Gromnir

duh. am surprised that you not also point out that games cost a fraction o' what cars does. so what? your rationale would have you happily purchasing and playing pools of radiance (the ubisoft release). a few moments to check on stability o' a game post release is a bad thing... 'cause its a game, not life? *chuckle* there is game killing and quest killing bugs in awakenings that is linked to the order in which you do quests. for someone like Gromnir who does not wanna have game spoiled, that means we is either having to take the risk o' a game killer bug, or we wait for patch... and we is not near as blithe (or as addicted to games?) as hurl when considering an investment o' +20 hours o' our free time. HA! Good Fun!

just 'cause we never had cause to use the airbag in our car does not mean that we wants to drive off the lot with a car that has a faulty airbag... whether we is aware of the problem or not. unlike hurl, who maybe didn't notice that he got cheated out o' a small number o' quets and suffered from numerous bugged spells and items, we does not choose the ignorance = bliss route. instead, we always wait for at least the first patch o' a game to be released before purchase... saves us money and we get a more stable game too. that being said, we never imagined that it would take 4-5 months to get a patch for awakenings. HA! Good Fun!

I can understand the confusion since you did point out that one predated the other in response to her post. we also suggested childhood trauma of the beatles. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

sometimes it is easy to miss bugs if you do not know how game is 'posed to work. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/94/index/3074863/1 is some 13 pages following announced patch notes... much o' which is complaints 'bout issues not being addressed by the upcoming patch. HA! Good Fun!

... did anybody take serious? HA! Good Fun!

Good point. I lived in a house with actors and actresses many years ago, and they were ALL wankers. the actors and actresses we has met is, without exception... difficult. we has actual been friends with a few actors/actresses, but am gonna note that we thought they was all damaged or nutty to a lesser or greater degree. not wankers (some were very nice people) but all was kookie. HA! Good Fun! Rather than actors having various levels of mental instability as you suggest, it's far more likely that the common traits of the personalities acting attracts (extroversion, whimsy, impulsivity, driven by intuition and thirst for new experiences) are simply alien to you by virtue of being antipodal to your own personality traits (which would at a guess be introversion, fastidity, compulsion and a conservative approach to problem solving). your not-so-clever attempt to get around tigs warning aside, clearly Gromnir lacks whimsy... HA! similar to walsh, our basis for making comments 'bouts actors is based on actual encounters and relationships with such folks. you base your guessings regarding Gromnir on the postings from a gaming board where we post utilizing a contrived persona... that about it? *chuckle* am not gonna share our full background, but some folks here is aware o' where we went to school and what we did before law school. compulsion and conservative is 'bout 180 degrees from the mark... though we has been called fastidious by folks who has never seen our home office... or our kitchen when we is cooking. btw, we ain't never met a person who became more creative 'cause they donned a tie-dye t-shirt and got wasted. again, actors is frequently nice enough folks (our experience with actors ain't quite as dismal as were walsh's and some others in this thread,) but with one exception, all were... difficult. as a matter of fact, an actress friend of ours warned us to never date an actress. her rationale: "we're all insane." she were only partially joking. HA! Good Fun!

a kanadian fellow won a million or more in lotteries 5 times. the only reason Gromnir is aware is 'cause the guy were forced to sue to collect his winnings. as we recall, he won. HA! Good Fun!

there is a reason why we has said that we will never, evar have any involvement in domestic law. the whole scenario is wacky. it is illegal to make such tapes in ca... can't tape without all parties knowledge and permission. 'course oksana (sp?) weren't acting as an agent o' the police at the time she made the recordings, so criminal charges related to threats made in the tapes is still possible. judge warns mel's ex 'bout release of tapes. then, tapes is mysteriously leaked, but while mel's ex admits it is her voice on tapes, she denies being involved in the tapes release. and the thing is, this ain't the wackiest custody case stuff we has heard of in the past decade. the guys who do domestic law is the ones most likely to keeps a gun in their desk drawer. HA! Good Fun!

supposedly a patch will be released for awakenings within the next couple of weeks. we waited this long... do the main quests in the wrong order and you can get game killing bugs. play as a rogue and your trap finding/disarming won't work. jnpcs can frequent suffer from automatic 100 approval... w/o loyalty bonuses. pick pocket is screwed if you have wardens keep installed, you may gets a game killing bug. if you gots wardens keep installed, some items will appear... wrong (minor). ... is too many bugs and potential bugs, particularly as we were planning on playing a rogue character. HA! Good Fun!

