marelooke

Finished up DA: I, the main story feels like it lacks fleshing out, we don't really learn anything about the main villain (or he could simply be as one dimensional as he appears, of course), for example. It's a decidedly average game and pretty short if you cut out all the repetitive filler content but I enjoyed my time with it (or I wouldn't have finished it), though unless they release DLC that actually flesh out the main story (my female Dalish Inquisitor has a few questions left for Solas, for one ) I don't see myself returning to it anytime soon. Oh, and I actually liked Leliana in this one.

A full version? Like a copy that comes with every episode? You can buy all episodes together in a pack, yes. But it's not considered as one game but individual episodes (which they try to abuse in the sales by making Episode 1 dirt cheap with only moderate reductions on the rest), but they've all been released. During the game they present it as if it were a tv series as well ("Next time on ..." and "Last time on Resident Evil Revelations 2, blah blah blah"), I find this extremely off putting personally as it breaks the flow of the game in a major way (Since I've just completed half of Episode 2 I can't really say much more about the quality of the game overall, but that wasn't the topic either).

Think I'm nearing the end of DA:I, did all the side quests I could find, collected all the shards (boy, did that have a bad effort to reward ratio), killed the last few High Dragons, didn't bother trying to complete all the mosaics though. So just finishing up some War Table operations and then it's up to the endgame (at least everyone seems convinced we're going to beat up big baddie next, though I guess they could always string up a few more schemes that need dismantling)

Got bored with DA:I so figured it might be about time to finish up my Shadowrun Returns Deadman's Switch campaign. Yeah, guess not, seems all the patches totally broke my savegame. I think I'm pretty far in now: Not sure if I can be bothered to start over at this point, ugh.

None of those allowed in-game chat though as far as I remember, which is the feature I used Xfire for. The line "this time I brought some friends along", co-op confirmed?

Still DA:I did the Warden quest (already did the ball) back to sidequesting now I guess before moving the main plot forward again. Oh, and dragon slaying, think I have 4 to go or so.

So Xfire, which was probably the first of its kind, is shutting down it's social services (which have been lagging way behind the competition for quite a while now). If there's any people here that need/want to download their screenshot/video library, you have until tomorrow (yeah, talking about short notice) http://social.xfire.com/

Pretty sure you can limit how much of the side stuff you have to do though, since stuff two levels below you doesn't give XP anymore...right now I barely get XP for any combat anymore (lvl21 now and I still have to do the Warden quest...). I did notice Red Templars tend to scale to your level if they're on a respawning spot. Kinda curious what level I will have ended up at by the time I finish the game.

Eh, after having had Blackwall ask Varric for the 10 billionth time if he had fought Mr Main Villain before I sort of wish they'd shut up more often... (seems some characters or character combinations have a pretty limited pool of banter. Or I simply use my go-to party way too often...) Should have clarified that. Every non-sport game is going to run Frostbite in the future, as per EA's announcement. So Frostbite becoming so popular is not only because the engine is good, but because EA actively tells their divisions to use it. Now if they're really going to Frostbite the next Sims installment, who knows? Fact is, we're going to see a lot more Frostbite and a lot less everything else that EA needs to fork over royalties for - hence ME4 going to use Frostbite instead of Unreal. The rest was pure speculation on the technical shortcomings of DA:I, not all of which are related to shoddy console porting. The entire game feels like a first installment with all the associated problems and shortcomings, or at least I'm hoping that was the case. I want my next Dragon Age to be something else than Skyrim with Darkspawn and Templars. Beh. That's actually pretty bad. Frostbite might be a good engine but it certainly isn't going to be a good fit for every game that will have to use it. "Making" their developers use it is also a pretty good way to make sure Frostbite isn't pressed as much as other engines to improve because of competition (I suspect that especially the developer facing side of the engine will suffer from this, which obviously will show in the resulting games, though not in the ways one might expect. Graphics quality for one is unlikely to suffer). Basically EA seems to be running its business as a run of the mill enterprise corporation trying to save by forcing standardisation on a limited set of tools with the idea that it's then easier to make others work on other stuff, which is just plain desastrous (right tool for the job goes right out of the window in lieu of "company santioned tool for the job") for quality of the work as well as the quality of the employees (the great ones will most likely jump ship). The net result of this is usually mediocrity and relatively slower development (relative to shops without these restrictions) because all you will have left after a while are 9to5ers (either because they don't care about the product or because the enterprise process has ground all their hopes and dreams to dust, resulting in the same, really) and inexperienced people that will either turn into 9to5ers, or leave (once they gain some modicum of experience). Not to mention that standardizing on non-standard tools makes your company a lot less attractive on the job market, as "getting out" becomes a lot harder since your skills don't immediately transfer to another job (the fact that a competent developer can pick up new tools in a matter of weeks/months is something few recruiters/employers consider when hiring). Arguably the gaming industry might appear more attractive to quite a few people due to "omg I get to make games" and certainly this scenario won't bancrupt EA. However the entire mindset precludes innovation of any kind.

