Agiel

I kind of blame Doctor Who for creating the expectation for *ALL* in-game NPCs existing either as paragons of or projections of postmodern progressive values, which is where I think the hate for Ashley Williams in Mass Effect is couched in. She's a good character. Are the space racist aspects of her likeable? Of course not, but her backstory is nuanced enough that how she is is kind of expected given her background.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition to come out next month: http://www.pcgamer.com/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-will-be-out-this-month/ The presence of the "Experience the Story" difficulty mode seems to be the sad product of the direction Bioware was going; there was a comment I felt was pretty bang-on:

Streaming again... twitch.tv/Lamashtu

But DA2 didn't let you use it, IIRC. Then again why do you need a whorehouse when you have Isabella, same number of VDs. You can hire bunch of male and female prostitutes to entertain you in the brothel (The Blooming Rose), so I am not sure what you mean with "DA2 didn't let you use it"? "IIRC" Anyways I never used it. Prostitution in games is stupid, paying for something that doesn't improve your stats. I suppose it's one of those "Choice & Consequences" things, though I don't think there's that many people out there who want to roleplay as someone that has to pay for companionship.

The Russian Navy has in general got cornholed over budget issues; The Admiral Ushakov formerly Kirov nuclear guided missile battlecruiser has been languishing in the Zvezdochka yards since 1990, and its reactor has been a radiological hazard for surrounding environs for years.

Naval watchers believe the sub was trying to install (or even replace old) maritime surveillance equipment, a kind of poor man's SOSUS. The incident harkens back to the "Whiskey on the Rocks" incident back in the Cold War when a Soviet Whiskey-class* diesel-electric sub ran aground off the coast of Sweden. *Soviet submarines during the Cold War were given reporting names by western navies based on letters from the NATO alphabet (Sierra and Victor SSNs, Yankee and Delta SSBNs, Romeo and Kilo SSKs, and Oscar and Charlie SSGNs). Though apparently because they've run out of letters to call them by they've started calling the newest ones by the Russian GRAU designations (Yasen SSN and Lada SSK).

http://metronews.ca/news/canada/1187420/lee-enfield-rifle-phased-out-by-canadian-military-after-100-years-of-service/

Some of the Amazon reviews for the Surge revival on Amazon are just too f***ing great:

Kind of hoping that eventually Tim Cain, Obsidian and InXile together with Jason Alexander (no, not George Costanza) managed to get the Arcanum IP from Activision (I can picture Bobby Kotick's reaction: "Wait, we have what?"). Arcanum was an unfortunate case of an utterly fantastic world and an extremely promising character system squandered with badly implemented combat and merely interesting but poorly developed characters. One of the most memorable gaming experiences I had (even if it was one that I kind of got cornholed in) was on my first playthrough going full retard with magic and the train conductor plain refusing to let me on the train... before I had the teleport spell.

Didn't really bother to read the topic, though I couldn't help but notice that oby tagged this topic with his own username.

I've found that the androids will always find you in a locker no matter what, which it seems like to me makes that mechanic superfluous.

I remember Laidlaw claiming that parts of DA2 were in development even before Origins' was complete. If there was truth to that claim then there probably was at least some pre-production stuff for Inquisition done before DA2 went gold. That said, given the, to put it lightly, mixed reaction to DA2 it's certainly within the realm of possibility that they scrapped a significant portion of that work when they realised the "slam dunk" * approach to cRPG design wasn't going to quite cut it for the fans. *Yeah, it's an article from the Codex. But hey, you gotta admit that amongst all the bigotry and narcissism they occasionally put out something absolutely brilliant.

That's some big ass horse at the beginning . It'd have to be in order to accommodate a Qunari PC

"Klotzen, nicht kleckern. Man schlägt jemanden mit der Faust und nicht mit gespreizten Fingern."

Sounds like it scales well and was made to work on older hardware while also take advantage of newer, more powerful hardware. If so, thumbs up BioWare. We'll find out for sure soon enough. Wonder if it can scale down all the way to DX9 for those to whom framerates are God.

So finally got my Dragon's Keep invite in my email inbox and signed the NDA, unfortunately I visited their Twitter and saw this: ... ...that is some bulls***...

My Dragon Age stream is going up in an hour. Mostly for the benefit for those waking up in Europe, but those in the US who burn the night oil are welcome as well. twitch.tv/lamashtu

The absurdly tiny head and its resemblance to Sarah Palin's has been the biggest turn off for me for the character to be honest.

Running my stream of Origins right now. For those who are interested. my stream url is as follows: twitch.tv/lamashtu Going to be playing on hard as a City Elf rogue, cos 'eff those Dalish, Kallian Tabris is original gangsta baby.

I had kind of wondered how the world or Arcanum would turn out when it entered the age of precision guided munitions, C4ISR, advanced composite materials, and general push-button warfare.

That it will, though it will have more in common with Mass Effect 3's than say, Neverwinter Nights'. That said, I did have a real good time with the multiplayer of Mass Effect 3. A Neverwinter Nights-style editor would have been lovely though.

Doctrine overview for Hearts of Iron IV. Of note is AirLand Battle and Shock and Awe being a thing nearly forty years early: I do also like the "Desperate Defense" doctrine icon that shows a man in a wheelchair with a Panzerfaust.

Largely ambivalent to romances in Bioware games to be honest. There's no law in my book that says the romanceable characters are terrible, but I think when that option is absent the Bioware writing team has the time to make a character shine on their own two feet. Examples being (I omit their DnD works, since I feel that romances weren't quite their hat back then): KOTOR 1: -Canderous -HK-47 -Jolee Mass Effect: -Wrex -Mordin -Legion -James Vega Dragon Age: -Sten -Oghren -Varric -Aveline

To pass the time until Inquisition, I decided to do a stream of Dragon this weekend either on Friday or Saturday morning United States PST, depending on when I get my streaming set-up squared away. It will entail about all of Origins the canonical DLC as well, and I will not be streaming Dragon Age 2, as hopefully the Dragon Age Keep will stand-in for that experience. What it will entail: -Idle musings of the series and vidya games in general. -Me breaking the game through tons and tons of mods (none of it romance or sex-related, I assure you) and the odd exploit or two. -Suffering performance anxiety and stage fright from streaming seriously for the first time. -No romancing, since my lady city elf rogue thinks boys have cooties (sorry, Bruce). If it all pans out and I (somehow) get a decent amount of regular viewers I think I have a couple of other games lined up to stream including, but not limited to: -STALKER -Falcon BMS 4.32 -Deus Ex: Human Revolution -Steel Beasts -...and many more!

What drew my attention most was Bioware milking the whole "make the 'elite' enemies ginormous" gameplay trope for all its worth. That, and it would not be totally out of my place to play the stock sonar "pinging" noise whenever I'm using the "find lootable stuff" mechanic while exploring. Otherwise, still very much interested.