Gromnir

games is luxury items, so there is a ceiling price at which most individuals looks for alternatives for their entertainment dollar. sadly, piracy is also an alternative for individuals who will not pay $ x+.01 for a game. dlc is a clever way for publishers to trick folks into exceeding their price ceiling. would Bob spend $90 to purchase da:o? maybe... maybe not. nevertheless, Bob barely flinches at spending +$60 for the game, and +$30 for dlc. does that make sense... is it rational? perhaps not, but publishers has seen how purchasers behave and ignore what purchasers says. look, dlc ain't all evil. how many of us woulda' spent a few extra bucks to play the cut material from bg2. all those largely empty maps that pop up on the world map after you escape from the underdark were 'posed to be populated with content... content that had to be cut so that bio could make their release deadline. and somebody already mentioned kotor2, yes? sounds as if the stone prisoner dlc were similar. 'course, clearly not all dlc is as nobly inspired as alan suggests. much o' the dlc for biowarian games (and the games o' other developers) is a way for bio/ea to wring your wallets dry. what it costs bio/ea/whomever to create dlc is clear not proportional to the costs... which is not evil or immoral or wrong... and gamers is slowly becoming more accustomed to paying disproportionately high prices for content that adds very little to their games. am recalling how the black isle community collectively railed 'gainst the iwd expansion: Heart of Winter. given the cost o' HoW, it were quite obvious that HoW had been slapped together with limited resources. the outrage o' the community led to black isle's gratis release o' trials of the luremaster. nevertheless, we expect that in 2011, if HoW were released in two or three dlc chunks that cumulatively cost more than a single ordinary expansion, almost nobody would complain. you are not required to purchase dlc to play the core game... and so far bio has managed to release games that is robust enough without the dlc to be worthy o' the price on the box... but the dlc trend is disturbing, and alan's explanations requires an excessive amount o' consumer naivety to be believable. many o' us can see that dlc is a way for publishers to initially provide gamers less, so that they may ultimately charge us more. is disturbing. HA! Good Fun!

Is the point to be a ****, no matter what? Sure looks like it! *Richard. A small one. To be honest, I never actually read Gromnir's posts. I'll skim them a bit, but the edited quote stood out because it was extremely tasteless and rude. I can't even bring myself to try and decipher his gibberish response. Ha, good fun, I guess. Nepenthe, I wouldn't waste time with a guy that posts as a make believe character all the time. don't sell yourself short as you is quite adept at posting gibberish... albeit you do 'cause o' what you says rather than how. even so, we is getting off-topic and so shall refrain from posting further w/o at least attempting to add some game-related content to our posts. to that end... gimping the jnpcs in an attempt to make the player character more special would appear to be part o' the overall direction o' bio development for da2. never has we seen an "addition-by-subtraction" approach wielded so aggressively in a sequel to a successful game. typically developers choose to add more content to a new game, but bioware is going seeming as hard in the reverse direction with da2... truly innovative. bio could Really improve by completely removing skill and ability trees from the jnpcs. yeah, some o' the broken features from da needed to be fixed or removed, but am not certain how warriors being able to dual-wield were broken. am similarly wondering why allowing the player more choice to customize jnpcs is a bad thing. the female duelist cannot wield a bow effective because... it would look funny if she were wielding a bow in bio's pre-generated, cinematic cut-scenes? honest, am not sure of the rationale given, so am sorta guessing and grasping at possible arguments. cut fluff, bloat and broken is a good thing, but the cutting bio is doing appears to be the result o' laziness. is easier to make the pc or rogues special by amputating working features from the game? okie dokie. is a strange kinda innovation at work. HA! Good Fun!

