Humodour

Amen.

Wow, that sounds awesome man. Pictures would be sweet.

Awww!

Do you often post in threads without reading a single post?

That's what I'm thinking. I'm not too far off (+200hp at the moment), though. Yeah. You'll probably want 60 str soon enough, too (by about lvl 40) and after that I'd just use charms and stuff if you need more. There's never any point putting more than 1pt in static, of course. It's been a favourite since I started playing back in Day 1 (what, 6 years ago?). Well, for some builds putting 10 or 20 points in static field is worth it because it means you hit the entire screen and then some without them even seeing you. Could work with, say, an enchant sorc or Fire Wall sorc. Yeah, those three are all synergistic IIRC. If you like chain lightning you could pump it instead of charged bolt. Good luck with Big D.

So, it looks like Dragon Age is a highly moddable and extensible game. Edit: And yeah, dumb PR stunt. Very dumb.

J.C. Denton could make flying attack robots inside his skull. What can Thorton do?

I didn't like that. It seemed too lazy a way to have the story progress by presenting an illusion of choice that was all too easily dispelled. Well to be fair, they originally designed it so you could choose to side with UNATCO/MJ12 if you saw fit. I believe time constraints prevented this. Likely they'd already made the MJ12 map and stuff, so decided you'd be captured and sent there as a prisoner instead. A left-over is the sound of a chopper in Battery Park - Jock is actually on the map waiting, like Paul said he would be.

Riddle me this: what's the DSM-IV's distinction between drug addiction and drug dependence? No, really. I've not been able to figure that one out.

Ofcourse it was awesome. The bands were able to play for ME, witness MY greatness, and had the oppurtunity to see ME in person. I am that awesome. I can attest to this.

I started that Fire Wall sorc I mentioned above. Currently level 28 about to kill Mephisto. It's fairly fun. Re Muso's circlet suggestion: gamble them until your money runs out. Then gamble them some more. You get a rare circlet like every 5th gamble, and it's got godly mods on it. Nothing else is worth gambling. Never gamble body armour - way too expensive. It'd be a good idea to gamble gloves, belt, boots, helm, in order to cook up some decent mods if you don't already have nice rare ones. They're cheap, and rares are common (hah!). Look for on circlets: Magic Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction, + life, + mana, + defence, + mana per kill, + resistances, + run speed. And you need more vitality. About 80 to 100 by level 30, and 200+ by level 60, ideally. I'd stop pumping dexterity and energy, and get strength to 50 and then focus on vitality. Static field is your friend (as you seem to have figured) even with just one point. It'll get up to 5 or more probably once you've got some +skills gear. Even in hell it's worth casting it 2 or 3 times to cut down HALF of the monster's HP (at which point it stops working). You can put points in chain lightning, but I'd personally stick with Lightning and Charged Bolt alone... unless you plan to make a pure lightning sorc (Which is OK if you often play with friends and have a tough act 2 merc to tank immunes). And you got a 40% FCR amulet? Wow!

Good. Clearly rating board can see perversion when they see it.

I saw Radiohead last week at Roskilde.. and Muse the year before that - they are superb live! I'm jealous. I've had the misfortune of missing all those peeps at every damn Big Day Out concert so far, which is bad when you consider that it's one of the biggest music festivals in the world, right here on my doorstep.

From memory everyone was avoidable. I'm pretty sure last playthrough I just ran from Walton Simons at the final Area 51 confrontation I'm not counting baton/crossbow/prod as killing, but I suppose blowing up Bob Page as the ending sequence sort of counts... although that doesn't happen if you merge with Helios right? It'd be hard I imagine since you can't knock out commandos, but I've avoided them plenty of times before in a normal game. It helps that people give up their search if you hide after causing a scene. I remember once spending quite a while trying to take out Gunther at battery park. I had taken out all the MJ12, then I took out all his bots and men, but he just wouldn't die. I kind of figured he was invincible after the 6th rocket I shot directly at his head. It was weird having to just stand there and die to progress the game, though. I'd call it bad design but I've never heard anybody complain they dumped the game because of it, and I can't think of a better way to emulate 'game over'/capture (similar thing with the start of NOLF2) without giving the entire thing away prematurely. It was good to be given a choice of approach even in forced failure though - it made it less noticable.

It'd be cool not because it think it's a particularly interesting playstyle personally (I love stealth, but some ****ers just deserve lead poisoning), but because it would be a strong indication of the game's scope and non-linearity.

Would you mind digging that thread up? I have an interest in alternate energy 'cause I studied it a bit in some of my courses at uni. For all intents and purposes, the use of hydrogen as a storage method seems inevitable, so I'm confused how it could be agreed to be "varying degrees of bad". I'm especially befuddled because many of the major car manufacturers and oil companies are pushing it (I think it's BMW or Mercedes-Benz that plans to completely phase in hydrogen for all its cars by 2015), so I don't see how people have a choice, nor how they conceive it would be a bad decision economically (maybe fossil fuels will never run out?). Edit: Oh bugger me, I thought you were talking about hydrogen.

lol.

I don't think you need to worry about the RPG market being dominated by soft RPGs. The growth of computer gaming as an entertainment medium essentially dictates success in the industry is easier, and with that it's easier for a niche market game to be financially viable. Of course, the flood of soft RPGs might give you a distorted view, but really how often did hard RPGs come out in the past anyway? I don't think that rate is any less now; it simply hasn't increased, either.

That's kind of the point. Any title that sells millions is much more than just "financially viable".

mil

Wow, Fenghuang, that's totally awesome man if you just replace all those bands with RHCP, QOTSA, SOAD, NIN and maybe Muse or Radiohead.

I fail to see a problem here?

lol. But dude, you were just recently telling me Blizzard would never make Diablo 3 because WoW makes them more money in a month than it would in 10 years. Dragon Age would sell millions of copies because it's a Bioware game. They've earnt that reputation at least.

Hover your mouse cursor over your 'Defence'. It should say your block chance. I'd just try to keep it above 50% for now personally. The max is 75%. Pelta Lunata is awesome. :D Yeah, none in energy. Just use sapphires in socketed armour and helms if you really need some. I'm making a Firewall/Frozen Orb sorc. It's good because firewall does massive damage but requires only 40 skill points to max out. By level 60 or so I'd be finished, with the rest of my skill points 'gravy'. I'd have two massive damage spells, immunes would fall, and it'd be quite fun. I'll have to grab an act 2 Holy Freeze merc, because his slow is cumulative with cold spell slow, which helps anchor monsters inside the firewall.

*scratches head* I don't see how you arrive anywhere close to that thought for either game. Both games are still a work in progress and little info has been released about either. They have just as a good a chance to be terrible as they do to be great. It's nice you are an optimist, but it doesn't mean much as to how things will actually turn out. It's not hard if you bother to read the interviews, previews and dev posts here with a neutral mindset. Honestly, you know what I like, and it's often the same as you: complexity, depth, details. But I can see when a game has potential to be awesome. AP might not have unlimited ammo, it may have few weapons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have details elsewhere. I think that between the skills, gadgets, weapon upgrades, superspy abilities, and purported emphasis on branching non-linearity (in the good Deus Ex way) there'll be a lot going for this game. Aliens on the other hand has Sega and Obsidian wetting their proverbial pants (and this isn't some new idealistic indie game studio), is based on a new and solid home-brew engine, seems to be the culmination of their experience (good and bad) on KOTOR 2 and NWN 2, and sounds pretty sneaky-awesome from what little Josh and co have let slip (explicitly and implicitly). I'll be the first to lament these games being garbage Bioware consoles clones if that's what they end up being. But at this point I can't see that happening.