Azure79

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, whenever somebody tries to sneak past their opinion as representing "the gamer", I make this face: in real life. Ha, that wasn't my intent. I don't think my tastes represent any large portion of the gaming population.

I would save all of my wands of summoning for that final battle and unleash a massive horde of skeletons and gibberlings on Sarevok then trounce him while he was busy swatting them away. heh this reminds me of my one most fond memory of Baldur's Gate (BEFORE Tales of the Sword Coast came out...). When fighting Saravok, I on a sheer stroke of luck summoned some Kobolds (who use normal arrows) and they ended up killing him. BEST damn memory of all time. Then BioWare fixed this (with later patches and Tales of the Sword Coast). I don't think I've enjoyed an ending battle as much as BG1. There were traps, a well balanced enemy party and a very menacing and deadly antagonist. I always tried to refrain from summoning monsters too much in that battle, just for the sheer enjoyment. It's even more brutal with the strategems mod. I love it.

Not a movie, but recently watched the series Camelot. I enjoyed watching Spartacus, so I thought this might be something similar. For anyone else who has watched this, is it just me or are the characters just really stupid? Example: There are more stupid examples, but this was the most glaring.

I tried replaying DA2 yesterday. I enjoyed it the first time, mostly because I enjoyed the combat. This new playthrough, I couldn't get past Act1. Maybe it's just too soon, but the thought of going back to the same maps and fighting the same waves of enemies over and over again quickly brought down my enthusiasm. It is a good game, but the recycled maps and recycled enemies+wave combat design is a detriment to the game overall. DA2 doesn't do enough to build an atmosphere where the gamer can lose themselves.

yeah, Feargus mentions it in an interview, there were talks with Atari about the IWD license. That is awesome. Hope something comes of it.

But then you can't read about his sexy pink panties, that are edible.

I don't think DA2 is that bad. I enjoyed it and I'll probably play it again once or twice. I'll probably tone down the difficulty for the more tedious boss fights though. Just some personal things I wish for DA3 If Bioware can design better combat encounters other than the wave structure that would great. Instead of waves, set battles where terrain and positioning all play a part. I mean even DAO had long corridors where archers would pelt at you from behind barriers and slow your party down using grease traps. Nothing really similar in DA2. More build-up towards the ending. The third act felt like me doing a bunch of chores for Meredith and then Orsino then ending sequence! More non-combat skills integrated into the gameplay would be nice as well. I liked how you could defer to party members that had more experience in certain fields. A good combination of player skills + party member skills to resolve encounters peacefully would be good. More areas to explore or changes to areas through C&C. I really didn't get the feeling Kirkwall changed according to my choices at all despite what Bioware said. Seemed like the same empty areas again and again. Expanded inventory and better items. What was the point of all the junk items you find? Equippable companions for armor. Full iso-camera. Does anyone think that Bioware managed to pull in the new audience they wanted with DA2? Seems like they just managed to divide their main audience and not pull any new players in. Guess time will tell. I'm personally afraid DA3 will be streamlined even more. You'll end up controlling just your PC and have party members activate their special abilties through hotkeys. There will be only 3 or 4 weapons that you can equip etc. Please don't do that Bioware. As much as I enjoyed ME2, DA can be different and great as well.

Wait what? Icewind Dale 3?