It looks pretty. I believe the bottom three are the 'force mage, spirit mage, and blood mage' specializations. If so, they've done a bit of trimming. I do like the layout, however. trimming were needed. before the biowarians even released info regarding their initial magic rules for da, many veteran gamers noted that a large catalog o' spells, while having geek appeal, inevitably leads to balance problems. bio ignored. is odd that most developers immediately recognize that traditional ranged and melee weapons has gotta be balanced. if there is a super weapon or a best weapon option, then game fun is diminished. also, the developers rare make it so that a warrior is fantabulous at all forms o' combat. nevertheless, even though magic is simply another combat option, developer brains seem to go numb and they choose Kewl options 'stead o' developing rational and balanced. wacky. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting that you identified the root problem. for some inexplicable reason, the developers decided that having only two classes were one class too few. reasons for the bloat is uncertain. traditional expectations of at least three classes? belief in mystical numbers? *shrug* have two classes offering increased opportunities for customization appeals to us as a superior approach than the da solution, particularly in light of da2 modifications like rogue-specific archery and dw. why is three classes better than two? am getting why they feels the need to separate magic and weapons combat (although there is a good argument for doing away with classes... period) but the da rogue were an unnecessary and inelegant addition to the class roster. "Is the point to be a ****, no matter what? Sure looks like it! thumbsup.gif " depends on who the comment is actual directed at, no? you created a classic strawman situation suggesting hypocrisy o' a large mass o' people. is not that the claim o' hypocrisy that bothered us... but the horrible logic were inexcusable. nevertheless, if your comment is self-directed, then you is golden. no? HA! Good Fun!

shows what you know 'bout law. ... am also surprised that a self-described educator such as hurl is so obtuse as to similarly Miss The Point. once again, the initial complaints 'bout the elf were not simply that she had a large chest. large rack on a female crpg character? forbear! is pretty much the norm for a crpg. the initial complaints were inspired 'cause of the size/age of the elf in question and her proportional breast size. nep's criticism and observation 'bout hypocrisy, given the context, only makes sense if one adds some reference to a preference for young and endowed... which is indeed creepy... which were the point. ssssoooooo... wanna continue playing this game? "Ability tree looks better than DAO, we'll see about the skill design." EASIEST way to improve would be to remove the rogue altogether and open up applicable skills and abilities to mages and warriors... but that would make too much sense. HA! Good Fun!

want to? ... okie dokie. scroll back up to bos hybrid's (courtesy of mc) linked image. if you think the girl is looking other than young, then am gonna also be looking to see if your ip is from se asia. ... am curious what you thought people were referencing when they mentioned lolitas in relation to the picture. term comes from the title of a book by nabokov, in case you were unawares. HA! Good Fun!

Mc commented on vol's ability to miss a point. maybe you got a challenger for vol's title. big breasts on a crpg female? is that new... or news? 'course not. however, you is clearly not addressing the obvious complaint regarding the top-heavy elf lass. please review the recent thread if clarification is needed... or move to Japan. HA! Good Fun!

Hundreds of years old or not, that is a lolita. da elves no longer have life spans measured in millennium. so, if she looks like a kid (with over-developed breasts) then she is a kid. 'course we didn't read the linked info. is she some kinda throwback to ancient elves wit their immortality intact? of late reading biowarian material makes Gromnir sad, so we avoid doing so. 'course, mission from kotor were sorta similar... kinda. HA! Good Fun!

no. rangers were the only ones that got dw for free as a class feature... which never made any sense. were the frequent ridiculed "drizz't rule." HA! Good Fun!

nope. in torment the game did not have swords... but if the developers had inexplicably given swords only to the thief class to make thief gameplay more appealing, THEN you would have an analogous situation. and it would be similarly perplexing and stoopid as the da situation. HA! Good Fun!

Ohhh, too edgy. Publisher would never approve. there is a reason why crpg writers inject seeming over-the-top drama into their characters. unlike a novel in which the author can patiently develop a character using many pages and chapters o' text, a crpg writer has a relative small number o' dialogue encounters in which to fully develop a character. so some writers believe that the initial character concept is what is key in creating a crpg character. chrisA is one o' the most notorious and unapologetic proponents o' this approach... wrote a blog or did an interview or round-table thingie that addressed this issue. ... am personally unconvinced that crpg audiences need to be hooked by some kinda unique or intriguing character concept. the most important part o' crpg character development is information that could fit in the space on the back o' a business card? am slightly disturbed by the reliance on such a weak crutch. competent and confident writer makes characters intriguing 'cause o' what they does and says, rather than rely on characters being interesting 'cause o' what they are. example: a colorblind ex-priest o' death who sees world in black and white and speaks like a automaton--make female and give wings, daughter of solar. easily fits on back o' a business card. *shrug* am s'posing there ain't a problem as long as the writer develops the character beyond the initial concept, but so few writers does so... or they does poor/cliche. regardless, there is a reasonable (if unfortunate) rationale why every crpg character seems to have so much inherent DRAMA... and am conceding that for an unskilled writer such an approach makes perfect sense. nevertheless, there is a considerable number o' non-wacky but memorable characters from short works o' fiction that shoulds serve as examples to crpg writers as to the potential for developing characters with limited text resources. not need to make every character have family issues and a superhero origin. HA! Good Fun!

