Gromnir

actually, "to be fair," is a small box to be checked (not a shiny button) on the online tab o' the options menu if you wish to share data... and the box is checked as a default. naughty-naughty. lord knows we never knew the box were there until it were pointed out to us some number o' months after playing. am guessing that Gromnir were not the only person who failed to read all the options menu boxes. we looks for specific video, audio, and gameplay options rather than double-checking all such. HA! Good Fun!

I'd think that the people with a "different" taste would make double sure that their data gets to Bioware. Certainly, if you keep your data away from Bioware, what right do you have to complain about them no longer designing the kind of game you'd like to play? am agreeing with nep... but at the same time we can very much understand a different perspective. datamining, particularly w/o informing us that we is gonna have our data mined, feels more than a little intrusive. if bio were to ask us if they coulds monitor our da:o or da2 gameplay so as to get a better notion o' actual player behavior, am betting we would volunteer. find out after the fact that bio had been digging through our digital dirty laundry is... different. 'course, knowing you is being observed changes behavior and taints results. regardless, Gromnir can see reasons for being reluctant to share with bio, particularly in light o' the fact that they didn't do us the courtesy o' asking for permissions. is... rude. HA! Good Fun!

I'd say that a story-driven game benefits from clear obstacles to overcome and a strong personification of those obstacles. This doesn't have to be in the form of a villain. *sigh* as da2 is a crpg, the protagonist need necessarily be ill-defined. 'cause the protagonist gotta be functionally playable for potentially millions o' different people, the writers cannot develop the main character with the kinda detail one would expect from a novel's protagonist... or even the protagonist from a short story, movie, comic book or whatever. additionally, a crpg story is built 'round some sorta gameplay, which is 'posed to be visceral and engaging, but chopping up darkspawn into little darkspawn chunks is not gonna be creating particularly compelling story elements, is it? yeah, gameplay does, and should add to story development, but is always gonna be tough to create the necessary emotion outta squad-based tactical combat encounters. so, since the traditional main character is gonna be relative vague, from whence does the writer build his story? should be obvious that you gotta create emotional investment and if our vague hero is overcoming an ill-defined conflict, you has little chance to make the necessary emotional link for a compelling story to develop. am genuine surprised that the biowarians made same mistake in yet another game. HA! Good Fun!

Really? Guess I never spec'd Leliana right. I always found Zev as a duelist more useful then Leliana as an archer. Will have to roll an Archer next time I play DA:O. Archers in DA:O are rather badly designed. Most of their talent are completely useless, but Scattershot is rather overpowered. In Awakening, the same trend continues, expect the talent Accuracy now gets archers God Mode. Attack and DPS 1.5 to 2 times that of a melee DPS Warrior, with >75% crit chance? Right-o. There's a good article on how to build effective archers using their passive abilities on the DA wiki: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Archery:_A...icient_Approach archery is poorly designed and balanced in da:o. at low and mid levels, a dedicated archer is a liability to your party offering little in the way o' offensive or defensive support. at high levels a da archer is boss-killer that doles out ridiculous 'mounts o' damage. what? was hoping that bio would take the opportunity to fix the archery skills in da2. based on what we has seen from the demo, the biowarians fixed archery so that it is no longer overpowered only at high levels... archery is now wacky powered at ALL levels. congrats to bio. HA! Good Fun!

two quick observations... 1) we didn't see any examples o' writing duplicity in the da2 demo. 2) the developers has made such claims in the past, and been wrong. whether they were intentional fibbing or not is up to you to decide. *shrug* bio has simplified and streamlined many aspects o' their games. self-identified hardcore fans has been less than welcoming o' such changes as they see such simplification as dumbing-down a medium that ain't all that complex in the first place. is bioware writers so clumsy that they need the dialogue wheel to make intent apparent? is the Average Gamer so unlettered as to require dialogue wheel guidance to navigate successfully through dialogues? however, we will note where bioware writing becomes less engaging, the dialogue wheel makes easier for us to skip through sections o' the game w/o actually missing anything. two word emote, then skip through the vo. oddly, maria contrasted with paragon v. renegade, but the demo so far were more polarized than any previous game we has seen so far. no need to even read the dialog choices as they is all coded with halo, anvil or comedy tags. yippie. bio: simplifying and streamlining crpgs since 2003. HA! Good Fun!

