Raithe

So far I haven't been able to achieve a thing of worth today. Can't seem to find the discipline to focus on anything and keep procrastinating my way along. Like spend 10 minutes reading the same couple of pages over and over and still not actually knowing what I've read. Well, there was some cleaning up of a cat's hairball in the middle of the hall floor. That got done, but apart from that..

One of those days woke up from odd dreams and just can't seem to find my focus for the day.. Everything just has that oft-kilter feel to it. Here's to a few cups of tea to see if equilibrium can be found.

There's a lot I could really enjoy about DA2, but one of the most glaring issues is the repeated re-use of maps. It's not just re-pasting sections, or using bits and pieces to make up new maps.. It's entire maps used again..and again. and again. The 10th time you run into a mine / cavern / etc and it's the same layout just with a couple of "doors" blocked off. And it's not even a good block off, it's a stone slab in the door frame.... Then with the automap still showing all the coridors that you can't access... If you can get past that it's fairly entertaining. Although I do feel that for all the supposed "getting into a position of power" that they posited you never really get that mood. Sure, you get to talk to various people in power and you get a shiny mansion..but apart from a few people going "woo, it's the Champion.." I didn't feel as if I had any real political power in the city. Just the ability to annoy/kill/run errands for the people who did. One other thing that threw me.. Was it me or did Bio talk about how you'd see the game play being year 1 you arrive, then you'd see year 3, year 6, and year 9 and how events would change depending on your choices? I mean, I recognised year ones arrival and onto the Deep Roads expedition.. Then the jump 3 years on and the sort of position of respect.. year 6 and you were the champion and , well, the situation explodes. Where's the year 9? Or is that meant to represent the time frame that Varric is telling the story to the Seeker and that whole ending cutscene..? I can kind of see that, but it feels a very disapointing and lukewarm way... And yes, that feels like there's going to be either serious dlc follow-on, a major expansion beyond what Awakening was for DA:O, or a fairly direct seque for Dragon Age 3... Edit: And if you import an old DA:O save.. you do get a lot of in-smirky comments and lines about what you did.. such as the whole "the pigeon population in Ferelden has taken a massive downturn. Something seems to be killing them off..What monster would do such a thing?" if

So yes.. is there going to be any actual discussion of the.. you know.. game.. As opposed to general rants about Bioware and the demise of the rpg as we know it?

I managed to finish my first run through last night.. Went with the sarcastic/humerous rogue approach for most of it and ended up siding with the Mages at the end.. (and because I left Bethany with "mom" during the Deep Roads, she ended up in the circle and missing as a companion for the pretty much the rest of the game..) All in all, the combat style did feel quite similar to DA:O, just a bit more paced. The encounters well.. Hm, it's hard to say. They didn't have the total annoying grinding, mob feel that were in that...but some of the wave, wave, wave structure was annoying at times (and didn't always make much sense). And then every now and again there'd be some seriously nasty beast/monster/person would be some massive health sink.. The city, and the whole build up of consequences (both those you could see, and those you wouldn't even guess at) was really quite good. There were times I made choices based on "yeah, this is what he would do" even knowing that it was going to come back to bite you in the ass later. The recycling of maps.. Good god. I went through that first year exploring caves and they were all the frigging same..with some stone slabs sealing off different doors. That just seemed so..lazy. I mean, reusing pieces of different maps would be one thing..but it's the same..everything. Just..having you come in from different sides. Blocking off some tunnels, but still showing them on the automap... The city design was pretty damn good, but everything outside of that was (while pretty the first time you see it) is just so much gah when its the 10th time you see it.. Hm, I did seem to have some minor glitches towards the end of the game. A couple of sidequests and such didn't show up with map markers. And the "kidnapped noblewoman" didn't show up.. although there seemed to be a glitched "bandit leader" stood on his own who wouldn't react... But nothing that was a problem with the main storyline. Edit: Oh yes, and there were an awful lot of cameo appearances of the Hero of Ferelden's companions....

Well I locked most of the world out this weekend and distracted myself with a rather intensive playing of DA2.. I did like the amount of one-liners that got thrown around in the background... "Has it ever like, struck you..that life..and the world..seem to be getting simpler?" - Talkative Man

... About 3.30am .. wake up to hear a "rustle-rustle-thump.....rustle-rustle-thump" repeated over and over... and then I find out that it's the cat. Humping a plastic carrier bag, in the corridor just outside my room.. But now morning has broken.. so it's on to see how the day is..