I think it would be whatever combination of gameplay mechanics make an rpg an rpg and not a shooter or an adventure game. too complicated. vd will release game, and Then folks will point to AoD as an example o' proper. that is what tim cain would do. a man sets out on a voyage... claims he will reach the edge o' the world. so for eight weeks he sails west until he has reached as far as his food and water will allow him to travel. our intrepid hero then claims he has reached the edge o' the world, and sails back for home. dunno, but the story makes us recollect vd speaking of "proper" crpg gameplay. ... anywho, those folks who thinks that there is a "proper rpg gameplay" deserves to be kicked in the head. HA! Good Fun!

your lack o' desire to play through all the options is a pointless critique. honest. most people do not play through all the options, and rare is it that a hardcore gamer plays through all (or even most) of the options. and yeah, on a crpg development board you shoulds be the only person to thinks it is crazy to care 'bout the dimensions o' the dialogue trees... 'cause that is where many/most o' the meaningful CHOICES shoulds be taking place in a crpg. if you is unconcerned 'bout illusory dialogue choices in a crpg, then we thinks you is playing the wrong sorta games... but maybe you is just crazy 'nuff that it don't matter to you. HA! Good Fun! ps if you were just shooting strawman arguments off for $#%@s and giggles, then we apologize, but we didn't see anybody (anywhere) advocating gigantic dialogue trees, so we assumed you were inspired to comment based on the discussion regarding the me2 dialogue wheel.

This doesn't appear to be true for Mass Effect 2. I remember you mentioned this a while back and I experimented with the opening areas and part of the first act, and every time I picked a different conversation option, I had a unique line of VO (the conversation would often have a unique response for one line too, before usually consolidating into a common path that each dialogue option would eventually reach - a practice that existed long before the dialogue wheel) for that response. Of the 3 primary responses (Northeast, East, and Southeast) which would progress the conversation forward. I suppose some of the context sensitive responses in the NW and SW (or the paragon/renegade lines) may have repeated some of the eastern responses but that would be... strange and surprising since those options often aren't even available without specific catalysts. am doubting you tested much, 'cause a poster at the bio boards looked into the same and showed examples (post lazarus station) that there were more than a little me2 dialogue duplication. HA! Good Fun!

Nope. PC warriors get two-handed and sword and board while rogues get dual wield and archery. Moreover, companions get one weapon tree. Isabela dual wields. You can't give her a bow or crossbow. makes perfect sense. if bio resorts to removal o' features to promote uniqueness of classes, then why not do the same with the jnpcs? at least they is being consistent with their silliness. am all in favor o' removing broken features, powhaz and classes, but that ain't what is happening in da2. developers is going with seemingly quickest and easiest approach to fixing da problems, and they shows very little concern for reason and logic. the paucity o' creativity and lack o' elegance these moves exhibit is disturbing. no doubt they will sell their changes as "innovative" much like they did with the dialogue wheel. a resource saving device that stretches vo resources and cuts down on need for writers to expand their dialogue trees becomes a praise-worthy feature? am genuine curious to see how bio will spin the changes they is making to da2? ... bio has been claiming "revolutionary" 'bout their games for many years, but the truth is that bio games does very little that is genuine new. am not a huge proponent for "new" just for the sake o' being different, so bioware's tendency to use familiar conventions (but with higher competence and production values) did not bother us overmuch... though the puffery endemic in their claims o' innovation felt unnecessary. well, finally bio is breaking new ground. the developers o' virtual every other sequel we care to name tries to ADD to their initial offering: makes bigger and better... more, More, MORE! but bio bucks the trend and is going with less, Less, LESS. bio will finally achieve genuine innovation? HA! Good Fun!

ps can somebody clarify our possible misconception re: dual-wield warriors. will warriors in da2 be able to acquire dw powhaz as they did in da:o? ... the irony o' such a silly "improvement" would render karzak apoplectic. "To be fair, my perspective is apparently a bit odd in the present marketplace-- I like a Pause-able Real-Time system that expects that every player will use the pause function liberally." when the bio developers first started in with their "spiritual successor" stuff regarding bg2 and da:o, a key attribute were 'sposed to be strategic combat... combat that would allow and encourage pause. am not certain what happened at bio or in the market to change the game's direction. da:o were seemingly commercial successful, so the shift away from traditional strategic elements is unfortunate. HA! Good Fun!

