~Di

Combat stinks worse than Michael Moore's toilet seat, don't it? Restart the game (or use the save-game editor) to switch your class to soldier. You'll be fine then. That's what is so damned sad. I am playing a soldier! I just suck at it.

Gawk. Three hours, uncountable deaths to close 3 shudder doors for Archangel.... I effing hate this game. RPG? I don't think so.

QFT. I can already see that the story, the news chatter, the discussions and background comments would make no sense whatsoever to anyone who didn't play ME1. mr.insomniac: Is playing an infiltrator fun? Since my soldier is glued to the sniper rifle, I'm thinking I may have made the wrong class choice for a first run-through. I'm not going to be winning any medals for my combat ability, that's for sure.

Sounds like y'all have figured out all the combat tricks. Me, all I've figured out is hide and snipe or die. Not really loving combat so far, but I haven't played too many hours. I'm playing soldier class, hoping to get a grasp on the "powers" from teammates who have them. Meh, Bio really throws the new player into the soup with its "tutorial". I mean, how many people have died 3 times doing a tutorial, huh-huh-huh? (I know, I'm probably the only one. ) Anyway, just got Mordin and am hoping to learn more about the game controls during my next play session. Oh, and thank you to everyone for answering all of my dumb questions!

Thanks. I'm still confused over ammo, but I've discovered another peculiarity. After dying numerous times, I went through the manual and discovered that the HUD does not show any of the health bars or shield bars. I have the quick slot bar and the targeting reticle, along with the squad members' portraits at the bottom... but absolutely no health bars for Shephard or the crew. No "heat management" bar either. I can't see any key binding that would affect the HUD. No wonder I'm dying all the time. I can't see when my health is declining. Anyone else have this problem? Any solution for it?

A really dumb question, one of what will probably be many. I clicked on incendiary ammo. Fine. Then I tried to change to another kind of ammo, and now it's telling me that my weapon is equipted with both types of ammo. How does that happen? I haven't been able to figure out how to remove one kind of ammo in favor of another. So what silly thing have I not figured out this time!

The patch came out five days ago. That's a copy of the patch for people with pirated copies of the game. I tried the patch first, and it worked right away. I didn't need the "unofficial" fix, but thanks to my fellow forumites, I knew that the problem was a single-core game glitch and not my machine! I wasn't going to download the patch because people were complaining that it broke more than it fixed, so if I hadn't been told what my problem was, I wouldn't have even thought about the patch. So again, to those who helped me, thanks so much!

That did it! *kiss-kiss-kiss*

Yep, I downloaded the file! Thanks! Am off to try the patch and the fix! I love you guys!

ack. Bad post.

Thanks for the link! Unfortunately, I don't see that fix on the page that your link took me to.

ME2 installed fine, I got the DLC's, the launcher comes up and hooks me up to Cerubus, but when I try to start the game, I get no further than the loading screen (which has no movement, just an amber shape of some kind and the word "loading"). I've got 2 gig of ram, a 133 Pent 4, Nvidia 7800 and SB audigy (the sound is fine... plays music while I stare at the frozen loading screen). My computer then has to be rebooted. Are loading times actually 5-10 minutes long, or have I got a real problem? Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm currenting going through the Bio Tech forum, but I usually get better advice here.

... Is it just me, or does this scenario mimic quite closely the conquest and repair of Crossroads Keep in NWN2? My deja vu sense is tingling.

"[R]eally, really disliked" is probably too strong a statement for me, but I wasn't particularly enchanted with it. I find it very difficult to take FR cosmology seriously, which made the moments that were supposed to be profound rather humdrum. ("Oh, look, a dead god-- don't they kill, like, three of them off every year?") Also, epic-level D&D is teh sukk. I was so bored with the combat that I stopped playing for months once I finally had that chat with Safiya's mum and resolved the central mystery of the plot. Had to force myself to keep on and play until the end. Yeah, I know most folks on this board were totally enthralled by it. It just wasn't my kind of game. I found the entire concept, spirit eater thing, repulsive and complicated to manage, especially since I wasn't about to play an evil spirit-sucker, so had to go to great lengths to deal with it "humanely". The story, the setting, the whole nine yards was just dismal to me. I recognized some well-crafted areas... my god, the crazy woman maze gave me chills... but at the end of the day I forced myself to finish the game once. Then I, who play every game on my shelf at least a half-dozen times, never wanted to touch MoTB again. I hated it so much, I didn't even purchase the second NWN2 expansion. I mean if they came out of left field for the first one, I couldn't imagine what they were going to do with the second. *shudder* It was just a perfect storm that took everything I enjoyed about NWN2, threw it out the window, and gave me an XPac that might as well have been yanked from another universe, replete with a story I loathed and an atmosphere that made me claustrophobic. Fortunately, that doesn't happen to me much since I'm pretty picky about which games and which developers I buy from. But nobody can hit the ball out of the park 100% of the time for 100% of the customers.

I love the part where Leilianna catches Sten Yeah, Sten was a great character. I enjoyed him a lot. Then again, I also enjoyed Shayle immensely, and Zevran was a hoot! Alistair had his moments, but mostly he just irritated me. And he wasn't that good in bed, either.