I picked up a book a couple of months ago, which turned out to be the first part in a trilogy. The House War by Michelle West (otherwise known as Michelle Sagara).. got quite into it, but then found out that it's connected to a previous series she had done. Apparently x years ago she'd written a 6 part fantasy series (The Sun Sword), a nice sprawling epic woven over several years and multiple characters in different "countries/locales"... But the author has gone back and created this new trilogy which in ways is a prequel about one of the characters from the Sun Sword series.. sort of fills in some of the background hooks, further explanations.. and then runs along to do scenes from her other books..but from the point of view of other characters. Kind of reminds me of the way Webber's Honorverse has become. That creation of a grand timescale, detailed universe... and then different books telling seperate stories but connected by the same events.... all part of a meta-plot.. but with certain books that you can read stand-alone without worrying about the overall story (even if you would get a better understanding by reading them all). But I have to say I find myself straddling a line.. On the one hand I can be very cynical about that approach in a "this is an author trying to make as much money as they can" kind of way, but on the other I can actually find it works really well for creating a very fleshed out, believable universe and being interesting in how they create different perceptions and emotions. That and I've got to admire the effort put into keeping things consistent and having all those connections and cross-connections...

Sheesh. I'm glad that they've announced a date now..but.. hm, since when is August "early 2011"? I mean, they originally said it was going to be march..but then they wanted to shift it to "next financial year" for money/perception reasons.. and that they could leave the time just "polishing and debugging" for a longer time.. Heh. They've made a play about "choice and consequences" for the game..and the planned release dates gets shifted, they don't say when it will be out for a month or two..and then say it'll be out in another 5 months. And all the hype and marketing they were doing will have lost momentum by then since it was all times on the early new year.. Gee, I could almost get an Alpha Protocol deja vu feeling from this. What are the odds when it comes out people will play it expecting one sort of game and not realise what its meant to be?

There's something to be said for authors who enjoy getting down and grubby with their language..

I used that technique when I was a prosecutor. I gained 15 kilos in 7 months. So far I have been blessed / cursed with a frame that won't fill out. I've been bouncing between 9.5 and 11 stone (60-70kg) for the last 15 years roundabouts. That includes the 4 or 5 years of weightliftng and planned exercise... Of course, what bugged me with that, was there was a group of us that did it.. everyone else developed bulk and definition... While I lifted the weights.. I just got some tone and no bulk..

Managed a little over three hours sleep last night, so facing the morning with a bit of an Ugh. I will say however, that while mini-stollen might not be the most healthy of choices for some form of breakfast/morning nibbles.. the repeated mini-sugar rushes do help you keep going...

We hit that stage a couple minutes ago, but I just put on Remember me, and we've punched through the doldrums like a cavalry charge of angry bees through an old man's horrified face. Ah, I have no musical background at the moment.. Although I do have a snazzy pair of black & white two tone shoes upstairs...

Getting walked through some further C# development.. geared around TDD (Test Driven Development) and I'm just not making the right mental connections today... Which is a little bit frustrating. So okay.. we've got a program that achieves the results wanted. Now we put in a bunch of Tests that at the moment all cause failures. Then we look at those tests to create code that satisfies them so the Tests pass.. And none of this actually has any relation to the code we'd already done. Soo... I've got to take all the logic and code of the first part (the code that satisfied the original problem)..remove it..and re-create it in a totally different way that the Tests will accept. Right at the moment.. I'm just not clicking on it.

As long as they don't try to remake Casablanca.. I mean, hell, they remade the Philadelphia Story as a Musical version and had Bing Crosby taking Cary Grant's role... So you can't exactly say the remakes/reboots of classics is something new..

And to think some people get those frequently. Yeah, my mother has some one-use pen injectors with some reaaally good meds for the migraines she gets. One shot in the thigh and boom, out like a light for about 6 hours (Of course, that's a pretty restricted prescription). Although actually I have to say, she hasn't had as many bad ones in the last half a year or so. So I'm pretty much thinking it's a family curse. It's one of those annoying things, we used to have a really good GP. But he retired..and his replacement..well, is a nice guy. A very pleasant Doctor. Just his medical skills aren't exactly great. I mean, I know my mother has a nice collection of medical conditions, and her file is inches thick and there's a whole batch of pharmacutical products they have her on... But for over a year he misdiagnosed that she'd developed diabetes and kept telling her she was only suffering from "side-effects" of the drugs she was on. Ignoring her comments that she'd been on most of those drugs for years without those side-effects. And he's kind of like that with the rest of the family. As a person, he's nice and friendly. Just as a doctor, he's a little bit crap.