Definitely. OTOH I don't think there was a command queue in BG1-2 either, but I could be misremembering. It's been a couple of years... Also, the PS3 version of the DA2 demo downloaded while I was typing this message. Love Sony servers, speediest 1,7 gigs of my life. ;D why bring up bg? we specific compared the console controls o' the da2 demo to kotor, so it weren't Gromnir that tried to bring bg into the discussion. the reasons we initially gave for comparing kotor and da2 were that combat felt similar 'cause camera were so tight and 'cause the player weren't really necessary to succeed in combat. mindless button mashing in the da2 demo did not slow down Gromnir one bit. in our ps we observed that with the combat queue, kotor actually had Console Controls that were more intuitive than functional than da2. bg? not really relevant. however, since you did raise the decade old spectre o' bg, we will confess that we is happy to see that bio did not regress to old infinity engine options for their warrior class. once combat started in the ie games, tactical considerations for fighter-type combatants was limited to proper positioning. attack. attack. attack. attack. attack. maybe switch between range and melee were the big tactical consideration? *shrug* peoples scoff at d&d 4e (and Gromnir is one such person) but the addition o' powhaz that is usable during every combat encounter is a welcome change from the old ie games. HA! Good Fun!

Bioware, if they so choose, can hide responses in circles. You might have 3 different symbols, but only one answer. If texts were in lines, Bioware could still do that but players would most certainly notice the lack of optionsd. Personally I think it's cost cutting move and the fact that modern players don't finish the game at all or finish it only once, so why should Bioware care if all 3 symbols have same answer (maybe just slight variation in VO). Just becaue the lines use the same VO doesn't mean that they'll have the same in-game results. no, it not mean that there will always be same in-game results... but that is frequent the case. regardless, is lazy and cheap, and it is a shortcut that tends to lead to more uninspired lines o' dialogue from the protagonist. the writer has already identified to the player what is the protagonist's intent, so convey meaning becomes less complex but also more crude. takes the art out o' the writing for sake o' simplicity. is a trend in bio games to simplify. simple ain't bad, but to craft simple requires much skill if one is to avoid dumbing-down. da2 can still be a good game, but it does appear to be what many o' us feared it would be: a moderate rushed frankenstein monster amalgam o' da:o and me. maybe the unholy melding o' the two franchises actually works and we all cheer biowarian vision, but... HA! Good Fun! ps we did a disservice to kotor when we compared da2 demo combat to kotor. kotor had the combat queue that were far more intuitive and functional than is the console controls for da2.

am traveling, so we gotta make quick... 1) initial impression were that me2 looked better. we got no particular reason, just feelings. disappointed. 2) the cut-scene full vo dialogues, complete with dialogue wheel , were not a high point. is too little story being developed in the combat heavy demo we played to give a fair assessment o' story and dialogue writing, but the stuff we saw were almost campy... and am not thinking that were intended. 3) for a combat focused demo, we were enjoying the pc combat... good sign. we played all three classes, but not all approaches--played as a dw rogue, but not as an archer. gut reaction were that rogues is very effective combatants. sword and board makes for great tanks, but 2h were kinda underwhelming as we didn't see some marked damage increase to balance out the increased vulnerability. and mages... well, once the difficulty is turned up allowing for friendly fire, we suspect that mages is gonna be far less effective, particular 'cause o' the craptacular camera. 4) the camera sucks. absence o' tactical view makes this game feels more like a kotor wannabe than a da:o sequel. heck, we played xbox and pc version o' the demo and as we were not familiar with xbox controls (which seemed kinda awkward) all we did with the rogue were a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,x,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,a,b,a,a,a,a,a,a,a... had no idea what we were targeting half the time, but it didn't seems to matter. were better on the pc, but camera still made us feels like we were playing kotor rather than da. 5) played on a marginal pc, and performance were only noticeable bad during dialogues. go figure. oh, and while balance is clear not as important in a sp game as is multi, it sure as hell ain't something to be dismissed. make all classes fun, not balanced. fine. but who wants to be playing the obvious gimped class? same goes for spells and weapons. includes dozens o' spells and abilities, but makes some clear more efficacious than others? results become obvious, and the ability to choose powers and abilities becomes a bit o' a joke. the developer goal should be to make equal fun, but not necessarily equal powered. 'course it should also be obvious that obvious overpowered or underpowered features or classes is making game less fun rather than more enjoyable. duh. more thoughts later, but we gotta catch a flight. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna guess that the problem were more to do with the board monkeys inability to define "legitimate." no doubt priestly and co. were prepared to delete any thread related to a pirated demo, but what to do when a few members o' the master race goes ahead with an early release demo so as to be matching their magazine distribution? is not pirated, but it don't correspond to the release schedule neither. so, is it legitimate? *shrug* perhaps priestly chose to ere on the side o' caution and delete. is admitted silly, but is easy to see how a knee-jerk deletion policy could take hold, particularly in the absence o' anybody with genuine authority. HA! Good Fun!