If you want them to be less annoying look for a little help online. YouTube is full of videos explaining how to kill them high dragons in 10 seconds or less. On nightmare. Hmm, that sounds like a plan. If I can get around babysitting that bunch of morons I'm all ears. I thought they could have done a lot more with the keep. It seemed just more like a base of operations to hang out and chat with your companions between missions, than an actual keep that needed tending to. All the upgrades you do don't make a lick of difference to the actual keep (and very little difference in the actual game), and at no point do you "defend" it. Yeah, the upgrades were a bit dissapointing as it seems they're mostly cosmetic. Not having to defend it doesn't really bother me as I'm pretty sure that any "siege" would have been lacklustre at best, so I rather not have it than have it done badly. I think the thing that "sells" it for me is that you actually get the feeling you're leading an organization, so you returning to the keep to talk to advisors, plan stuff (war table) and gear up (and sell junk) sort of "fits". The fact that it has its own economy so you don't have to shovel money into it yourself removes the nuisance of, well, throwing money at a keep which you could have used for other things and makes it feel more alive at the same time (a big failing of the NWN2 keep imho). Is it mechanically much different from some other keeps? I guess not, but it's presented a hell of a lot better.

I've concluded dragon fights are just annoying, but since I'm an obsessive completionist I'll kill all of them anyway, I guess that means I only have 7 to go (I killed 3 so far)... On a positive note, this is one of the very few games (tbh, can't even think of another one right now) where the "keep" is actually well done and feels like an integral part of the storyline and it being there actually makes sense. All those games that want to add keeps (or similar stuff) because it's the new "must have" checkbox thing should look at DA:I to see how it's done (that includes you, PoE) but if the story you want to tell doesn't support it then just don't include it, seriously.

Voiced protagonist? Can that hype please die already. Pretty please?

Just saw the news about Kirill on Twitter, this is a truly sad day. Aside from a great composer Kirill also seemed like a great and humble person. I will always remember the Kickstarter concert:

Wait, this thread is about Torment: Tides of Numenera now? Anyway, killed my first few High Dragons in DA:I in hopes that challenging fights would result in less boring combat. Yeah, no... I did have to use the "tactical view" (which I hadn't really used prior) to keep dumb companions from standing in pools of water (while fighting a lightning dragon, YOLO and all that I guess), but I spent more time fighting the companion AI than the enemy AI. So yeah, combat isn't something I'd consider DA:I's strong point. Boring at best, tedious/frustrating at worst is my experience so far.

Lol, I assumed Black Emporium had been out for ages Not sure if the stock refreshes at some point, I probably should visit again now that I've acquired Skyhold (but those loading times...I mean, is it my PC or are they really long for everyone?)