And found that my sister was taking the day off work with a migraine... So in the middle of dealing with laundry, household tasks and trying to figure out why the dog was being a little weird and kept running upstairs..

Okay, I'll admit it can be a bit annoying that with every game release of Bio's you get the mass-hype and "Best Game Evah!" from both their marketing department and a lot of hard-core fans who are only going by the previews.. Which can tend to make a lot of people automatically downgrade the potential. Throw in a certain level of "catering to the masses means dumbing things down." But we'll still end up with a game with some flaws that a lot of people will still actually ENJOY. That's the important thing. Not how smart it is, or how bad some of the dialogue is. Or just how closely it cleaves to the Bioware standard of "lone hero meets companions, travels to 4+ locations, has a romance, then defeats the big evil." It's the fact that most people will actually have fun playing it, regardless of the flaws in it. Sure, I think they could do games a lot tighter and smarter then they have recently. I don't expect to be out-n-out amazed by it. But I do expect that regardless of parts of it, I'll generally have fun playing my way through it. And for 20+ hours of potential gameplay.... That's all that matters. Of course, once I've actually sat down to play the full game rather then a broken off demo that doesn't really showcase the game.. I might have a lot of bile and complaints if it truly stinks and I don't enjoy playing it.. But until then.. eh, I'll wait and see what its like ...

Did you have headaches with this frequency before your concussion - they look weekly at the moment, and I didn't notice it before. Off and on. Every now and again just get them recurring like this and then it'll settle for a few months and then start up again. My mother and sister both come down with really stinking migraines.. While I tend to get more regular grinding headaches. I guess it's that balance.. I'm happier not having the migraine versions..but I seem to get the "lower level headaches" more often.

There seemed to be only a couple of actual changes to the combat in the demo. 1: the tactical view. You couldn't zoom out and around as you used to do. However, when a mage does an area attack...then you can freely roam around the map not linked to any particular character... (So it seems kind of weird they won't let you do that otherwise). 2: the animations/actions are sped up. so things happen at a quicker rate..and which also has faster cooldowns to go along with this... Although there were a few times they get stuck on the autoattack and won't actually do what you tell them... 3: the skills for the non-mages are a bit more "flashier" then they were. As if they were trying to follow a "rule of cool" more then anything else... Although I couldn't decide quite how successful that came across in the demo. Apart from that.. it pretty much seemed as the combat was in DA:O. The sped up pace makes it a bit more awkward to hit pause and sort out what everyone in the party is doing... but it's still possible to do it.

So far today I was woken up by a cat having a 15 minute manic-frenzy run around... Managed to have a multiple-choke-on-tea incident.. and have the swell beginnings of a grinding headache. I do not foresee this going down on my list of great sundays.

Pretty much the opening paragraph to a book I was reading... Something about it just kept me amused...

Has that actually been confirmed or just a guess? I was taking the logic that you get more xp because of the added risk of opponents being re-awakened by other enemies.. After all, if they're unconscious, there's nothing really stopping you from rifling their bodies.. It was actually something that was brought up in the gamebanshee preview. There was a comment about extra XP being awarded with a "Ghost" tag which I assume is for getting through an area completely unseen. I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't think you'd get that bonus if you went around knocking everyone out with stealth takedowns. The reason for the extra stealth XP is probably a combination of factors. Ah I was more referring to if you ko someone, you should still be able to loot them.. One of the reviews talked about how killing someone gets you 10xp, but knocking them out was worth 20xp... Although I could almost foresee some twinkies seeing if they could farm xp that way by knocking them out, waiting for them to be woken up then go back to ko them once more...

Has that actually been confirmed or just a guess? I was taking the logic that you get more xp because of the added risk of opponents being re-awakened by other enemies.. After all, if they're unconscious, there's nothing really stopping you from rifling their bodies..

So I went out and did the grocery shopping.. and got home to discover my mother trying to unload the dishwasher and going "Ow! Ow! Ow!" as she struggled to put the cups and mugs back in the cupboard, nearly dropping several on herself... Now.. I can appreciate the whole struggle to prove yourself independent to a degree, but with physical pain and physical problems actually making it dangerous to do so.... There's just something wrong about having to take that "parental" tone to your own parent...