the smurfs predate blue meanies by about a decade... possibly the young beatles were disturbed by the evil little belgian faeries... kinda likes how some kids is 'fraid o' clowns? *shrug* never made the connection. the thing that always surprises us 'bout the smurfs is the fact that they has endured. am not sure what their appeal is. there were a period during the mid 70's when smurf collectibles were momentarily very popular in the US... and then in the 80's we had the saturday morning cartoon, but unlike pogs or alf (and alf pogs,) the smurfs popularity never completely dies. is... odd. "That is why I enjoyed The Princess and the Frog so much. " as is typical, it were hard to complain 'bout disney animation... but it weren't in our top 5 (10?) of disney animated films. still, it were technically very sound. HA! Good Fun!

does anybody take whoppi serious anymore. she defends polanski's actions as not being "rape-rape" and now she public defends mel's comments. is probable a good example o' why mel's career is not in any real danger. hollywood forgives the silliness of its own very readily. HA! Good Fun!

Good point. I lived in a house with actors and actresses many years ago, and they were ALL wankers. the actors and actresses we has met is, without exception... difficult. we has actual been friends with a few actors/actresses, but am gonna note that we thought they was all damaged or nutty to a lesser or greater degree. not wankers (some were very nice people) but all was kookie. HA! Good Fun!

in the past, if a thread survived long enough on a da board it would eventually became a romance thread... and all such threads eventually became gay-romance threads. perhaps the amine fans, seeing the success o' the gay-romance lobby is simply trying top replicate results. am hoping that anime freaks and japanese posters is not so vocal and aggressive as were the same-sex lobby for da. edit: "Anyhow, I'm glad that Bioware is re-assessing its design decisions on DAO for the sequel. I doubt that all of the decisions based on said reassessment will be in-tune with my particular tastes, but there's really isn't enough information out there right now for me to judge that. More importantly, in a gaming world positively swarming with 'more of the same' sequels to AAA titles, it's good that Bio is looking for avenues of improvement. (Plus, DAO, while being overall a worthwhile title, was not without its dubious design points.) " some o' the improvements... ain't. given the unexpectedly fast design cycle for da2, we suspect that stuff like dialogue wheel is being added to speed up the process as 'posed to being introduced as a genuine attempt to improve the da franchise. writing emotes is far less time consuming for the writers. makes human-only also allows improvement o' the human models without having to address elves and dwarves. ... fix the spell lists in a way that matches some o' Gromnir's initial suggestions regarding da magic? sure, sounds like a good idea... though we is admitted biased. regardless, many da2 improvements seem as much geared towards speeding up the design process as they is genuine improvements. did we mention how much we hates when a developer tries to dupe fans into believing that their cost and resource saving options is innovative features? HA! Good Fun!

we may not be getting martin kind dark in the da universe, but that ain't what folks were asking for, were they? in martin's book, the incestuous relationship is portrayed as something terribly wrong and destructive. am not thinking that those asking for a da2 incest romance wanted Dirty & Wrong... they wanted the twisted (and disturbingly common) anime portrayal o' incest. ... am not surprised that the fans o' bio asked for such nonsense. heck, every time a crpg gets released, the hardcore fo fans wanna know why it isn't possible to kill/torture/rape every npc in the game. expect widespread nonsense is probable the best course o' action. HA! Good Fun! ps da was s'posed to be dark, but not too dark.

2 years of continuing dlc options. in any event, they may need 2 years to gets out a 1.05 patch. HA! Good Fun!

vol is sorta correct. first screenies and concept art for da were reviled by many. 'course, vol is wrong that things got better regarding art. there were always a vocal group who complained every time art/images were released. looks too lotr. dragon proportions is wrong. character models look too generic. etc. 'course, even the title of Dragon Age: Origins were criticized. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

Still better than early DnD influence. At least this way she wears some armor. there were no singular d&d influence. early d&d contributing artists were represented by a relative extreme range o' styles. also, as d&d was, and is, a pnp role-play game, the look o' d&d were whatever Gromnir chose to imagine as we played. crpgs, on the other hand, is visual media. no matter how powerful our imagination, we has a difficult time ignoring what is actually on-screen. HA! Good Fun!

as crazy as is the darkspawn armour, we is more likely to endure such stuff than we is to stomach the concept art o' the female character with the armoured stripper boots. am hopeful that such anime-influenced wh0re art does not represent the new art direction for da2 female models. giant weapons and impossible armours is bad enough, but even aribeth's reveal-o'-armour didn't include stiletto heels. Dragon Age 2: Taking Back Gomorrah HA! Good Fun!