- Leliana does mention some stuff from DA:O, especially early on in the game. Most you have to ask her yourself, IIRC. - There's 3 NPCs for each class. - Some War Table missions can only be completed before going to Skyhold. A few are mutually exclusive. Other than that, they never go away with time or anything. None of them are really biggies, though. - Weird, I've exhausted all her dialogue options and she never mentions much about DA:O, well, aside ending up there until the Divine called upon her. No mention of the Hero of Ferelden, the Wardens, the Blight or anything though. She did mention that she ran into mages that were better people than her though (referring to Wynne I presume) - Think I've got all NPCs now and indeed all bases seem to be covered, my go-to party is me (mage), Solas (more mages!), Varric and Blackwall/Cassandra so far though. - OK, knowing that they won't go away anymore now that I'm at Skyhold makes me less reluctant to push the main story forward, which would be a good idea right about now before I get burnt out on all the similar side areas... I've gone through the Exalted Plains now, always nice to see more Elven lore (bummer Solas doesn't give more exposition though, but that's mostly my own interst speaking here ). Other than that it pretty much felt like another Hinterlands. In fact, the three areas I've completed to far feel very similar, gameplay wise. Bethesda clearly does a better job in creating interesting quests (if we ignore the repeatable "kill the bandit leader" style thing). The shard collectible minigame is also starting to get on my nerves, I often pass them but before I use an Ocular I can't see them or pick them up, that's just annoying (even more so since there's sound playing to rub it in that you're near one you can't see). I also ran into one that I could see from miles away but took me a looong time to get to, turned out I was actually on the right track, but the jump I had to made was a matter of luck (at least, that's what I concluded when I saw a guy that knew where it was struggle to make the jump for quite a while). If there's one thing I remember from Tomb Raider (the first) it's how un-fun it was to spend 30minutes to an hour getting to a secret in plain sight just because the way to get there was made horrifyingly annoying. If a jump you try doesn't work you generally go look for other approaches, it's rather grating when there are none and that first thing you tried actually should have worked, but didn't...

So I sided with the mages (I'm a Dalish Mage, so seemed kinda like the logical thing to do, the fact that the templar-chief* was acting like a total jerk when I met him didn't really help their cause any). (Spoilers about the questline where you choose mages/templars follow.The fact that you have to choose between them shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has played the previous DA games so I don't consider that a spoiler) (Spoilers about the questchain leading up to Skyhold) The war table quests related to my character's Dalish clan are also a very nice touch as is the fact that people now actually seem to care about the fact that I'm an elf (and a Dalish elf at that, oh and a mage, two reasons to be shunned for the price of one!), I always found it rather jarring when you could play as a Drow or Half-Orc or some other "weird" race and nobody seems to give a damn. A few other things I've been noticing so far: Leliana doesn't mention any of the events in DA:O, like ever, it's like she was trained, got betrayed and then ended up working for the Divine. Was her involvement with the Hero of Ferelden retconned away (or is it because I'm using the "default world state"?)? Both of the rogues I have so far (dunno what class Cole is yet) are Archers (well, you could spec them differently of course but that'd lead to some weird conversations). Needing inquisition perks to be able to open certain locked doors is annoying, especially given how slowly they come (maybe that speeds up somewhat now that I'm at Skyhold?) and how slow loading times are. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of variation when it comes to armor designs. Given the rather different physiques of the various races I guess that'd have been quite a bit of work, but it's a shame nonetheless. As is the fact thatwearing different armors seems to have rather little (visual) effect on some characters (Blackwall and Cassandra come to mind) It appears we're not being force to pick each and every romance option if we want to romance a companion, this is nice as I like to get to know people before trying to get into their pants. So far there also hasn't been an Anders-ism where you lose reputation with a character for not going the romance route, this is obviously a good thing. Some war table missions seem to be lost if you don't do them before progressing the main plot, since they're counted in real time this can get annoying if you have a bunch left that are most efficiently solved by the same advisor. It seems that most reputation changing events change reputations of all characters, regardless of whether they are in your party or not, this is good as it somewhat alleviates annoyance the reputation minigame used to cause in previous DA/MEs (and other games that use such a system, of course) I'm starting to really dislike the dialogue wheel, the amount of times I've been annoyed at what my character said with the option I picked seems to have been higher than I can remember it being in previous "wheel-games" or at the very least there have been some dialogues where this issue cropped up multiple times in quick succession leading to quite some frustration * please don't hurt me for not remembering or caring what his actual title (or name, for that matter) is.

Maybe it was an homage to the World of Warcraft quest? I mean, Mankrik's wife wasn't easy to find

Playing some DA:I and getting rather annoyed with all the crashes (especially when factoring in the loooooong loading times, think it's been since the first Witcher that I've been so annoyed by loading times, which, back then, were mostly caused by the DRM CDPR used on that game)

