leeloodallas

And the Bailey Gardens are capped at 27. The Chancel should leave you at 28.5 or so. You can make up the rest on the last level.

Just don't go for the Spire right away, if you do the Meister quests last. Talk to Mudgutter after the vote.

*sigh* It's been so long since I actually earned an achievement that I haven't looked in a really long time. Oh well.

Looks like a bunch of new DLC achievements have shown up on Steam: It Ain't Lion The Path Not Taken Mummy Dearest Bones on the Sand Confirmed Shriner The Worm Has Turned Litany Learned Anointed Ointment All Ye Who Enter Here Mistress of the Abbey Does this mean the release is immanent? *fingers crossed*

Just a random thought-- have you tried to verify the integrity of the game cache? (Right-click the game in your Steam library, choose Properties, then the Local Files tab) Also, I personally have the Steam Overlay disabled. I have a far lesser system than yours, and the game's been running smooth as silk for me.

The Farmer became Lady Montbarron after she saved the kingdom, and became part of the 10th Legion. There are several references in the lore books you find. DSII was set, what, 1000 years after Azunai defeated Zaramoth? The Kingdom of Ehb was formed far later than Azunai's defeat of Zaramoth, allowing plenty of time for a church to form in Ehb. You see signs of the church in DS1, set 150 years before DS3. In fact, you recruit Naidi from said church in Stonebridge. The Church isn't a huge voice outside of Ehb, since it's an Ehb-based organization, which is why you don't see it in DS2. Why the did the church back Jeyne? We don't really know. Charismatic figures take over organizations all the time and divert them from their original stated purpose, and religious organizations are notorious for falling victim to this kind of takeover. We also don't know for sure that the Radiant Youth is Azunai, though it seems to be implied. Azunai hasn't exactly taken time out over the centuries after his death to speak to his followers in the church, so, how are they to know who he (or the Radiant Youth) favors? We do know the Radiant Youth favors the Legion. Anyway, just some random thoughts.

I did an almost pure human-form playthrough with Anjali and it was a ton of fun. She made the boss battles in the Spire a cakewalk on normal. Still, to survive Rajani and Maru-Yatam, I had to go fire form, unfortunately. My main investments were in agility, will and stamina, and I paired her with Kat and Reinhart for most of the playthrough for the agility and will bonuses. She turned out to be a lot more resilient than I'd anticipated, just because of her insane ability to regenerate health.

I've had the best results when I've allocated points into whatever my companion uses most. The AI seems to be a little bit adaptive, depending on what character you've chosen. Anjali paired with Lucas uses a lot more of her fire-form abilities, and with Reinhart, she's almost always in human form. With Kat, she flickers in and out between forms.

Dunno. I've been too busy playing to post on the forums. FWIW, this game has given me more replay value than DA2.

I would have said Reinhart a couple of playthroughs ago, but I think it's now Anjali and Kat. Kat's a blast if you try out the "Godlike Katarina" build in another one of the threads in this forum. I've had a lot of fun shielding fire-form Anjali, teleporting into a mob, and laying down an Aura of Immolation.

There is a mod, and I've used it for years. The sucky part is the gold payments don't decrease, so it takes a lot of grinding to get all party slots by the time you hit Windstone Fortress and Sartan.

I saw the news on Facebook, after reading everything here, I have only one thing to say: YAY! Can't wait for the release!

I'm curious about that. Maybe the god she was trying to summon was the God of Mopping. It might explain the puddle of water that surrounded the tree Actually, I really loved the symbolism of the tree and the ravens, and the way that it seemed to have imprinted itself on every Legionnaire's consciousness. The death of hope, the corruption of creation, and the mourning at the destruction of an era. The theme was carried out really well in the writing. Frankly, this game has some of the best storytelling I've seen in a while.

Let me chime in with another, "I hope so!"

Sometimes you have to wait until what the game considers the end of combat for the level-up screen to trigger.

Free Dictionary defines "streamline" as: "3. a. To organize. b. To simplify." So, unless you've come up with some kind of new definition of "streamlining" that's all your own, then, yes, "streamlining" refers to making something less complex. And, yes, if you're going to use that word to compare DS1 to DS3, then I'm going to talk about "complexity of gameplay" since that's what the debate's about. Simple. P.S. "PUSHUN BUDDONS" isn't English. I'm not sure what language it is. And if you can't bother to debate reasonably, i.e. "DS3 = Double Dragon combat in a ARPG-diablo-like-lite-item-hunting-short-campaign-with-no-newgame+ game," perhaps you shouldn't bother. Because you didn't even bother to address my point at all, and especially not in a form anyone can understand.