In almost every CRPG I've played (most goldbox games, based on AD&D and beyond had mages that were ridiculously powerful once they got past the earlier levels. The martial classes needed copious amounts of magical gear to keep up, whereas mages could fling their death while naked. Though I suppose I should restructure mages with "spellcasters" in general. am not sure what is the point o' the naked comparison... 'less there were a game forced you to play naked for a substantial period o' time. is very few rpgs/crpgs that ignore equipment. even so, the crux o' the debate remains in the portion quoted as you seem to recognize that mages became powerful "once they got past the earlier levels." dual-class characters in bg and bg2 were also disproportionately powerful, but they were necessarily gimped for a substantial portion o' the game. the gimp stage were no doubt why we never saw a dual-class character in pnp, but they were endemic in bg and bg2. is arguable that d&d mages in the crpgs you mentioned were "teh suck" if for no other reason than that they had a development period of many gaming hours. d&d mages were the result o' very poor design. made no sense whatsoever to build a class that were lame at lower levels, and strong at extreme levels... prohibitive levels save for in a crpg wherein the player actually played a party o' characters and could advance through levels relative quick. nevertheless, if soro wishes to suggest that d&d crpg mages never became powerful in early d&d crpgs, then we would take exception. in most crpgs, d&d mages eventual became quite powerful, after some considerable hours of "teh suck." btw, it is amazing that the biowarians, who started from scratch with their rules, built a mage with many o' the same flaws as d&d mages: weak at initial levels, but prohibitive powerful at high levels. am suspecting that the biowarians were more concerned with meeting gamer expectations than they were with building a better mage... which is understandable if a bit disappointing. HA! Good Fun!

am confused. maybe am reading the posts wrong, but has dw been removed from the warrior skillz/powhaz/whatever? that would be... odd. the rogue class were a mistake from the start and 'stead o' adding material to makes the class genuine unique the developers will now resort to taking away from the other classes? figures. sword and board warriors is powerful and simple to play. the 2-h warrior, if is not altered overmuch from the da:o variety, is a glass cannon that can be rewarding to play, but is not a particular effective tank. but what is the rationale for dw removal? *snort* no doubt the biowarians will claims that the essence o' warrior gameplay has been preserved with 2-h and sword and shield, just as removal of true strategic overhead did not kill essence o' strategic gameplay as long as free camera movement were retained. oh, and mages did suck in the original d&d... and in the d&d that immediately followed. is the reason why powergamers invariably played elves (original) or fighter/mages 'stead o' vanilla mage. am doubting that more than a couple o' folks here played the original whitebox edition o' d&d, and the next incarnation weren't much improved. to get to 5th level, the point at which your mage could finally cast a fireball spell, required Many hours o' dedicated gameplay... hours spent during which you were always an encounter away from death. at level 1 you could cast one friggn' spell, after which you were relegated to using your sling in support for much o' the remainder o' a typical adventure. at what level were a mage genuine fun to play? between 6 and 8 were our opinion, and we rare met somebody who had played such a character with the necessary loyalty and dedication. if folks is talking of original crpg incarnations o' the mage... well that is a different issue altogether. a weekend of gaming could gets a hardcore player well past the prolonged larval stage o' the d&d mage. that being said, da mages is NOT anything like old skool d&d mages... 'less bio has changed something else while we were not looking. am wondering how many other "improvements" will be made via removal o' da:o features. HA! Good Fun!

No, that's exactly what I'm saying, and what they do. If you alpha-strike them with your mage, they will move their aggro to the caster. I, and I believe other people, were talking about the way the enemies initially prioritise the heaviest armoured fighters, instead of directly going after the unarmed and -armored guy. am not recalling fighting peasants in da:o. please identify some o' those battles. we fought lots o' darkspawn, which is mindless but functionally programmed with appropriate battlefield tactics by some greater power or entity. am not recalling the militant peasants, save for arguably one battle in lothering. regardless, given the pervasive fear o' mages/magic that exists in the da world, am expecting that a person walking 'round with mage robes and an over-sized "walking stick" might as well be painting a bulls-eye on his chest. battle starts and there is an inexplicably unarmed person standing in back o' the warriors, raising his glowing walking stick and making obscure gestures? yeah, is real tough to wrap mind 'round notion that such a guy would be the prime target for every enemy on the battlefield. *snort* allowing the unarmed guy with the mage robes and walking stick to simply wander 'round the battlefied, untouched, makes complete sense. in nep's world o' endemic downs syndrome victims, is reasonable and right that during a battle any person not wearing heavy armour should be treated like a referee on a football field. no? HA! Good Fun!

