Raithe

Ah the joys of forum threads when they sideline into the arguments over what games are RPG and what aren't... to add gasoline or not.. Next thing you know there'll be discussions of Jedi Truths...

I've actually been doodling around a bit with Mass Effect again... that pre-prep to remind myself of it all before ME2 comes out in the new year...

The thing that I do wonder on (sort of , in that occasional way fanboys of any subject can) is that if you look back at it, people started to say the pacing slowed down and too many "meandering" lines appeared when the authors illness first kicked in and the first delay in publishing occured... Looking at it from the sidelines.. (and maybe with a certain squint) makes you wonder if the "one a year" schedule kept going would people have found the books to be as "slow" as they did when you had the various pauses and hitches in their delivery? The other thing is, an author laid up in bed, is probably going to end up looking at his stories, and tweaking them, and having cool ideas (at least in their own mind) and just naturally... adding bits and pieces. Of course, when there's hordes of "little" tweaks and addendums added to your central plotline and assorted subplots... Which might be what you call getting "sidetracked". Sort of random thoughts, but there you go..

There's always room for a Blofeld cat. And where better then an AP forum?

It's always the trouble with a certain amount of intricate plotting on those epic scales... how much detail you can spend on the characters developing in certain ways and moving around the "chessboard" in preperation for those end sequences and big finishes.. The first couple of books were introduction, then I'd say 4-6 were the "big ball starting to move" areas and the world really starting to notice and be affected.. then 7-10 was the orchestration, the laying out of gambits and the moving into place. Starting with book 11, and now with 12 it's the final phase and the big sweeping finish. Some people enjoy that sort of pace, some don't. But that's the way it's felt to my mind.. (now I'm prepared for the scorn to be heaped on my head...)

Hm, more funky goodness...

It was one of those interesting things, WEG were given leave to do the Rebellion era (which at the time was before the EU really exploded) and then picked up when the Timothy Zahn books came out.. there got to do the first "Knights of the Old Republic" era , but Lucasarts had the firm rule they couldn't make any rule sets for pc's to play dark siders.... They only changed that when Star Wars d20 came out shortly after The Phantom Menace... Lucasarts gave the go-ahead to dark side rules for the purpose of playing "characters that can be redeemed" etc.... It's possible to play it without the cheese factor overtaking it.. but damn it all, its space opera, so there's always a slice of cheese somewhere around..

Tsk.. I've been reading too much John Ringo.. everytime I hear "Georgia" I keep thinking "the country not the state".... Hm, although a game about black ops type endeavours being named "Project Georgia" would make me wonder if that had been going through the developers minds..(except the other state related project names..) ah well. Mind twisties at work..

Yes, it sounds like it's time for everyone to pull out their official "Evil Mastermind Plans " and provoke some incident to hurry operations along..

Persuade is more the conversational skill of the character, but the actual Disciplines of "Dominate" and "Presence" are to represent the vampire powers. Dominate is the hypno-eye-gaze control, it can be more of a hammer strike, but it's not always obvious that its being done. "Presence" was the assortment of powers that just give the Vampire more of an aura, like some people have an almost physical sense of charisma oozing out. Dominate was more outright control, Presence could just make the vamp more friendly/terrifying depending on their mood, and Persuade is just natural talent/skill for conversation and approaching people. At least, that's how it was in the pen and paper, and was the basis for the two crpgs.

Yes, it's all a big conspiracy plot to have widely different dates showing to confuse the hell out of people...

The blood splatter is fine for the combat sequences.. but it's a bit out of place in the rest of it. I turned off the "persistent gore" to avoid that small annoyance factor Although you can get the dog to lick you clean of blood...

So is that the gamer geek version of a zen koan? "If you don't notice a bug in a game and play on, does it count as a bug?"

Oh, it had its entertaining moments, and was a nice break away from Dragon Age... but some of it was really frustrating. The White House assault particularly.. Coming out of the tunnel, 3 seconds later dead. Reloads to you stood there, 3 seconds later dead. Scrub, Rinse, Repeat for a dozen times before finally managing to drop prone into a hole before death...

