Gromnir

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!

why nebulous? why should it be a mystery figuring out how much impact cunning has on rogue efficacy in combat? why is a mystery figuring out the relative impact of levels and ability scores on damage potential? Gromnir does X damage with his mighty axe o' hewing. ok, but why? this kinda thing were particular annoying for our rogue and mage builds. spellpower or magic or whatever were important to figuring out efficacy o' spells, but were there an in-game device or explanation that told us the degree magic altered the efficacy o' spells. am still not certain how cunning impacted various combat actions. why the mystery? "put points into cunning because it will make you a better rogue combatant." how? why? what were the mystery? ... the fact that a developer not even seem to know the mechanics is maybe more disconcerting. is there a rationale for the lack o' transparency? we spend points at each level, but we don't honest know the relative value o' those points. does that seem likes good game design? perhaps we is missing something, some Truth o' gameplay design that makes obfuscation desirable, but we don't get it... so please explain. HA! Good Fun! ps am not only referencing combat. is our understanding that a high enough cunning could effective replace levels of trap disarming... but am not knowing how or why or to what degree.

tactics as a skill were additional annoying for Gromnir BECAUSE we didn't use more than a couple o' the the tactic slots. meet a joinable npc character and half o' their total skill points is invested in combat tactics skill? #@$%. as for the gameplay hours thing... we has typical been getting more hours o' gameplay outta bio games than the announced guestimates. am wondering if any mechanic has been added to replace fatigue... is simply a cooldown period for powers? am not a fan o' additional dumbing down o' already simple rules. ... oh, and bio should make the mechanics more transparent. when Gromnir chooses to learn a fireball spell/ability in most games, we knows the damage the fireball will cause and the range the spell will have as well as the area of the effect. no mystery. choosing powers and abilities shouldn't be a mystery... shouldn't needs to trial and error every power and ability. trying to figure out the math behind the da rules were inexplicably difficult. no doubt somebody figured out the formula for rogue backstabbery, but that shouldn't have been something people had to dig 'round in the bowels o' the engine to learn. HA! Good Fun!

btw, shep is necessarily gonna suck compared to virtual all other characters in the game. shep has to be written so that he can be good, bad, aggressive, passive, friendly, and abrasive all at the same time. not only does shep have to be vague and general enough so as to work equal well as good and bad, but the good and bad gotta be broad enough to work for the variation 'tween Gromnir's and wrath's and tales individual notions o' good and bad. mordin is bioware's character... can be distinct and defined. shep is Your character, and You is the multitude o' game purchasers. is a dead-end approach 'cause it can never be truly fulfilling. complain 'bout shep is valid, but people seems to ignore the fact that shep cannot actually be much better than he is. the approach to development o' shep is so necessarily broad as to make it impossible to makes anything beyond a mediocre character outta him/her. HA! Good Fun!

the kotor version o' hk-47 were a one-trick pony with very little actual character development. the kotor2 version considerably more development and were better written. however, as games such as motb reveal, chrisA and obsidian can becomes far too concerned with the character concept 'stead o' developing that actual character, so am not certain how much o' a pass we is gonna give 'em in this instance. regardless, wrath is wrong, at least in part. no doubt we can all name movie and comic characters that has been vastly improved by a new writer taking over the authorship duties... doesn't happen so much with novels, but is common in other media. HA! Good Fun!

The tactics thing was a wonderful inclusion. In fact, assuming the tactics actually work, then the game devs DID handle it. Unless you're implying that the characters should always behave in some other predefined way with no influence over how it works is somehow a positive :S I'm just saying the basic AI was awful, unlike say, ME2 where Squad Power Usage was actually okay. I liked that tactics too, but creating your own AI shouldn't be necessary while playing on difficulties other than the hardest one (difficulty was another problem DA1 had, it was far from constant). that reminds us. does anybody know if combat tactics is still a freaking skill? of all the dumb things from da:o, making customizable party member ai linked to a purchased skill were the single most moronic bit o' game design we can recall from ANY game we has played in a decade. HA! Good Fun!

Kreia, HK-47. TBH, I can't find an example of bad writing. bad writing is not so hard to find in kotor2, but is a different flavor o' bad than were kotor incarnations. visas mar? *shudder* young writers frequent indulge in philosophical exposition and self-indulgent introspection, but chrisA ain't that young no more. such shortcomings is less/non apparent in a game likes ps:t 'cause the setting actually benefited from the philosophy-for-dummies approach. overall, kotor2 writing were very good, but there were some exceptionally bad stuff as well. ... side note: making darth nihilus sounds like an adult from a charlie brown cartoon were an incredibly stoopid idea. not bad writing, but am just saying... HA! Good Fun!

So it's better than Planescape: Torment (93), but worse than Oblivion (95) and NWN (95). am gonna assume that different journalists were assigned the task o' reviewing each respective game. is best not to get too focused on raw number scores as they do not mean much w/o proper context. HA! Good Fun! ps we still got a wait-and-see approach regarding da2... but the demo will makes a big difference. rather than listen to mr. boner and other reviewers, we will try our self and then makes a decision on whether to wait until this becomes a bargain bin offering.

