Halaster

I was speaking about high budget triple A. Ourside of that, this year is, as you say, set to be pretty exceptional for keeping much of the "DA:O spirit" very much alive and kicking: Might & Magic X, D:OS, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity. Though I doubt that we'll be this spoiled again for a while...

Like i said, it's thing of the past I do talk about this 1 million hit points and one shot kill enemies in rant about Dark Souls thread....but i want to continue a bit This typical enemies only need you to become stronger and can spam damage on them, you don't need tactic, critical thinking, whatever...it's the thing of the past. And LAZY design. Just put steroid enemies here and there as bosses and mini bosses. This types of enemies didn't react to you, because they are hard to kill and deal lots of damage, so they just sit there following their script...one of the example is the Stone Wraith in DA2. At certain time it make rolling attack, then it floating in the air and burst out enegy, then minnions come out, then rinse and repeat...you just only need to hid behind pillars then attack when it become static It's also unrealictic...example Meredith, following the manner of the Stone Waraith above, she's also very tough where everyone is attacking her and she don't even give a ****, then she jump in the air, minnions come out, then rinse and repeat.... I do admire your fighting spirit. I loved every byte of DA:O myself, however the spirit of that game is long dead, and it's era is over and done for good. We are now in a fast paced, shallow, action age on the AAA -front and no amount of pointing out flaws on forums will change that. BioWare would rather sink trying to make a hit action game than go back to slow burning RPGs. Not that they could re-hire all the talent that would need or persuade EA to fund it. My suggestion is either enjoy this game on its own terms or move onto the indie / kickstarter scene. I'm sure you'd have more fun with eg Grimrock 2 or Divinity: Original Sin than trying to persuade people that DA:I is less than perfect.

Well if only people who bought the game were allowed to credibility speak their minds, it would hurt the discussion imho. People who bought the game tend to be the ones with a ... positive prejudice. I mean if you're prepared to spend $60++ on something, you've probably mostly decided in your mind it's worth the cost.

If it for that reason then I agree it's fine. But I believe that just as much as I believe politicians resigning "to spend more time with their family". If people in reality (ie behind the press release bs version) want to stay on at their employer and make "nice things" such as deep conventional RPGs, but their employer has decided to stop making such things for corporate strategy reasons and instead go for shallow action games to appeal to the widest common denominator... then I believe it is a shame.

A shame Brent Knowles and Dan Tudge left BioWare - they actually wanted to design RPGs. By the way, MiG29's and F-15 can co-exist. My local Polish airfoce is currently doing joint training of their Fulcrums with a pair of US F-15's. So far both aircraft appear to be getting along like a house on fire.

I dunno, I never get bored of curry or beer or vanilla flavor ice cream. I don't need a different variety each time. /poor excuse. One thing often missed out by those who talk of 'generic' and 'cliches' is that a story (imho) stands 5% on what it's about (synopsis) and 95% on how it is told (delivery). In the latter area DA:O does very well. Outstandingly well by game standards. Another thing often missed out is that DA:O was probably not about the big evil orc and dragon invasion, but the much more sinister Morrigan angle. Flemeth planned the whole thing by Morrigan's own words, and they care little for the Blight. They want the soul of the Old God. That's why your PC refusing the request and therefore dying at the end is a huge ending with vast cutscenes and epilogues. If it were not for the rape and pillage of the DA franchise in rencent comics and cartoons, this could have been one of the biggest plot twists/reveals in recent gaming history. Sadly I suspect Morrigan will make some silly cameo and kiss the inquisitor for old times' sake, but that lovely plot hook will never see the developement it hinted at and which - if my reading is correct - the franchise would so desperately deserve.

While TW2 got serious downvotes from me for Branching Story, I won't deny that it was a fascinating experiment. That's just wonderous! For me any RPG worth its salt must have branching content to respect your decisions. Would you prefer the game asked you to chose between a good action A and evil acition B, both of which lead to on-rails outcome Y? Anyhow, TW3's combat will be too action-y for my taste, and DA:I will just be a baby-first Skyrim clone with creepy romance designed by EA suits, so I won't get either unless by some miracle, a lot of people here say one of those pre-conceptions was wrong. The real poll should be Pillars of Eternity or Divinity Original Sin...