*snerk* So many things to say, and yet I wonder if I should bother. And the sad thing is, I'm already adopting your rude and arrogant tone. And for that, I apologize. 1) The combat is not any less complex than DS1. Mages cast a single spell during the course of a battle. Archers shoot bows or goblin miniguns. Melee whacks away with a weapon. That's it. No abilities. No special attacks. No upgrading. DSLOA added orb spells for mages. The sole complexity came with the failure of companion AI. "Wait, Zed, I told you to attack that mage! Dammit, Gloern, the mage, not the summon! Ulora, stop running randomly across the map. The battle's HERE!" DS2 can arguably said to be more complex, though I'm not sure I buy that either. I'd probably say DS2 and DS3 are on a par with leveling complexity, though my personal inclination is to say that DS3's a little more complex. 2) A toolset has nothing to do with complexity of gameplay, or lack thereof. It's an additional boon for modders and, ultimately, players, but that's it. 3) Leveling was essentially meaningless in DS1, beyond allowing mages to use different spells. Other than that, it was just a number for archers and melee. Str/Dex mattered for non-casting classes, and the rest was just a number for the sake of numbers. DS2, you might be argue that there's a complexity difference in leveling, but not DS1. My inclination is to say that DS3 is more complex, in that you can choose how to level your abilities, but I can see someone arguing the opposite. 4) I'm not going to argue multiplayer, because, frankly, I don't care. I did my best to hack my way through the Utraean Peninsula map by running a local LAN game on my PC, and I didn't find it all that interesting. Single player DS3 has been far more enjoyable to me. 5) Save system. If you're arguing muliplayer DS1 or single and multiplayer DS2, the save system isn't actually all that different. Both games dump you back in your local town to rebattle respawned enemies. You made no progress in DS2 until you hit the next teleporter. I don't find that radically different than the save points in DS3, TBH. Either way, you're screwed if you quit too early before the next save point. At least you have more than one save slot in DS3 vs. DS2's single save system. Also, I don't play multiplayer, so I honestly don't care about having separate saves for my companion. If I were playing co-op with my husband, we'd share the same game, so who cares, again? I don't, because he doesn't give a crap about the game, so single player it is 6) Yes, increased attention to actual interaction does add complexity, sorry. You have to pay attention when you're talking, vs. just choosing the single conversation option as you do in DS2, or having no conversations or character interaction at all as in DS1. And, yes, requiring attention and brainpower is, in fact, the very definition of "adding complexity." 7) No, you don't just "PUSHUN BUDDONS" when you play. You maneuver. Plan. Choose where to focus. Fire off an ability. You want "PUSHUN BUDDONS," you should play DS1. Clicka-clicka-clicka.

Er, wow. DS2 was a step up in complexity from DS1 and forced you to become actively engaged in combat instead of just hitting the potion button. DS3 isn't streamlined vs. either of its predecessors. It's a different beast entirely, with a totally different focus: a new combat system that's nothing like its predecessors, branching quest lines and conversations, etc. But if you want to put the feature list side by side and be "objective," be my guest. I'd be curious to see what you come up with.

The ravens were in the tree in the Mournweald when Jeyne destroyed the Legion.

Well, "smartened up." Then again, you can't get much more streamlined than DS1.

Why anyone would prefer the attrocious combat in DA2 is beyond me. Waves of mobs jumping down the roofs in every damn encounter, c'mon. And few of the boss fights were just annoying. The one in Deep Roads you had to micromanage your party constantly or else they would be in LOS and eat huge dmg. Encounter like that might work in WoW and other MMO's, but when you have to control every damn party member yourself it just doesn't work. And don't get me even started on the dragon... If only they had kept the combat system and (some of the) encounter design from DAO. Heh, I probably wouldn't be playing DS3 for the fifth time if Bioware had kept the old combat system and encounter design. I'm probably more vehement than you are about the combat. Ugh, I hate every moment of it! Not just the boss battles were annoying, but the endless street mobs, especially on the night maps. The final battle-- ARGH! I get irate thinking about it. Most of my DA2 playthroughs stopped just before it. It's not hard, just long, tedious, and endlessly annoying.

I got the suffering 100K damage achievement unlocked on Steam. Weird, it's still missing for me. I'm on my fifth playthrough, and I got the deed for each the first four. *shrug* It's not really a big deal to me, TBH. Just wanted to mention that I had similar achievement bugs maybe to help Obsidian diagnose problems for those it matters to.

Chris Taylor. Everyone else seemed to mess 3 up. Stop dumbing down classic games. The original Dungeon Siege is "smarter?" Seriously?

I think the combat is better in both of the games you mentioned. Double Dragon style simple button smashing combat doesn't impress me and I would much prefer continuous input. I like mashin buddons if the game is complex like Ninja Gaiden but DS3 is not. Wwwwait, you're calling DA2 not a button-masher? Really? Actually, it's more of a button-clicker on the PC. Rt-click,rt-click,rt-click--attack, damn you, Hawke!--rt-click--I mean it, attack!--rt-click. Meanwhile, Hawke stands there with a goofy grin on her face, because Bioware's horrid targeting doesn't work, and "enhanced targeting" causes stuttering with the new patch. DA:O's combat is still fun, but DA2? Please. At least DS3 engages you, and makes combat exciting, unlike DA2's endless tedium.

Times like this, I'm glad I play single-player on the PC I'm having a blast with the combat also. Trying to go back to DA2 or, hell, DS2, is hard. Combat's so dull by comparison.