Started playing this yesterday, game is really taxing on my graphics card for what it delivers on the settings it's at (medium-ish, I basically let the game pick the settings and roll with that) especially when compared to Witcher 2. I've also had a bunch of crashes (possibly related to the graphics card being taxed this much). The rest of my system doesn't seem very impressed with the game, possibly time to upgrade the graphics card then (might have to anyway with Witcher 3 now out...). Don't get me wrong, the game does look good and has a DA:O vibe to it, graphics-wise at least (and in my book that's a good thing). Elves still look slightly "off" and my character also occasionally speaking with Leliana's typical "lisp" (same voice actress I presume) even though she's supposedly Dalish is slightly annoying. Combat is sort of what I expected: DA2 combat with some slight improvements (I don't think there was such a convenient targeting of AoE spells in DA2, but I found mages so horribly annoying to play in DA2 that I rerolled a rogue, so maybe I'm misremembering). Tactical camera seems inconvenient to use and mostly pointless so far so I haven't bothered with it much yet. Can't say much about the companion AI as I've been more or less steamrolling things without ever switching characters (pretty much how I played DA2 as well) The inventory is an annoying console oriented...thing. Being able to modify your gear to some extent is nice. Quests and storytelling remind me a lot of SWTOR, for better or worse. I found that a lot of the acting in the tutorial seemed rather, I dunno, "wooden". Though I kind of like the companions in general so far (I only have access to the first 3 so far). The main storyline in general resulted in many a "WTF?" so far (I guess I might be missing things due to never having played the DA2 DLC?) and the way it's told is just, I dunno, it feels "off". In any case the story certainly hasn't been able to drag me in. So far the game basically feels like an offline version of a MMO. I'm enjoying myself but I wouldn't rate it any higher than "good" based on what I've seen so far.

Is that true? Huh. I only played from 2005-2007 and it sure seemed like they had quest helpers. But that was a long time ago. Maybe for those days it seemed carebear but today it would seem hard core. Absolutely. The quest I'm referring to for example had an NPC ask you to find his wife. The only direction given was that she was in the southern half of the Barrens, which is to say, somewherein the lower half of the largest zone in the game. Even Morrowind would have been proud of that level of vagueness. I also remember quests that started from tiny books or scrolls, which weren't marked with exclamation marks like they are these days. Indeed I suspect the only reason most people would know of them at all is through third-party websites such as Thottbot and Allakhazam. A quick Google shows quest markers were added in patch 3.2, which it shows was released in August of 2009, 4 years and 9 months after launch. Yes the infamous quest. It´s well known in the wow community, at last back then. However Blizzard did add questmarker before that, they were just very rarely placed, just like EQ2 did it. It took them some years to add them all over the game, thats true. I think you might be confusing a built-in feature with the very commonly used QuestHelper plugin which added quest markers for quite a lot of quests and whose features Blizzard integrated into WoW at some point. Which is sort of funny because it increased a problem Blizzard (and all MMO developers, well, except the sandbox MMO devs, of course) have with content: players go through *much* faster than the developers can put out new content, knowing *exactly* where to go of course only increased that problem. On another note I grabbed DA:I for 33% off, let's see if it's as good/bad as I've been hearing.

I thought you needed at least a 2 Gig card? Hmm, cripes, I think my card only has 1GiB. Hope I can still manage to run it anyway as I wasn't really planning on getting a new card anytime soon (doesn't have problem yet with any recent games as long as I don't go nuts with the AA sliders).

Sweet, finally Linux release! Though I guess it also means Linux users will never get their hands on the "original" version as well, which might be a bit of a bummer depending on what else will be changed in the Enhanced Edition on top of what we already know. Not too stoked about the full voice-overs though, I really think the way BG2 did it with only providing limited voice overs works a lot better for the amount of dialogue these types of games tend to have (and using voice-overs with in-between descriptions, PoE-style, I find especially jarring). But I'm sure the other improvements will make it all worth it. (and I'm also sure a great many people disagree with me on this one )

SR2 is apparently nearly unplayable on PC due to being a terrifyingly terrible port, unfortunately this doesn't seem fixed for the GOG release. A real bummer as I really wanted to play SR2 after seeing some of the flashbacks in SR4 (I consider SR1 to be out of reach as chances of it ever getting a port are as good as zero). Anyway, I'd suggest doing a bit of reading before getting SR2 for the PC, maybe the drawbacks are worth it for you, I know I found the game to be unplayable when I got it on Steam, even after applying a whole slew of community fixes.

well it's mostly a question of technical difficulty. how do you make it flop around realistically? and then the aesthetic question. cut or uncut and how long? there is a multitude of problems when making the 3D model of a naked man that are not there for a woman's. I dunno, after seeing an entire article devoted to how hard it is to properly animate breasts I'm not so sure making someone's dong flop around realistically is that much harder (or easier, depending on how you look at it)...