... am gonna assume that da:o is NOT the first rpg orogun has played. if we is incorrect, then feel free to ignore the sarcasm we throws your direction, 'cause otherwise you would realize that you has described the realities o' virtual every pnp or crpg developed since the mid 1970's. our party o' 4-6 needs fight off a small army of goblins, orcs, darkspawn, sith, etc.? oh me, oh my. nevertheless, is da:o, and not rps as a whole, that needs to resort to an ai handicap to makes playable? *snort* am not doubting that the da gameplay needed tweaking based on game testing feedback, but the solution chosen were one of expediency rather than logic or elegance. crude. HA! Good Fun!

like it or not, figuring out who is the dragon age mages before they cast an offensive spell is not a matter o' metagame... is a simple matter o' observation. anybody reading this board ever have difficulty figuring out who were the magic tossers? target the tank first makes complete sense... in a world w/o mages, magic and scattershot archers. sorry, but nep logic is only logical if one ignores some very obvious realities 'bout da:o gameplay. again, the enemy ai were changed to make mages more playable. HA! Good Fun!

doesn't really matter. enoch's point is still valid. enemy ai works in reverse o' "intelligent player" tactics. at mid-to-high levels, we invariably target mages first, and archers second. mages and archers (with scattershot) can seemingly cripple our entire party in an instant... if we allow them to do so. enemy ai, 'cause o' armour focus, works in reverse o' the way you or enoch or Gromnir would play... which is damned stoopid. *shrug* am recalling that such ai silliness were a "fix" resulting from playtesting... folks who played through game with mage using original/non-retarded ai were killed easily and often at lower levels. game were not fun for mage players. so biowarians fix in a simple manner by tweaking ai to works reverse o' intelligent. were an easy fix that cured problem, but it made enemies seems universal moronic for anybody who were paying attention. HA! Good Fun!

"but for folks who start off every battle with a spam o' area effect spells by their mage" to clarify, the aforementioned were not meant as a criticism. it is an effective tactic to spam area effect spells at the start o' battle. makes enemies run through multiple layers o' area effect spells before they can get close enough to your party to attack? is smart. however, doing so largely obviates the salient ai stoopidity. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking you is both right/wrong. in our experience, enemies INITIALLY prioritize enemies based on armour. this means that when battle first begins your mage can wander 'bout the battlefield unimpeded almost as if he were invisible to foes. however, once your mage damages a foe, he sudden becomes recognizable as a threat. ... am suspecting that if your mage never utilized an area-effect spell (or focused solely on healing/buffing spells,) he or she coulds go through a majority of the game safe-from-harm and able to choose individual opponents on the battlefield. is indeed wacky ai, but for folks who start off every battle with a spam o' area effect spells by their mage, the wackiness is gonna be largely unrecognizable. if your mage attacks Every foe at the start o' battle, then the ai wackiness can be going unnoticed as hordes o' recently fireball'd darkspawn will run direct to the mage. HA! Good Fun!

the franchise is clear not heading in a direction Gromnir woulda' preferred, but one can see how all sorts stoopid accommodations and changes has been deemed necessary to "improve" da2. am imaging that w/o a genuine overhead tactical pov, friendly fire becomes much more difficult to avoid w/o some cumbersome micromanagement. 'course that brings up the question o' the removal o' tactical pov, which not make much sense unless it is a resource saving or performance improving change, no? these seeming counter-intuitive changes is not being contemplated independent, which is a good thing... sorta. the problem is the overall direction o' the franchise. am personally afraid that da is following a similar path as did mass effect. heck, is not as if mass effect had particularly complex gameplay mechanics, so the simplification and streamlining that occurred in mass effect 2 were hardly a positive from our perspective. nevertheless, bioware seems to believe that making mass effect character development mechanics relative meaningless were an improvement. combat in mass effect 1 were mindlessly repetitive, but games such as diablo has proven that such brain-numbing grinds can be addictive to a large % o' potential gamers. is da gonna adopt mass effect combat simplicity while removing character complexity in the name o' streamlining? yeah, bio will wants us to be able to make meaningful in-game choices, but am much concerned 'bout the streamlining o' tactical combat and character development choices. ... whenever a developer tells us what were REAL important in da, we begins to shudder... makes us fear for what is to come in da2. HA! Good Fun!