So? ME is an infinitely inferior attempt to copy KOTOR in a lot of ways, that doesn't speak well for ME. I'm not talking about flaura and fauna, I'm talking about the society of each planet and their distinguishing characteristics, that was the interesting part. As far as star forge being stupid, that's a matter of opinion, I was quite interested in finding out what that thing was. It was certainly a lot less stupid than a giant evil space toaster. again, you fail to distinguish. the society o' each planet? HA! again, we get at least as much from me as from kotor. am not certain what you has imagined into kotor. is the reapers the "giant evil space toaster," 'cause that could be used to describe the star forge better than the reapers... honest. heck, the star forge even got that shiny chrome art deco thing, and it could actually spit out toast product on demand. reapers, on the other hand, looked like enormous cuttlefish as 'posed to tasters. kotor were clich

okie dokie... but am recalling that you liked kotor, no? a hero and his companions must band together and overcome obstacles small and large as they fights to save the village/nation/world/galaxy/universe from the predations o' an Evil force. gots different window dressing, but basic scenario o' me and kotor is very similar. in fact, the greatest strength o' the kotor story is that it is unapologetic 'bout the manner in which it parallels the major plot points o' the original star wars trilogy... another save-the-galaxy-from-evil story. Just because two plots can be reduced to the same summary, doesn't mean they're equivalent. The KOTOR plot was serviceable, you had an immensly powerful evil dictator modeled on real-life evil dictators who our plucky crew of heroic misfits had to take down. The real genius of KOTOR was what they did with that plot premise and with Star Wars universe. They created a mysterious goal to work towards (the Star Forge) and with that as motivation sent you to various planets to solve the problems there. The difference from ME is that each planet was unique, had its own character, and had a problem directly related to its character and theme. Which answers your other question of how to explore lore through gameplay without resorting to heavy exposition. They were a bunch of bumbling fools to start with, Simon bar Sinister could come up with a better plot to take over the galaxy than them. anybody else notice that wrath's attempt at distinguishing made kotor and me seems More similar rather than more distinct? am also noting that you didn't help clarify the exposition question either. me used each planet to delve into local flora and fauna at least as much as did kotor... and me didn't have no stoopid star forge nonsense neither. HA! Good Fun!

My biggest concern it's that for such a well crafted universe with an immense amount of information in the codex, barely none of it is integrated or it's shown in the main story. There is a wide gap between the Mass Effect universe and the Mass Effect games. *scratches noggin* so, how do you propose the developers go about integrating? surely not through tedious exposition, right? so, give examples o' stuff you wanna see in game, and then tell us how you integrate so that it all fits. HA! Good Fun! How about the same way it's integrated in the real world: with a direct link to the physiology of the species. . huh? explain. is you asking for a much more detailed codex, or what? if you want it integrated in the story, then is you actually asking for the notoriously tedious exposition we already referenced? take star wars as a reference. how much o' the details o' alien physiology and politics were explained in the core story? heck, we never even really got no explanation o' the jedi order during the entirety o' the first three movies. there is a reason why such tedium is avoided, and why explanations o' midichlorians (sp?) is seeming horribly out-of-place when they pops up in the midst o' story telling. sure, you can utilize the drell to explain drell and hanhar (sp?) culture, but is awkward even when done to the limited degree we saw in me2. imagine if more such details were crammed into game... and you think such is a good thing? HA! Good Fun!

My biggest concern it's that for such a well crafted universe with an immense amount of information in the codex, barely none of it is integrated or it's shown in the main story. There is a wide gap between the Mass Effect universe and the Mass Effect games. *scratches noggin* so, how do you propose the developers go about integrating? surely not through tedious exposition, right? so, give examples o' stuff you wanna see in game, and then tell us how you integrate so that it all fits. HA! Good Fun!

we lived in chicago during our high school years... 60609. HA! Good Fun!

okie dokie... but am recalling that you liked kotor, no? a hero and his companions must band together and overcome obstacles small and large as they fights to save the village/nation/world/galaxy/universe from the predations o' an Evil force. gots different window dressing, but basic scenario o' me and kotor is very similar. in fact, the greatest strength o' the kotor story is that it is unapologetic 'bout the manner in which it parallels the major plot points o' the original star wars trilogy... another save-the-galaxy-from-evil story. *shrug* is almost never the plot issues that is insurmountable, irredeemable or unsalvageable... 'less we is talking 'bout some o' the nutty anime stuff. HA! Good Fun!

had to google. we work 95814 and live 95683... just in case a change o' residence is necessitated. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling music from a single game that genuine impressed us enough that we consciously recognize that the game were made better by the inclusion o' the music: iwd. as for the plot, people place far too much emphasis 'pon plot... particularly when speaking o' the fantasy and sci-fi lite genres. is our opinion that no fantasy plot has ever survived close inspection without considerable warts becoming apparent. that being said, there were some questionable choices made by the writers o' me2, but nothing we see as irrevocably damning. heck, as far as the aforementioned plot is concerned, almost nothing noteworthy happened in me2 following the prologue. shep dies and is resurrected after two years... and then a bunch o' unnecessary stuff happens on a ship populated by people with f'ed up families. at the conclusion o' me1 the reapers were coming to wipe out galactic civilization. at the conclusion o' me2 the reapers were coming to wipe out galactic civilization. am guessing that the human-reaper hybrid evolution is gonna be a Big Deal in me3, but it won't genuine change nothing. shep (or whomever is the me3 protagonist) is still gonna needs save the galaxy from the reaper threat... no matter how wacky they makes the threat. again, the me plot is not unsalvageable 'cause o' me2, 'cause nothing genuine important happened in me2. HA! Good Fun!

we actually does different. alt codes is great, but we use so infrequent that we only know a couple. we copy from word using ctrl + ' + vowel. example: ctrl + ' + a =