marelooke

"Reserving" a physical box, but I'm very likely to drop that down to minimum to get the game if they don't address my concerns over the Linux port. EDIT: pitch sounds bleeding great, btw. Didn't bother watching before pledging since D:OS1 was pretty sweet, so this was a pretty sure bet as far as I'm concerned. EDIT2: the Update Song is always gonna be bittersweet now

But will there be actual Tomb Raiding? Oh my, I know someone (my gf) who will be really really sad because she really can't handle 3D games and she was kinda hyped when she saw Trine 3 announced

Restarted in SRR because of the broken savegame, the plan is to play all three in the correct order. On the side I'm still playing Defiance, got an EGO rating in the 700s now, found out that to be able to call down Arkbreaks I need to go through the entire related questchain first (only did part of it so far), but I keep getting sidetracked by Incursions, Arkfalls, Arkbreaks and my neurotic need to complete all the sidequests before advancing the main quests so I'm not making great progress

I'm about to start my first play through...I'm very excited A hint, when Leliana asks you if she should kill the spy, saying yes makes her a murderqueen later in the game. Okay and is this a good thing or a bad thing? Depends, do you want to see the world burn?

Bah, I still have to finish my SRR campaign, I stalled waiting for the "save anywhere" feature but all the patches inbetween seem to have broken my savegame beyond repair. Total bummer as I was quite a ways in...

After the pilot the TV series took a nosedive when it comes to writing quality. It only picked back up in season 3. If you need anything though, let me know. On PC EU I am EGO 4000+ on PC US just 1000something. I'm EGO580 or so now, still trying to figure out how some things work too, I assume most things end up being explained during main/DLC quests (though I sort of wonder what is supposed to keep players engaged once those are done...) Anything I can clear up, let me know. Originally long term motivation was supposed to come through Arkfalls and instances and PvP. The scaling mechanic that was added later on seriously hurt the enjoyability of PvE content though. I am under the impression that they took some steps to fix it, as the last Dark Matter arkfall I went to was enjoyable enough. Right now the content for players after the story content is done (though it can be replayed) is Open World: Arkfalls (major and minor), Sieges (infected and volge), Incursions. These all get marked on the map with big red, blue or yellow circles. Anyone in the area scroes points based on participation and gets rewards accordingly. Instances: are unlocked based on your EGO rating. They were quite fun until the level scaling which broke them, allowing high EGO characters to oneshot everything. Hard mode versions of instances got added with one of the DLCs. Arkbreaks: are instanced arkfalls called down by players. Minor ones are aimed at one team. Major ones at around 20 people. Thorn Liro Arena (castithan charge pack) : standard survival against 5 rounds of enemies. Gunslinger Trials: in reality another arena mode but with slightly more interesting objectives Expeditions: mainly instance runs that have difficulty scaling that works. If I udnerstand correctly, after you finish a run, you can start over again at increased difficulty and see how far you get. I ended up in a few of those (especially the siege I did was quite enjoyable), the Arkfalls where you end up inside some structure are by far the most fun ones (best rewards too it seems), the minor ones generally aren't that much fun it seems (either there's nobody doing them and they're frustratingly hard, one I literally had to solo) or they're swarmed and well, they're over before you can blink... For the Arkbreaks I assume the quests explain how they work? I did some of that questchain (but not all) before I realized I had started on DLC content and went back to the "regular" main quest and EGO explained that I could now call down Arks in decaying orbit, but how to actually go about it, beats me... If the later quests clear that up I'll just have to take those on before I continue the main quests (if they don't then I need to find some explanation though)