it is doubtful that bio has much say in the matter. ea will be releasing the demo. it may benefit ea to release sooner than planned if they genuine has some reasoning for wanting to reach X number o' demo downloads, but am not having any idea what logistical obstacles is involved. is the demo multi-platform? if it is, am guessing that microsoft and sony gots input as well. regardless, am doubting the decision process is as simple as we might wish. HA! Good Fun!

try and convince bioware that so many things they did in kotor to enhance cinematic storytelling didn't actual work. is a particular difficult task given the fact that kotor were such an undeniable success. overcoming the mistakes we made in victory is a far different challenge than identifying the errors that led to our defeat. HA! Good Fun!

you should be happy. most of the da2 "improvements" is directed at making their sequel play more like kotor... going "cinematic," whatever that means. bring in camera. has a single identifiable protagonist. simplify combat. etc. HA! Good Fun!

I do think that ME2 missed an opportunity to require some sacrifice by the player, making the ending more of a qualified success. But, really, are there any single-player games outside the various "strategy" genres where the player "failing" yeilds anything other than a death screen and a reload? the biowarians insist that the Average Gamer cannot handle failure. more than once has it been pointed out to the crpg developers north o' the 49th parallel that heroic stories often include heroic failure. what a story protagonist learns in defeat is often vital to character growth and such missteps is typical more compelling dramatic fodder than the heroic success. nevertheless, biowarian experience tells 'em that you, the gamer, will refuse to accept failure and that you will reload obsessively no matter how clear the developers present their no-win scenario. *shrug* sounds like hokum. me1 were achieving an incremental step in the right direction with the player having to choose between death o' kaiden (sp?) and ashley. were not a significant failure, but the Gamer experienced some loss... a literal sacrifice. there were no mass hysteria resulting from the virmire choice, were there? nevertheless, the "suicide mission" in me2 could be completed without a single fallen comrade. am not suggesting that game failure need necessarily include a body count, but the player (not the character) needs to feel some loss for there to be a meaningful failure. multiple aspects o' me2 were showing developmental regression. sad. HA! Good Fun!

alas, we never did get around to playing ap. we were both intrigued and concerned 'bout the development, so we decided to wait for release and reviews. the reviews were less than stellar, and the reports o' bugginess were enough to discourage us from an initial purchase. eventual we will get around to playing ap. back to da2, 'cause this thread will be censored if we does not return to the titular topic... so the rules is gonna remain nebulous so that we not have an idea 'bout what abilities modify which powers and to what degree. we also know that bioware decided to make da rogues more special by taking talents away from the warrior class. in addition, it has been revealed that Gaider thinks very little of the female fans o' da as he has made fenris(sp?) a romancable character. ... am forgetting what our question were. ... oh yeah, how long do you thinks it will be before da2 hits the bargain bin? on a more serious note, am expecting that many questions will be answered with the release o' the demo. HA! Good Fun!

then perhaps all credit should instead go to Gromnir. the boards we do not frequent is "elss tyoelrant." no? HA! Good Fun!

am not gonna pile-on save to note that we stopped regular posting at bioware sometime after the dragon age development began to drag. pretty much every known game issue had been discussed to death, and bio couldn't (or wouldn't) give more info. the site got stale. then something strange happened. with the lack o' new game issues to be discussing, the stuff that became popular bio-board fodder were increasingly foreign to Gromnir: how would sex be implemented in da:o, gay romance, customizable footwear, etc. time passed, but after mass effect 1 were released we made a brief reappearance to discuss some game development aspects... stuff we hoped bio would use/avoid in da:o. made some negative comments 'bout the dialogue wheel as implemented in me. we were promptly banned. were kinda surprised at how little we were bothered by the banning, but given how little we were posting there anyways... *shrug* also, most message boards communities develop an inexplicable esprit de corps mentality. "if you are not with us, then you are against us." is not just bio. regular posters can be critical o' (insert board sponsor here) but n00bs gets slammed pretty hard whenever a criticism is directed at (insert board sponsor here). obsidian boards community is perhaps small enough to avoid such nonsense... or maybe the posters and developers is simply more tolerant o' criticism. regardless, 'tween the ubiquitous romance threads and the We Are Bioware's Army nonsense, Gromnir holds no desire to post at the bio boards. is simply exhausting. okay, it looks as if we went ahead and piled-on. oh well. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, Gromnie would enjoy that. in fact, compared to a cloth map o' fereldan or plastic dice we would much prefer the graphs as part o' a collector's edition package. is a sickness. even so, nobody from bio ever explained to us how the various ability scores actual modified various skills, abilities and powhaz... which is just plain weird given that da:o were a rpg. gots points, but don't know relative worth o' points. so, give us the formulae, and Gromnir will makes our own charts. HA! Good Fun! ps if in a ce we could get an action figure o' sten, complete with attachable/detachable horns, we might be willing to pass on the graphs.

