marelooke

Halfway through chapter 3 in RE: Revelations 2. The game is pretty much more of the same as Revelations 1, but in a less interesting setting (imho, it gives me some serious Tomb Raider vibes, the newest Tomb Raider, that is), though going through the same areas twice with different characters (and seeing the effects of the others that came through first) is interesting, they spiced it up compared to the previous game by allowing actions done by the first two characters to pass through to have effects on the second two (eg. depending on what you two the others will be able to access extra goodies and/or will have an easier/harder time in the level). The boss fights so far have also been less frustrating than in Revelations 1, we'll see if it stays that way though, wouldn't be surprised if the final boss turns out to be an insane difficulty spike, like in the last game. Still not sure about the lockpicking minigame, either I'm doing it wrong or it's just a big "**** you" towards colourblind people as I really can't tell by the supposedly changing colour whether I'm near the unlock point or not. Generally I can figure it out in a few tries by measuring the distances between where it fades and then more or less picking the middle point, but this often fails when it's near the border. Most of the time it's only a minor annoyance but there was this part where there was a box in a timed section (if you're not fast enough you either die or have to skip the box) that I just couldn't get done in time, so I had to give up on that box. Thankfully I only lost out on (potentially useful) loot but game progression wasn't blocked (unlike that horrible spectrometer minigame in Arkham Asylum that actually resulted in me giving up on that game). At least I can be glad that some game designers manage to turn something that's a minor handicap irl into a major source of frustration... Thankfully both inXile and Obsidian included colourblind modes in their games, which I can only applaud, though I've personally not needed it in PoE nor in W2 (which, of course, is even better, though that by no stretch of the imagination means that other colourblind people do not need it to be able to play these game).

Everything being massively sped up didn't bother you? Hm, nothing actually came across as massively sped up compared to most games over the last decade. It was stable, and nothing jumped out as an issue.Hell, the last time I replayed SR2 was about.. hm. 2-3 years ago now thinking about it. Not everyone had problems with it, the performance of the port was all over the place. I guess that is true of all games, to some degree, with a game running like a dream on one computer and having problems on another (with similar level hardware specs), but Saints Row 2 is a very extreme example. It's been a while, but I think the game's speed was actually tied to framerate and there was no way to cap the framerate (I remember games having issues like that in the past, but that was the 80s). So, if you had a beefy rig that could run the game at 120 FPS, then everything in the game was going at hyper speed. There were graphical glitches, keybindings not working, crashes to desktop. It worked fine for some people and was COMPLETELY unplayable for others. The Gentlemen of the Row mod fixed a lot of the problems, though some required weird workarounds as some of the problems were hardcoded into the game. One issue I had with the game, though I'm not sure if this was a PC only problem, was how insanely twitchy the vehicle steering was. You could tweak an ini to lower the steering sensitivity and make the cars much more driveable. Unfortunately, tweaking the steering sensitivity did so not just for the player, but for every vehicle in the game, and the driving AI was hardcoded to the original steering sensitivity, so when you turned steering sensitivity down all the AI drivers constantly crashed into each other causing massive pileups at every intersection. This was pretty hilarious for a while, but got annoying after a while, especially since it broke driving missions, so I had to put the sensitivity back to original and just deal with how twitchy the handling was. It's too bad because it's a very good game that I never got to really enjoy because I've never been able to get it to run well on any machine I've owned. I suppose I should give it a shot on my current monster desktop rig, though running it through WINE isn't likely to help me out in getting it to work properly. From what I remember from trying to get SR2 to run somewhat properly not too long ago (after finishing SR IV, in fact) the steering sensitivity thing is related to the massive speedup, it's one of the ways that you can see you are suffering from the speedup problem according to the stuff I read back then. The rest of the game stays playable with the speed problem (although it looks weird/funny), but driving is just broken.

Everything being massively sped up didn't bother you?

She was also one of the few characters that were sufficiently fleshed out instead of gimmicky or downright silly like Sera or Iron Bull. I don't know what Bioware did with that game, I mean I still liked it enough to play for almost 150 hours but it feels as if it was developed by a team of interns with a little supervision by seniors. What made Iron Bull silly (besides his looks, or is that it?)? His motivations for joining made sense at least, or is it the romance (which I didn't see)? My favourite female character is probably Josephine, she just makes sense and though they didn't turn her into some sort of doll she doesn't look bad (not in the sense that Sera looks like Gollum...), though whether someone would consider her good looking is, of course, a matter of taste. I assumed Jaws of Hakkon was just more Hinterlands style crap, is it actually worth getting? Does it add some meaningful exposition? (which the main story is sorely lacking)

'sup folks? Self portrait Awww...

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.