The majority of the voice acting isn't that bad. It's just that some of the dialogue isn't the best written. To go with the nerd quote "you can write this stuff, you just can't speak it."

Well I've just spent about six and a half hours finishing off the solo campaign... Eh, it's got some nice level designs, and some of the most goddamned frustrating ones I've ever encountered in a game. I think I only kept playing because of the couple of nice ones I'd encountered and enjoyed, and curiousity on just how the "story" would go... But when you get down to it, it's a fairly standard shooter on rails. But nothing worthy of major hype. And yeah, that airport mission does have a certain creepy "i need a shower" sensation to it.

Ah, but isn't it fairly obvious Bioware are wanting to make it a repeat use? Why make Dragon Age 2 , When they can do Dragon Age : The Next Generation, Dragon Age : Now We're Gloomy Like Witcher, Dragon Age : We Want Even More Gold....

By the time you see an enemy, or move the mage into range to throw a Fireball , everyone else will be mixing it up with the enemy already.. Unless you're very quick with your micromanagement That was a pain towards the end sequence, set up Blizzards / Tempests to take out

Fireball was always a pain, yes, its nicely explosive.. but I never really had time to use it... unless I kept up micromanaging everyone... While the cone of cold, shock, and use of Blizzard seemed to work so much better.. A rogue to stealth open a door.. Morrigan to Blizzard through it from a distance... Maybe with the lightning Tempest for good measure, step back and wait (with ranged weapons active for anyone who managed to stumble out of the doorway..)

I actually kept Strength and Cunning around the same for my rogue.. by the time I had Dual-Weapon Mastery I had him armed with the longsword made from meteor ore (a yay for wardens keep) and that honors blade you picked up in seperate pieces in the Deep Roads.. with the triple Master/Grandmaster Runes he made a fairly decent chop-suey guy.. especially when keeping fine control to make sure he was flanking enemies.. Ranger specialization - was kind of nice to play around with an "extra" to distract enemies, but not one I think to really get a lot of use out of.. Cone of Cold .. The single most used spell in the entire game , maybe bar Heal, but heal was used almost purely by the tactics setup rather then chosen to use.. Morrigan's shapeshifting abilities.. loved the concept. Never used them.

hm, well I just finished my first run through about half an hour ago.. had a human noble rogue and didn't have too much trouble. My main complaint was always being low on health poultices during the first half of the game.. it wasn't until getting on towards the landsmeet that I was able to keep a good stock of them up... It mainly just called for careful use of the main character during battles. Not just letting him wade in tank style.. Making sure to use flanking positions and Dirty Fighting to set up for other things.. Once you got that down pat, it seemed to work well...

3.5 worked mostly. Star Wars d20 wasn't too bad, although the new Saga Edition takes a bit of getting used to.. But DnD 4th is just such appaling cack. I can't really see how a good system can be adapted from it for any new computer versions of DnD settings.

Although how much of the "media hysteria outrage" over it was whipped up for publicity reasons is another matter...

hmm.. actually... yes.. I still have the Spelljammer box with the old 3.5inch discs stashed away in a wardrobe.. Dark Sun.. good yes, but the thing that worries me if that is the game.. it'll be the computerised version of DnD 4th Edition... which just.. I shudder at the thought. I'd say Dark Sun was the hardcore because the mix of: a> rarity of water / metal b> a sensible reason for why the cities had overpowerful mages (who also happened to be overpowered psionics, worshipped as gods, and with legions of fanatical followers) c> any other arcane types having to keep their magic secret or be killed in a variety of painful manners.. (which also made spell research awkward) and the whole they pushed that you had to pay attention to spell components... (which a lot of d&d campaigns tended to let slide unless it was expensive/rare components) d> it was one of the few official settings that really encouraged high fatality for the players...

"Hostility between the nerds shows up for pretty much the same reasons it does everywhere in nerddom. A mix of tribalism and the belief, deep in every nerd's soul, that winning an Internet argument entitles you to take your enemy's catgirl."