I agree that putting the math directly in the GUI would be dumb, but why can't we have a 'detailed' description of the power/secondary characteristic in an optional window that gives us the math behind it? Kinda like how we would get the history of our items in DA:O by opening a different window. That information should also be in the manual, the fact that it wasn't made DA:0's manual one of the most useless ever. As a gamer, I still have the terrible, terrible description of the Arrow of Death skill stuck in my throat. some o' the reasons alan has provided for preferring obscurity over clarity is borderline ridiculous. as you and Gromnir noted, there ain't no need for the info to be a direct component o' the gui, and the notion that tmi is the root problem is ignoring the ubiquitous bioware threads wherein peoples attempt to deconstruct dps o' various da:o attacks... is many people who want that info in some way, shape, or form. am suspecting an alternative rationale for biowarian preference o' "nebulous": the da rules are a mess. the thing is, as we already noted earlier, a Computer role-play game need not be streamlined and user-friendly. with a computer to handle all the heavy number crunching, elegance and simplicity becomes luxuries rather than necessities. perhaps the developers realize that spell X is a bit too powerful at higher levels. developers decide that the best solution is not to recreate the spell from scratch, but to implement a progressive penalty. do such similar stuff a few dozen or hundred times, and the rules looks like a mess-- elegance and rationality gets sacrificed on the altar o' practicality. bio ain't trying to create a pretty and rationale rules system. the goal o' bio is to create a fun and enjoyable rule system. am suspecting that if the nightmarish guts o' their cobbled-together-rules is exposed in all their grisly glory, we would see more than a few folks complain. so perhaps bio figures obscurity cheeses off just as many (or less) folks than does revealing their frankenstein system... but we is only hypothesizing. *shrug* ugly rules not bother Gromnir. what does bother us is that in a rpg wherein we spends points to get benefits, we has no real idea what is the relative value o' our point purchases. not matter that da is a computer franchise opposed to a pnp game system; rules obscurity neuters the ability to make meaningful choices. HA! Good Fun!

Ah yes, the simple check box. It's the solution to almost every issue people have with many games. others have already addressed multiple aspects o' the aforementioned post regarding lack o' transparency... and alan's seeming lack o' comprehension. nevertheless, we will take a moment and note that IF as you suggested tmi were the major stumbling block, then yes, check-box solution is a very simple and straightforward solution. the fact that it is simple and straightforward is why alan has no doubt seen its like before now. again, if tmi is the issue, then a box check is ideal 'cause the overwhelmed gamer may save themselves the agony o' their synapses being fried by all that terrible data, whereas the folks who is merely whelmed may choose to wallow in their informational nirvana. dismissing the solution 'cause it is common? look, we get that unlike a pnp system the da rules is far less elegant and simple, but that is no reason to be keeping the rules obfuscated. perhaps a considerable % o' people will be happy to blissfully throw points into skills, abilities and powhaz w/o having a genuine notion o' the relative value o' the points, but am suspecting that more than a handful would like to know how your rules works. those ubiquitous dps threads at the bio boards (albeit not near as popular as the romance threads) should suggest to the developers that a goodly number o' peoples would like to understand the nuts and bolts o' the system, no matter how messy the system is. but hey, there is no ideal solution so obviously it ain't worth trying to come up with a solution, right? HA! Good Fun! ps as bio provided essentially 0 transparency beyond actual damage numbers for da:o, any additional information would be an improvement. am not certain why we should be thankful just 'cause bio chose to make an incremental improvement, especially when alan already noted that the da2 solution will not provide anything approximating an accurate picture o' how those damage numbers is actual generated.