Woot! I'm so glad to hear that he's doing well and will recover!

Blech. I'm now reminded about some, but not all, of the reasons I really, really disliked MoTB. Thanks.

OMG, I'm so very, very sorry that this has happened to your family. My best wishes for his full recovery from this terrible accident.

My favorite character to play is a dual-wielding assassin rogue (with duelist sub-specialty). I love kicking my prey in the... er... stunning my prey with dirty fighting, then flanking them for some stabbity-stabbity-backstab goodness. Bwahaha. Besides, as a rogue I'm right up front to spot traps and disarm immediately. None of this waiting for Zevran to say "trap there" at the same moment my mage is flying through the air. Playing a mage is different, but I'm only playing one this game to see how the story plays out when my elf choses Zevran instead of the racist moron Alistair. All any party needs is one mage, and since I use a respec mod either Morrigan or Wynne can do anything my PC mage can do. You can try so many different tactics... traps, ambushes, kiting enemies back to the group. It can really be fun to figure out different ways to win battles. Sneaking a cloaked rogue behind a powerful emissary to stun and backstab while your group rushes in from the tunnels can be quite satisfying! I'm surprised you hate the combat in DA:O. That it was combat intensive was never a secret. For me, most missions don't really seem too combat-heavy... btw, when you describe the deepstalker matriarch, isn't that in Shayle's personal quest? I don't recall such an area in the main quest thaigs. The Deep Trench bridge was meant to be a very difficult battle, but with the magic of blizzard or SoC, not really a problem, true. Now for the end battles. This is merely to prepare you so you don't do something unhelpful to your innocent computer out of shock and rage... but be afraid. Be very afraid. My advice? Don't pull in allies so you can spam your SoC without slaughtering friendlies to make the misery manageable. I have no problems with the combat-heavy tactics in the rest of the game; I rather enjoy them. But I think I can say without exaggeration that you will not find many people who did not actively dispise the final battles. Fortunately, it is only a couple of hours out of an immense, and for me most enjoyable, game. Do give the game another chance with a rogue character. Once you have already been through the main quests, you'll be surprised how much quicker they seem... and even more enjoyable... the second time around.

I can see why the deep roads were a nightmare for you. I'm strolling through them with no effort at all because I use one single tactic. Cast earthquake on enemies in front of you (you can see them before they can see you in third person view), follow up with Blizzard + Lightning storm = Storm of the Century. Nothing survives. Also you don't have to even cast Blizzard on enemies exactly because when SoC starts the radius significantly expands, and if you damage just one creature all the rest charge right after you - into the storm. I've killed everything by following this tactic, rarely getting touched at all. If I had to go through all of them with a fighter however... ugh... That would not be easy. I'm always surprised that people hate Deep Roads (and Broken Circle) so much. I found Deep Roads fun and unfrustrating because, unlike most other main quest dungeons, I could do each section of Deep Roads one at a time, then pop back to Orzammar to sell excess stuff and resupply. Then I'd go back underground, refreshed and ready for the next area... without ending up having to destroy a huge hunk of my "profit" inventory when I inevitably run out of room. I loved Broken Circle because, well, it was just so damned cool. The Fade was brilliant. Shapeshifting was so much fun that I was crushed to learn I lost the ability once I was out of there. And of course, getting all those free stat enhancements made me drool! I made it my mission to back-track after every new form to make sure that I got every single one of them. Greed is good! I actually liked all the main quests, but the one I liked least was the Brecilian Forest area. Kind of dull, difficult to navigate, and the ruins were meh. After Landsmeet, now we're talking grind big-time. I always want to tear my hair out (along with a few Bio eyeballs) getting through those final battles. Somebody was on crack when they designed the end-game. Blech.

Most of my life I adored the Olympics. Winter, summer, it didn't matter. I didn't even care who won. I just loved the entire experience. Now I'm old and jaded and don't give a fat, flying fig. Kind of sad, really. I miss the enthusiam of youth.

I've never mage-killed Flemeth. I usually have Alistair and Shayle (I mean, look at his hps!) beat on the front of her while my rogue backstabs until she either stamps us all to the ground, or tail-bats my rogue halfway across the map. Then we hop up, chug-a-lug healing potions while Wynne chug-a-lugs lyrium. Rinse and repeat. Rogue backstabs take her down incredibly fast, if one has a pair of top quality, rune-enhanced daggers. My rogue nearly always lands the killing blow. I should make a group that can cast STorm of the Century. I've never seen it, because my mages ignore electrical altogether. Looks like I'm missing out...

I would not buy the game, nor would I acquire it by other means. I won't die if I can't have what I want. I'll just move on.

Just another guy with financial troubles who decided that everyone but himself was to blame. First he posted a scathing, self-pitying rant on his blog. Then he burned up his house. Then he got into his plane (yes, so broke that he owned himself a little Cessna!) and tried to take as many folks as possible with him. Wanker.

Second time we agree this week. *looks around in case universe cracks open*