Ink Blot

I just checked it out after reading your post. Went through Cilant Lis as well as the starting cave, and also did a run through Valewood. Nada.

No need to apologize. You certainly didn't offend me. I figured, though, that 10 hours was probably long enough to get a feel for whether or not you like the game. Since you own it, give it another shot if you're in the mood. I'll not try to convince you that it's the most original and cutting-edge fantasy RPG that's ever been made or that the companions are stunningly well crafted, original, and perfect. Because it's not. But I found I liked a lot of the companions and I really enjoyed the combat. Story is nothing spectacular, but it's fairly solid IMO, and there are definitely different consequences to different actions you take. Thing about games is, it really boils down to personal taste. But there you go, I guess I done went and tried to convince you to try it. You wascally wabbit!

Nope. As Idleray noted, it's probably just not your kind of game. I love it, but there are plenty (as demonstrated in this thread) that think it's complete ****. That's the way the turkey tumbles.

Exactly this. I, too, love DA:O despite its flaws, quirks, and issues. I thought it was a great game. But the direction they went with DA2 (I haven't even bothered buying DA:I yet - that will be bargain bin material) was a complete shock. It was in no way, shape, or form what could be considered an actual sequel to DA:O in my eyes.

The investment group that owned BioWare sold it in what honestly was a conflict-of-interest deal. Well, they had about 860 million reasons to sell...

Wait, I thought they patched that out?

No expert here, but I'd probably go with: MIG 18 DEX 20 RES 18 distribute the rest as you will. For skills, Mechanics is necessary on only 1 character, really. So if you're speccing someone else with it, don't bother with the Rogue. For a ranged Rogue, I'm not sure I see the need for high Stealth either. Put at least 3 ranks into Athletics though, so you don't get pestered by fatigue. Since he/she will be ranged, you might get some yucks and giggles from Lore so you can use scrolls.

I'd like something like this as well. A handful of unique and fairly powerful items that you can craft from various ingredients - or choose to use them for something else. Something that makes you weigh the pros and cons of crafting that particular item. I wouldn't mind the current system as is if they added to it with something like this. As it stands, and as others have said, you don't get that 'wow' factor when you can easily craft stuff that's as good as or better than what you find - and none of it's particularly exceptional (pun not actually intended).

No, they're active until you resolve them. Hell, there's one in the first group of bounties* that you can't even access until you get to Twin Elms (and then you have to do something specific to get to the proper area). This was actually a bit of a head-scratcher for me, since I thought it was weird that your first group of four bounties contained one that required you to have moved so far along in the plot. And then you can get two more groups of bounties after that. Another head-scratcher since you're supposedly under some urgency at that point. *I'm assuming the bounty quests aren't randomized.

I'm not going to 'explain' anything. I simply pointed out that I thought you misinterpreted luckmann's post. No need for the diatribe. Christ, this board's getting as bad as the much-reviled Codex boards.

Voice Pack DLC would take care of this. This game is as good as Skyrim in which it deserves to be moddable. Voicing has nothing to do with it. I don't see the connection here other than your apparent obsession with voicing every line of dialog.

I think you misunderstand luckmann on this. I don't believe he's trying to imply that isometric is objectively superior to other types of gameplay. What he's saying is any Fallout game that isn't isometric is inferior. Imagine if PoE were to be a game that pays homage to BG, IWD, and PS:T and they went with a FPP instead of isometric. It would be a travesty. Not because FPP is inherently inferior (but gods know I hate it myself) but because the original games were isometric. Same with the Fallout games. I believe that's where luckmann is coming from, anyway.

You still make money. At least, I did. Sure, sometimes you lose some copper to bandits, but there was always a net gain for me.

Either you enjoyed it or you freaking didn't. If you can't say you didn't enjoy it; it gets a 4/5. "Didn't enjoy it" has an unnecessarily negative bias. So, no it doesn't merit a score of 3, nor does it merit a score of 4. IMO. Sorry if you don't enjoy my point of view on this.

Still have issues with the wording. As is, I'd actually give it a 3.5. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, because there was a lot there that was good. But I also can't say it has 'few' flaws (I think it has many) and I can't say I overall enjoyed it either. So 3.5 would be about where I fall.

I also think he's overblown some of his gripes, but damn, I agree in principle with a lot of what he says.

Yeah, bounty XP rewards are probably too generous. I'm close to the end (I think) and have hit the level cap already. Actually hit it just as I arrived at Twin Elms. So yeah, you definitely can (and I think most do) hit it before end game. And if you're a bit of a completionist (and by this I mean you just like to clean up any tasks/quests you collect while exploring the game world), then you'll hit the cap quite a bit before the end.

What's 'ridiculous' is that you sent a very important character away on a mission...? Since there's no info on if there are any variables involved in the quests (at least that I can find) about how effective a particular character/class may be on that quest or whether it makes any difference who you send, it's not exactly illogical to assume you may want to send someone you feel has the best chance of success.

It seems to depend on date in game. I've checked it on the first hidden stash in Valewood, one under the wall you climb to get Fulvano's gloves, and there was necklace +2 Per on 15th every month, Stalker's Torc on 11th and various generic crap like rings and cloaks of minor protection on other days. Though I don't know if this loot-date dependance spreadsheet is fixed somewhere in game resources or generated explicitly for each playthrough. The latter would be more logical for randomizing things further. That's pretty interesting, I guess they did that so people don't try to save scum loot (load, try again) but if the system is that specific and people figure out the workaround they will still scum it - get to x day and loot. It's a helluva lot easier and quicker to use the console.

10 seconds isn't that bad on its own. But when you stack up 8 to 10 loading screens in a few minutes of gameplay, it becomes more than annoying.

Yep, same here. My Cipher has suffered, at this point, 27 knockouts. The next highest in my party has 5. She was wearing only clothing, so I finally tossed some heavy armor on her and now she's rarely targeted.

I can tell you the SSD is no panacea with respect to the loading times either. Still taking 10 to 14 seconds per load screen.

Verify cache on Steam. See if that works.

Dude, you need to calm down. First of all, Obsidian has nothing to do with Nexus, so they make zero money from them. Second, and most importantly, you DO NOT have to pay to create a Nexus account. On the registration page, it states right at the top: "Select any packages you would like to purchase. You will be directed to the payment screen once your account has been created and you have logged in. If you do not want to buy Premium Membership simply skip this step by pressing "Create Account" at the bottom of the page." Just scroll to the bottom and click on the Create Account button. Create your free account and DL all the mods you want.

Why waste time trying to job the game? Just cut to the chase and use the console to spawn them in: AddItem gloves_of_manipulation 1