Yeah, I found the feature list of the EE a bit lacklustre: full voice over (I'd rather not, thanks), controller support I kinda liked (my gf won't play with kb+mouse) but then not being able to use a kb+mouse AND a controller in split screen killed that for me too I don't understand why this would take them so long. Steam OS even gives them a platform target. Not only that, if it's been compiled for OSX, then the OpenGL interface should already be handled. According to Larian, it had to do with middleware of some sort. I don't know anything more specific than that. As I see it they made a newbie mistake when it comes to cross-platform-development by trying to cut corners by developing purely for Windows and "porting later" (this pretty much never works out well) and the Linux backers pay the price. Quite simply they created (or, more likely, since there appears to be a Mac version, bought) some library without bothering to check whether it supports Linux, it quite obviously did not (or maybe there simply was no alternative for Linux, but they decided to roll with it anyway because: deadlines. I hope this is not the case because it'd show quite a bit of disregard for the Linux users). If they'd have done cross-platform development the proper way (= simultaneously) they would have learned about this early in their development cycle (before using said library all over the place) and would have been able to adjust accordingly. Now this all sounds deceptively simple from the sidelines, doing parallel development right is *hard*. So while I can understand their situation there are two things that majorly annoy me about this: - they're not owning up to it (they messed up, admit it already), instead hiding it behind meaningless terms (middleware is so generic a term it's not even funny. If you don't at least define what the front- and back-end are then it's effectively meaningless. Disclaimer: I'm a middleware developer, though nothing that has to do with Larian's middleware or anything related to videogames, really) - they are not releasing the EE (or a Linux beta thereof) before their next KS launches

Man, the epicness that could ensue if they'd manage to get him onboard fulltime for D:OS2... Gives me goosebumps just thinking of it.

Especially noteworthy as far as I'm concerned is that the opening dialogue (the really first few screens of text) was also voiced and *did not massively annoy me* by being so. This is probably the first time *ever* that has happened (I generally find fully voiced dialogues in text heavy games horrendously annoying and usually wish there was a way to tune it down to only the first sentence or so, I'm looking at you PoE and D:OS)

Which ghost woman ... the one with the ghost husband? Anyway, agreed, the assassin quests are pure pazaak. Had to look the name up, but this is the one (she's part of the Vampire DLC, though has exactly nothing at all to do with that entire questline): http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Katria After the pilot the TV series took a nosedive when it comes to writing quality. It only picked back up in season 3. If you need anything though, let me know. On PC EU I am EGO 4000+ on PC US just 1000something. I'm EGO580 or so now, still trying to figure out how some things work too, I assume most things end up being explained during main/DLC quests (though I sort of wonder what is supposed to keep players engaged once those are done...) Playing quite a bit of Warframe again, they overhauled the parcours and it's mostly an improvement. The new Warframe is also simply available as a (whole lot) of boss drops that don't require the farming of keys that pop up once in a blue moon or going through an annoying questchain to obtain. Now if only it were easier to PUG Void runs and they introduced a proper marketplace instead of this annoying trade channel crap... (if I had my way I'd just scrap trading entirely, but I doubt that's gonna happen, so I'll go with the next best thing) EDIT: also played through the Torment alpha (which is part of character creation/the introduction) and boy oh boy, I don't think I've been as excited for a game in a looooooong while.

The best questlines in Skyrim are the Dark Brotherhood one and the ghost woman imo (she has more character than most Skyrim NPCs combined imho, though that might not be saying too much...), I just wish they hadn't made starting all the guild questlines so insanely "in your face". Now playing quite a bit of Defiance. I think I need to watch some episodes of the series to get a better grasp on the setting though.

I can go with that, I started M&B once, got through what passed for a tutorial ended up being none the wiser and totally confused about where to go from wherever I was, decided to Google a bit but ended up playing other games instead...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall Censorship is never a solution and is more often abused to silence dissenting opinion than for anything worthwhile. Ignoring people only takes a bit of willpower and then there are always technical solutions. I can hardly imagine that sort of rhetoric fly on this particular forum either, yet somehow we're not screaming about Obsidian's fondness for censorship and silencing dissenting opinions... Let's be fair, this forum is very accepting of various opinions as long as they are formulated in a civilized way, which is something I greatly appreciate by the way. Moreover I visit here to talk about games, mostly, if someone starts talking (real world) religion/politics I generally stop participating in the discussion (as I do in real life) as nothing good tends to come from discussing these topics. I was merely replying to Bruce's suggestion that certain places *ought* to censor certain opinions/worldviews to (avoid) send(ing) a certain message, such sets a dangerous precedent as before long we'll be making adult websites inaccessible (totally random example, truly), because surely, nobody would want to visit such degenerate places, right? So let's protect our citizens by making sure they cannot be lead astray (also: "won't anyone think of the children!!!"). I mean, where does one stop once started down that path? And truly I expect that these people mean well, unfortunately meaning well doesn't equal doing well.