It's good way to cut costs and at the same time admit the fact that multiple races have nearly always failed in one way or the other. Even in Dragon Age, Bioware wasted huge amount of resources on origin stories. Those stories only made slight difference outside the starting area and race / class "home" location. Bioware got huge amounts of negative feedback because players felt that their origin story was ignored. They were right of course for the most part, but in the end it all comes down to the available resources. Bioware chose the most cost effective way for Dragon Age 2. if you weren't gonna have separate origins, you probable ain't saving big money anyhow, is you? a few oblique references tossed into the game making reference to the player's race probable ain't gonna be a huge expense. da uses 3d models and meshes, and you is still gonna have dwarf and elf models. am admittedly very unlearned regarding the costs to create such models and how much extra effort goes into pc models... is not like oldie days 2d sprites where every variation o' armour and weapon combo gotta be drawn complete new, but am s'posing there is some cost... but how much. at first blush, this would appear to us to be a story-driven limitation... and am thinking that if is important to keep human for sake of story, then we is disappointed 'cause it means that the da2 pc is gonna be far more static than the da:o protagonist. is a cheap crutch to makes player care 'bout story. HA! Good Fun!

'cause that is what you is willing to pay? when the dealers/pushers/publishers set prices for their product, am doubting that their cost to bring to the junkie/user/consumer is the main factor they is considering. a few years ago an obsidian developer indicated that production and distribution accounted for more than 1/2 of game cost to publisher. remove these costs will eventually be a boon to indie developers as they attempt to compete with the publishing giants... we may eventual see some creative game developers who take big risks in hopes o' a big payoff. even so, am increasing dubious that you will see a price drop, particularly as the few Win games from publishers has gotta subsidize their considerable number o' Loser games. HA! Good Fun!

"2. Hawke is human." what a shame. is not a huge detail (edit: is not a huge detail from a practical gameplay aspect) but is still unfortunate to see player limited in this way. HA! Good Fun!

That's what I hated the most about the game. You couldn't even send a rogue ahead to scout like in an Infinity Engine game because you would just trigger an enemy spawn or scripted enemy behaviour. to be fair, many/most encounters did not result in a scripted warping of your party into danger if a stealthed rogue were being utilized to scout ahead. even so, there were more than a handful o' such encounters, and after the first couple times you were getting screwed by the triggers, you probably gave up on the scouting. bad design from bio. HA! Good Fun!

Heresy like this needs to be expunged with sword and flame. *chuckle* when we says "one o' the most common complaints" we is actual understating. top 2... easy. again, is not a matter of getting off the pot. they is trying to do what you ask... they is trying to make it "just right." doing what you ask is the core of the problem, 'cause there is no "just right" that will work for everybody or even most. "just right" is illusive and personal and varies a great deal, but bio insists on trying to find the perfect medium... which leaves everybody mildly dissatisfied. HA! Good Fun!

Of course the gangs didn't all go away. They looked for alternative outlets, just as the anti-prohibition agencies did. Both found narcotics. well, no. see, the point o' our bringing up atu is that it were little more than a department and name change. prohibition ends, but the same folks is still making and distributing illegal liquor, and the same law enforcement personnel were trying to apprehend. liquor were no longer illegal, but smuggling and brewing to avoid taxes resulted in sorta a business-as-usual for folks on both sides o' the legal/criminal fence. without the tacit public support for the criminals, the open and rampant lawlessness decreased, but the mobs were able to continue making money doing the same stuff they had been doing during prohibition. again, Gromnir is in favor o' legalizing, but is not a clear no-lose situation as some suggest, and it won't result in some kinda sudden disappearance o' all (most) weed related crime and prosecutions. HA! Good Fun!

is it? following bg (the original,) one o' the most common complaints voiced on the boards were regarding the mindless mowing of largely empty maps. durlag's tower, from the totsc expansion, became the oft identified alternative to tedious bg1 map exploration. following bg2, fans lamented the lack o' exploration. ... go to codex or nma and listen to what the fo fans describe as Proper. listen to the feedback on the da boards. spend 15 minutes reading fo:nv posts on these boards. dunno, "just right" were very different for momma, poppa and baby bear, no? finding a good balance is probably very elusive goal for developers. HA! Good Fun!