... actually, am gonna change our pov on the torn snaffu. gotta give somebody at black isle credit for how they handled the torn situation. considering how much resources went into torn, for there to be so little fallout is kinda amazing. perhaps fergie can sell snow to an eskimo. dunno, but is actual kinda impressive that such a world-class blunder did not seeming handicap black isle folks. HA! Good Fun!

again, the fact that you is unaware of kreia's presence in torn, alien, ds3 or even ap does not preclude her existence in those titles/dimensions. if you had never played or purchased ps:t it would not reasonable to argue that ravel did not exist in your d&d dimension. therefore, your knowledge or ignorance is not a valid litmus test o' existence. similarly, the release status o' a game does not change existence the bare-naked existence o' a character. also, as you concede that you utilized a crude rhetorical device to merge all d&d dimensions, without producing an actual rationale, Gromnir and others may simply redefine without the need to produce a rationale... though we will take an incremental step and posit that you are mislabeling a gaming system as a dimension. after all, the d&d license has in the past been sold in pieces based 'pon the various gaming worlds. a holder of a digital media ps:t license did not give the license holder the right to produce forgotten realms titles or ravenloft titles. therefore, in the complete absence o' any contrary argument, we will divide as wotc and tsr has seen fit to do in the past. side note: please be aware that we is not not claiming that dimension should be or is as limited as the licensing example provide. however, we will, for the moment, suggest that the definition should be at least so expansive. torn were seeming doomed from the start. the engine that black isle licensed with the intent o' creating torn were not sufficient for developer needs. we have always been surprised at how little scorn and ridicule black isle folks had to endure given the magnitude o' their folly in this matter. HA! Good Fun!

for chuckle value only... am not sure that you wanna open up this can o' worms. keep in mind that chrisa noted in the past that he managed to gets an incarnation o' ravel into every game he worked 'pon. so, depending on how "dimensions" is defined, you could be in for a legion o' kreia/ravel. am suspecting there is a fallout kreia/ravel (or two... or three) and we knows for certain that there is multiple planescape ravels (multiple internal dimensions) as well as at least a few forgotten realm ravel/kreia incarnations. star wars is a given, but there is also the possibilities o' ap and dungeon siege iii... and whether or not dungeon siege iii "exists" is a whole 'nother problem am not certain you wanna face. heck, for those folks with special inside knowledge, torn could represent an addional potential "dimension." your approach is admirable, but quixotic. HA! Good Fun!

It is probably somewhat nebulous because the GUI would start to get loaded with a lot of information. I increased my magic score by 6 and saw one spell go up by 19 points of damage, another go up by 14 points, while another went up by 4. Adding the coefficients for stuff like this to the GUI starts to bog the users down with TMI. Some of the stats like attack and defense also do not scale linearly. The marginal increase derived from incrementing one attribute point increases as you focus more points into your primary combat attribute. I suspect at lower magic scores, increasing my magic score by 6 could very well have smaller increases in the damage of those spells. At the same time, cunning, for example has a clearly marked derived stat of Critical Damage, and when you allocate points to it you can see that it is increasing how much bonus damage your critical strikes do, as well as your character's defense score. Same with your other primary attributes showing the specific increase in health, damage (with DPS), defense (with percentage), attack (with percentage) This solution won't be ideal for all, but no solution would be. The improvement, at least, is that you can see the damage values of your abilities, on top of other effects that are applied (stuns, slows, class combo effects, and so forth) in the description of your abilities now. eh? who said you gotta add to the gui... though if tmi is your genuine concern, then you simply got a box check for those who wish v. those who don't. in any event, "tmi" excuse sounds a bit patronizing, no? the Average Gamer simply cannot handle all that information? *snort* bioware made a less than elegant system, which ain't a genuine problem in a Crpg. when a computer can does all the number crunching instantly, you don't need to have the mechanics be intuitive and simple. that being said, there still ain't no reason to keep the mechanics hidden from the gamer. worst case scenario: put a nice and confusing chart in your pdf manual... or whatever. the thing is, Gromnir gots no freaking idea what is the relative pay-off for 1 point o' cunning v. 1 point o' dex, which SHOULD be sacrilege in a rpg. "This solution won't be ideal for all, but no solution would be." ... next time your boss asks you to find a way to accomplish task/job X, tell him that you can't, 'cause no solution would be ideal for everybody. am curious to hear what response you get. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna man-up and admit that we actually liked the sci-fi version o' the dune saga. we stopped reading the books at the point where leto transforms via sandtrout, and the sci-fi miniseries didn't makes such nonsense more palatable. nevertheless, the sci-fi channel dune stuff offered many excellent performances from noteworthy actors... pleasantly surprised. HA! Good Fun!