't judge games by production cycles but by the end result.

I'm still wondering if the disparity due to the original "12 different NPCs" and the current "you can get 10 npcs on a playthrough" is due to 1 slot being reserved to a ME1 romance. Or maybe they just get the bridge dropped on them.

Color me disappointed - and not the least with the publishers' trend of 'not announcing anything' and letting the ®etailers do the announcing. Bioware waited a couple of weeks to announce the Dragon Age delay after it had been all over the web. Seriously, how can anybody consider that to be good PR? Looks like what was supposed to be a real 'super holiday season' is drying up to two games. I seriously hope this is not some impending disaster of doom

No, a business is valued according to its potential returns. Just because some idiot is willing to pay way too much for it doesn't change its value. Not really, another possible factor is denying those returns to a competitor - the reason why most company executives are paid such obscene salaries: otherwise some competitor could massively sabotage your operation by jacking your key personnel.

It's true, the major advantage of monopolies is that they don't need to advertise.

Considering the recent creation of the "RPG branch" at EA and how it was executed, I think it's conceivable that EA viewed some key staff in Bioware as being worth quite a bit just by themselves.

They might be updating the guidelines in the US. That said, has the government ever turned its attentions to the video game industry in regards to anti-trust? What about movies or book publishing? Since the 1980s, the number of book publishers has shrunk dramatically. Well, I was talking about my own personal antitrust antennas (they go with my GF's arse antlers, but...), but it's definitely a scary concept. The EC Commission probably already has a department just to keep an eye on Microsoft, and a M$/

I was afraid of getting disqualified for posting non-theme themes! I was thinking more along the lines of: Battle at Eden Prime And since I can't find the second one I really would have liked to post, the Feros Battle track, here's a bonus non-action track:

That's just hysterical ;(

Nothing like misquoting to get the hits.

I dunno, my antitrust antennas are peaking just at the thought. I preferred even the old rumor of Apple buying EA.

I like the and the themes a lot (even if it makes me uncool here ) Mass Effect also has some brilliant action tracks, which you apparently don't want me to link, anyway I have some positive memories of the Icewind Dale soundtracks, I think I even had one of those on a cd. Apparently haven't ripped it, will have to check out next week when I get back home. Also, the Enclave Restored theme from KOTOR2 is absolutely brilliant, but I can't even find a link for it to dare your disapproval to post it

Wow... Thats... campy...

The game's fun enough, but the 'achievements unlock skills' treadmill really irks me. As does the fact that I've been unable to play it for a month due to the buggy DLC. I quite like it, though, I love the soundtrack, probably the best one I've heard in a game.

I think this just shows that some people are so 1337 they **** binary. Yes, that was an Amadeus reference and yes, it got censored.

I was actually thinking the same thing. It was more a question of having a more leisurely pace in a series of linear missions.

Concerning the 'exploring' bit, does the game have the kind of 'free-roaming' like in SoZ or does it consist of a series of main missions taking you to a map area where there are dungeons/ruins & side missions strewn about like in Drakensang (with the difference that the area is not locked upon completion)? I hope the bulk of this 40 hours minimum will not be party conversations/interactions but actually doing things. I'm thinking it'll be like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 - being a 'spritual successor' to them... No way. An important part that gave the Bg games such a distinctive feeling was the Infinity Engine. You can't recreate that with a Kotor like 3D engine. While I agree with you on other points, I disagree with you on the point we were talking about. Namely, how the 'roaming' is going to work. And yeah, I'm stuck with a console for the moment, so it's going to be 'fantasy kotor' for me.

Concerning the 'exploring' bit, does the game have the kind of 'free-roaming' like in SoZ or does it consist of a series of main missions taking you to a map area where there are dungeons/ruins & side missions strewn about like in Drakensang (with the difference that the area is not locked upon completion)? I hope the bulk of this 40 hours minimum will not be party conversations/interactions but actually doing things. I'm thinking it'll be like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 - being a 'spritual successor' to them...

This explains the motivation for every single thing he said. Yeah, but hasn't he been playing that record for quite a while now? I'm thinking he subscribes to the Vince McMahon school of PR...