I found the combat the most enjoyable part of DA2. The waves did get tedious since they're in every single combat encounter, but once you know how to deal with them, it wasn't a big deal. I do wish they would implement it better in the next one and avoid enemies materializing from nowhere or dropping out of the sky. I also think they should get rid of the random mobs and design fights against a group that have the same abilities your party does. One thing I noticed about the combat is that your party seems to have one set of skills and enemies have a different set of skills. Enemy fighters never used the combat abilities that you had available like mighty blow or whirlwind. Enemy mages only cast a few spells that seemed unique to them. I never saw a mage cast fireball or cone of cold or chain lightning etc. It was usually a AOE spell that explodes(easily avoided) or a AOE spell that saps HP from your party. Enemy rogues had the disappear and backstab move, but that was about it. So it broke immersion a bit for me when it seemed like my party and enemies seemed to be living under a different set of rules. One of my favorite battles was near the end. It felt thrilling going up against an enemy that had they same moves you did, because you knew how they could be put to devastating use. I wished there had been more combat like that. He also didn't seem to have the HP inflation a lot of the boss-level characters had, so it was thrilling and didn't drag out. Mage spell combos returning would also be great. I loved how in DAO, you could use enemy spells to your advantage using spell combos. I thought it added a lot of tactical fun. For example enemy mage cast crushing prison on your warrior, your mage casts forcefield on warrior. Then the crushing prison is destroyed, your warrior is released and the explosion stuns enemies in the vicinity. I loved when that happened.

Bioware should make an adventure game. I like adventure games. I didn't read the entire interview, but she said she likes Deus Ex so she can't be all bad.

I would love to see a RPG city similar to Venice in Assassin's Creed 2. Just add in some more interactivity with quests, NPCs, roving street gangs at night and random encounters. Even keep the climbing mechanics for your thief party members so they can sneak into places and steal things. I would even forgo the isometric viewpoint if it meant having a great RPG in that kind of environment.

I'll guess I'll have to get used to the controls to prove my manhood to some dude in Sweden I've never met in person. I played a little of Darksiders when I got it during the Steam holiday sale. I didn't get far enough in the game where it started to feel Zelda-ish, but what I played was pretty good. I like throwing cars around.

I saw an episode of Glee once. I thought the gym teacher lady was awesome. If the show was more about her, I would watch it. Plus thems some talented kids.

Did you get it off the recent Steam sale? All the Gothic games for $19ish. I bit because some of our forumites like it. So far, I'm still trying to get used to the controls in Gothic 1. It's a little wonky. Not sure why they just didn't have a separate attack button. Is there a mod out there that converts stuff to mouse and keyboard controls? Playing in the highest resolution so the game looks decent. I like the music so far and the voice acting is a lot better than what I was expecting.

Interview with Mike Laidlaw at 1up.

Interesting. I watched Barbarian and Destroyer a lot when I was a kid. I could never take Barbarian seriously though. Thulsa sounds like the Korean word for diarrhea, so I had Diarrhea Doom in my head throughout the entire movie. Hope they find someone with the physical presence of Arnold for the new one.

Man you guys are mean. :D

Yes they do. They do? I should get my hearing checked. I'm getting old.

I got the end of the quest dialog scene The rescue mission is a bug. There is a bandit leader present in one of the areas, but nothing triggers, even if you click on him.

I like the new Qunari design, but the elf noses look pretty strange.

Yeah, I ran into the casual Hawke bug. Pretty annoying. Also how come Merril has that accent when none of the other Dalish, who she lived her whole life with, don't?

From Oner in previous thread "You can be one, Shepard must become them, in order to defeat them. Or something along those lines. Bioware deisgn meeting, Ray Muzyka: -So let's see: In the prologue the collector base will be turned into a huge reaper torso, and Shepard must search the galaxy for the 4 reaper limbs and bring them together so he can become a reaper himself. Then in the endgame he's a huge Reaper-Shepard and you have to kill the other reapers while using planets as cover instead of chest-high-walls. BRILLIANT! " I would play this game.

I always liked Alistair for some reason.

I liked JE for what it was, but I was dissapointed in the setting. I was expecting more of a traditional wuxia fantasy setting with a lot rival schools battling for power, a few reclusive and powerful masters, a mysterious martial arts manual that everyone covets, but only the hero discovers through a series of strange and lucky events. I loved the music though.

I found enemy rogues and assassins to be the most dangerous. They automatically knock you back when going into their backstab and can one shot mages and damage warriors for over half their health. Volourn is right though, warrior and mage AOE attacks can interrupt them and knock them out of stealth. You have to guess where they are and who they are attacking, but when you do get them it's really satisfying. Then you chop them up into little bits.