Burned through chapter 3 of The Witcher 2 in a marathon session, the clunky mechanics and UI kinda make me don't want to play through again to see Roche's path. Only took me since release until now to remove this one of my "to play" list, heh. - story and characters are great - pacing in chapter 3 seemed way off when it comes to upgrades, it just started *raining* new gear all of a sudden, to the point of being ridiculous really. - UI is (still) unpolished, hitting esc ("Back") takes you back to the game world (unexpected/annoying) while clicking "Back" in the menus takes you up one level (expected behaviour). This little glitch annoyed the living hell out of me. - combat is either: boring (casual), annoying (normal) or frustrating (anything higher), either way, after chapter 1 I put it on casual just so I could just get it over with as fast as possible. - not being able to interact with things while in combat is seriously annoying (I had to basically murder the entire Kaedweni camp because I entered a wrong door at some point in Chapter III since I couldn't leave anymore /sigh) - autosaves could use some work: saving after an automatically triggered conversation (but not before?) but not after completing a major quest step? All in all the verdict is more or less the same as for TW1: I greatly enjoyed the game despite many of the mechanics, not because of them (though imho TW1 had much better combat than 2, but I also think Dark Souls is a horribly frustrating mess, this is probably related as I'm obviously bad at that kind of twitchy block/dodge/roll combat especially when combined with clunky movement) and the game certainly improved compared to the (imho: unplayable) mess it was at launch. If I sound overly negative that's just an impression, I greatly enjoyed the game and I'm curious how they've addressed some of the weaknesses in TW3 (and how the story plays out, of course!).

That's a very sharp decline since the last expansion, I guess quite a few people were like me, give the game another go every now and again for nostalgia's sake but at some point you just give up the hope they'll actually improve upon the things you care about and move on. Judging by that graph I kinda expect the spike at the beginning of each expansion to be less and less over time. Judging by how steeply the subscriptions fell off after WoD release I'd say they ought to be happy if they still hit 8million when the next expansion is released. (I'm also kind of surprised there was no decline in subscriptions near the end of WotLK, that's when guilds on my realm started folding due to either being bored of killing the Lich King heroic, or being frustrated due to not being able to beat him on heroic...)

Sure you right...it is harmless , but its more the principle. I have an issue with associating with people who really think its okay to say " a good raping will sort her out " ...you see on the Codex that type of rhetoric is tolerated and that sometimes leads to people thinking that type of comment is acceptable outside the Codex. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall Censorship is never a solution and is more often abused to silence dissenting opinion than for anything worthwhile. Ignoring people only takes a bit of willpower and then there are always technical solutions. Moreover visiting a forum also frequented by people with dissenting opinions surely doesn't mean you're "associating" with them any more than visiting a bar which is also frequented by members of the local fascist movement/biker gang/*insert socially unacceptable clique of people here*, especially if you stay away from their subforum/table...?

I think they finally ditched the Flash player entirely, at least I notice that the HTML5 player seems to be used for everything now (old videos tended to still require Flash, but that seems gone as well now).

I've been jumping between The Witcher 2 (must be very close to the end of chapter 2 now) and EverQuest 2.

My "default" party composition was Blackwall/Cassandra, Solas and Varric (and myself, also a [Dalish] mage). Don't think there's many other characters that have much useful (from a lore perspective) to say anyway (Solas for the elf stuff, Blackwall about Wardens, Cassandra for the Chantry/mage/templar arguments and Varric because red lyrium/Hawke). Possibly interesting to bring Dorian where Tevinter is concerned and Cole where the Fade is concerned. The rest is pretty much a waste of space (Leliana gives more exposition about Orlais than Vivienne/Sera ever do and the Qunari are only relevant in Inquisition because of Iron Bull's presence in the first place. On top of that pretty much all the stuff about the Qunari/Qun you can learn from him without bringing him anywhere). I'd also be receptive to the argument that Blackwall also adds little for anyone who has played DA:O. If I had to pick a best bang for the buck party for DA:I it would be PC (female Dalish), Cassandra, Solas (romance) and Varric. Note that the above only concerns itself with the lore the main story revolves around and ignores whether the characters are interesting/well written on their own (de gustibus et coloribus etc.).