Whelp, you need to make those 5 milliseconds into a minute using bulletime. I meant not being able to think even a little about how you 'do' a level before it jumping on you and tearing you to shreds. Bullet time has a 'cooldown' (so as an RPG gamer I try to hoard it in case there's something impossilbe around the next corner) and in any event it just turns the manic level action down half a notch. Often if you dont get all but one (or all) of the 10 bad guys during bullet time, you're back to the last checkpoint. (sorry for off topic)

I disliked Max Payne 3 - totally cinematic, totally frenetic and totally scripted. And this from someone who enjoyed the original Modern Warfare and Battlefield Bad Company 2. I don't mind any shooter that lets you think at least 5 milliseconds before you're forced to fire at stuff. Perhaps run to a better spot or pick up a rocket launcher to the left etc. Not with MP3. You stop for 5 milliseconds and the devs will kill you off straight away, and plant your sorry hind area at the last checkpoint (often behind a loooooong cutscene).

I suppose it depends what gender the mount is? Same sex horseplay would probably be too risque with all the homophobes trolling the forums. Unless they cop out and make mounts player-sexual too, I suppose. To all the naysayers - I can easily see this as a DLC idea.

I will never get the trash mob argument for DA:O. A game where each encounter was different, hand placed and lethal real quick if you weren't seriously paying attention and micro managing. Sure the game has its faults - classes are unbalanced, loot is uninspiring, art direction is controversial (some think bland) but not encounter design. Almost all poeple that say "trash mobs" are those on consoles or who played on Normal. Anyone who says nightmare was boringly easy is lying because the game has too many cases where enemies get their aoes on you a split second before you get yours in (eg after a cuscene). I replayed this game about 5 times on Nightmare just for the combat. Enemies have traps, terrain, scripting, class abilities, spells, teleports, resistances, elemental attacks. There are ice patches, oil patches, destructible barricades, dog pits you can open to help you, ballistas you can fire. Honestly there is no game I can think the term "filler' applies less to. Compare and contrast with 3 waves of functionally identical (insert enemy name here) mid air spawns in DA2.

With a heavy heart I have to second that opinion that the droid planet is not all that much fun (not to be confused with the extra droid level in the restored content mod, which is great). I *hate* to say things like that because I appreciate the enormous work that was clearly put into making something out of (almost) nothing by poeople who clearly love this game even more than I do, but, yeah, m478 is definitely missing a magic ingredient somewhere, imho. I'd pay huge $$$ for a Kickstarter to do an add-on M478 the way god intended, but it's unlikely to happen because of the things MCA mentioned in the recent Eurogamer interview (obscure IP rights to various stuff). Re lightsabres - dual wield all the way, crafting lots of upgrages if you want to make easy combat even easier. Single blade for the cool factor and extra challenge

One essential is to speak a certain line to HK-47 early on, otherwise you will miss out on some great content. Some quest walkthroughs are obviously obsolete, so don't stress if you speak to X and he doesn't do Y. He was never meant to. Someone else will do Y and also give you Z (sometimes google doesn't help - you'll need to stay alert). Some dialog trees are also different, so if you want to hear new stuff, don't follow all the 'max influence' maps too slavishly.

Why do you believe I haven't played DA2 - because I make a criticism of it that you disagree with? (FYI I did play it) I disliked almost all the party characters in DA2 regardless of their orientation (in contrast to DA: O) simply because - imho - they were written for a young teen audience with the depth and issues that are relevant to that demographic. If I were 15 or 16, I'd probably have connected better with them. My point was though, that if Gaider wants to make a social comment with a character, he should, in my opinion, try not to make him a petty whiney emo terrorist. At least for my demographic - teen mileage may differ.

Not to derail the thread, but yes, it is a pity that a character seen by gamers as 'gay' (though in 'reality', 'player sexual') is a two dimensional whiney emo terrorist that comes on way too strong (in my understanding there was no way to let him down gently without him getting petty/unpleasant/earning a heap of rivalry points). On topic - they should leave the warden alone or run the same risk as any film adaptation of a book. And the film in this case would be like a low budget aimed at a different audience than the book. However I doubt at this point there'll be much overlap between the people who bought DA: O and those that will buy DA:I, so I guess Bio can defile away to their hearts' content.