It's handwaved at some point by Solas. Generally... because magic. Bit of a shame one does not learn more of Skyhold's history, given what Morrigan mentions about the location. Then again, many of the areas are left seriously under-explored, which is a real shame. I know that for some locations it'd have been somewhat unfair given that what you learn would have been highly dependant on who you bring along, but I'd rather have had them use a more fixed party composition than settle for just not letting your learn anything interesting...

After Mafia 2 I'm not sure I can even be bothered to care about Mafia 3 in the slightest.

I think most people forgot how hard heroics were in TBC due to having run them millions of times after they acquired rather high level raid gear. So, today I ran into something that kinda shows why I think EQ2 is so cool. I was flying around the Great Divide when I spotted a quest marker. I kinda thought I had done most quests in this area before I quit playing four years ago, so I went to check it out. Turns out it was a Fae trying to figure out how flying works (Fae in EQ2 have always had slowfall but can't actually *fly*), suffice to say, I, being a Fae, was intrigued. Long story short (and lots of running back and forth later) my Fae can now actually fly! BOO-YEAH!!! As for the reasoning behind it all (gotta make sure stuff makes sense lore wise): All of the above also applies to the Arasai (= evil Fae), afaik, but my Arasai assassin isn't exactly at a level to be able to fly yet.

Cataclysm was actually the peak of WoW dungeon difficulty, and MoP actually went to the other extreme as a result, dungeons were the easiest they'd ever been. WoD dungeon difficulty is somewhere in between, but they've messed it up in a completely different way - there's no longer any incentive to do them because the loot is hopelessly outdated and you can get better stuff easily from solo outdoor content. This was once again an overadjustment, previous expansions had the opposite problem where people felt obliged to run old dungeons that had long been trivial for them to acquire special currencies. Apologies, I mixed up Cataclysm and MoP when it came to dungeon difficulty, you were right of course, though I'm not sure if dungeons were any more difficult in Cataclysm than they were in TBC, they likely just appeared as such because people were no longer used to a challenge (and especially: actually having to work together with strangers, the main appeal of MMOs for me!). The reason I think this might be the case is that we generally had little trouble with Cataclysm heroics in guild groups but struggled with PUGs. Unfortunately I was rather new in that guild at the time (since my previous one got bored out during the latter stages of WotLK) and as such was sentenced to PUG on a very regular basis, which lead to no end of frustration (due to tanks ragequitting all. the. goddamn. time.) I don't think so, I was specifically talking about cross-server dungeons as I have no experience with the "full" cross-realm thing since MoP was the final drop for me and I called it quits on WoW (for the second time, not that I had anything left there anyway, since whatever was left of my guild had much shriveled up and died by that time). As far as I'm aware there are no plans for cross-server support that goes further than dungeons in EQ2, not that it would matter very much since there is only one EU English server anyway and tossing the French or German speakers onto that same one isn't going to benefit anyone (though the whining about non-English in General chat would probably make things seem more lively ).

As someone who likes the folks she passes in the street to chatter a bit, I've always considered Beth's writing to be right on target. Most casual conversation does tend to be trite and repetitive. Anything too insightful, witty, or generally memorable would stick out in a way that street conversations that you're going to overhear over and over again shouldn't. In my opinion whether writing is "good" or not depends on its purpose, and the sorts of things you overhear in Beth games are exactly the sorts of things I'd expect to overhear if I lived in Tamriel. I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I ... what, too soon?

So now we can play a half finished game in 4K resolution and others fixing up the rush job is now easier! Yes, I'm still bitter about all the missed potential.