Gromnir

indeed. knowledge o' trivia is hardly a prereq for hiring... though Gromnir does recommend that people attempting to get hired should know the history o' their potential future employer-- you would be surprised by how easily impressed interviewers is by prospects who has done their homework regarding their potential future employer. in any event, Gromnir don't know your job qualifications... am simply pointing out that the 3-4 (plus) games bio has made clear ain't limited to da. as you is a known bio employee, and sometimes shill, people may mistakenly thinks you have some special knowledge or expertise regarding bio games of the past. sorry, but as an employee you is gonna be held to a higher standard, so when you get wrong you should try to accept with dignity and humility. 2 year would seems typical, with significant more or less being rarities. HA! Good Fun!

It'd be more of a mistake than me being dishonest. I intentionally prefaced my statement with "that I can think of." I don't know how long NWN was in development because I didn't really start following BioWare as a company until after I played Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 in 2000. However, since NWN came out in 2002, that would mean that a 5 year development cycle had them starting the game a full year before the original Baldur's Gate was released. Is this the case? I specifically mentioned Dragon Age. And I think 4 years is probably a conservative estimate. As for SWTOR, I don't know how long that game has been in development. It was officially announced in 2008 IIRC, but I would expect that some time has already been spent on the game. maybe they should needs have biowarians pass a quiz before gaining employment. that frumpy guy you meets on the road to nashkel mines, the one that speaks o' neverwinter... no accident. and the "books" that showed up on the interplay website to reveal future d&d games had totsc, bg2 and nwn all pretty much shows up at the same time... we were then informed that nwn had already been in some development for some time. between 4 and 5 years... much closer to 5 than to 2. as for boo's dog... wouldn't Minsc have been a more appropriate name? HA! Good Fun!

IIRC, the blood rage thing is "promoted" to survive in the post-nuclear environment and had nothing to do with the salarians. Which is pretty stupid by itself and another excellent example of what I'm saying, as it's not uber macho bull**** that can rebuild a society but initiative, intelligence and, yeah, you guessed it: production. Looks like somebody in the writing team isn't familiar with the concept of diminishing returns. I wasn't saying that the Salarians had anything to do with the Blood Rage itself. Just that before the Krogans were uplifted, before they had the technology to destroy themselves, the Krogans actually viewed the Blood Rage as a bad thing. It was only after the whole given advanced tech, blow themselves up, and the Blood Rage becoming a near universal thing to the Krogans that they stopped viewing it as a bad thing. And frankly, the Krogans as is, come off like the psycho gangs in any apocalypse movie.. because they haven't rebuilt anything. They've reverted to the tribal clan structures. They don't really have their own spaceships, they don't seem to have much in the way of production at the moment. If it wasn't for other people turning up to hire them as mercs you wouldn't really see them off-world. Heck, Wrex is the one that's actually trying to rebuild the Krogan's as a "unified" society. He is showing initiative, and attempting to use intelligence and increase the production of the species. But he's mostly the exception to the Krogan rule. bold quote is the reason we find wrex superior to grunt. when grunt gets flushed from tank he is having infinite possibilities for development... he doesn't accept his conditioning. 'course, in virtual no time at all, the me2 writers is having grunt act likes stereotype krogan, which ain't such a bad thing, but seemed somewhat anti-climactic. also, is kinda strange that grunt were one o' the more stable and undamaged o' your crew mates. sure, he gotta go through some rite o' passage ritual 'fore he can gets his rage stabilized, but compared to the rest o' the crew and their family traumas, grunt is a poster child for mental health. am hopeful that me3 sees grunt gets better development... 'cause we were slight disappointed with me2 grunt. HA! Good Fun!

Kind of like the amount of time from Baldur's Gate to Baldur's Gate 2. Few of BioWare's games have "3-4 years of development time." In fact, the only one I can really think of that took that long is probably Dragon Age. ok, keep in mind that 1.5 does not shock Gromnir, but for a guy working with/at bio to make such a statement is... perplexing. nwn required approx 5 years, and da made 4 years disappear, no? star wars: the old republic is a mmorpg, but that game has seemingly been in development forEvar. can quibble and say that nwn took More than 3-4 years and that star wars ain't been released yet, so... still seems dishonest. gap between mass effect 1 and 2 were slight in excess of 2 years... though if some folks not look at actual dates of release, it might seem like 3 (late 2007 release for me1 and january 2010 release for me2.) virtual all other bio games we can recall seemingly gots the 2-ish year time period of development: jade empire, kotor, mass effect. *shrug* if da2 and me3 is released in first half of 2011 we will not be shocked, but we can understand why some folks will be surprised. HA! Good Fun!

Bioware makes that up with numbers. They're now not a game studio anymore, they're an EA facility. Hating on Bio because they consistently produce quality RPGs (unlike most RPG studios) consistently on time (unlike most RPG studios)? Come on Morgoth, you can do better than that. Unless you'd much rather that they produce buggy rpgs and/or titles are delayed beyond their official release date (Hello Obsidian?). Bio > Black Isle > Obsidian (so far) > Troika Sorry, but from DA to DA2 (or whatever it will be called), there's only like 1,5 years of dev time. This reeks. Bioware has a tradition to take about 3-4 years per game. So either they have the numbers to compensate that, or they're pressured from "above" to churn out sequels so fast. How big is Bio these days anyway? Someone has numbers about the Edmonton, Montreal and Austin studios? another option other than vast numbers of available man-hours or ea pressure: the biowarians were working on sequel simultaneous to working on da. peter jackson were considered alternatively delusional and visionary as he filmed all three lotr films simultaneous... assuming success rather than waiting for returns from fellowship of the ring. is any reason why bio couldn't do same thing with dragon age? who is to say that the biowarians ain't been working on the da sequel for a couple of years already? such an approach requires considerable planning, and it does mean that the biowarians is somewhat locked into doing da sequel according to their Big Picture plan... feedback from da will not be able to be much incorporated into game development beyond mechanics changes as sequel may already be very deep into development. *shrug* is pure conjecture on Gromnir's part, but we can see how a sequel might take only 1.5 years. also, as a point of reference, keep in mind that bg2 were released in september o' 2000. bg1 were released in late 1998, and bio released an expansion in-between bg1 and bg2. HA! Good Fun!

"Not sure who's holding the gun to people's heads and forcing them to gather all the stuff in advance." answer: bioware you may not have noticed, but there is at least one mission that compels immediate attention... without any warning. lost our fish that way. in any event, if you not know when you is gonna be forced into completing some quest or side-quest it makes perfect sense to prepare for the possibility that, without adequate warning, you may find yourself unable to go on a platinum or iridium run. also, given the fact that fuel costs credits, it is also reasonable to probe planets the first time you is in system, rather than making a costly return trip at some later time. resource acquisition in me2 is a mindless and repetitive endeavor that requires no skill. horrible resource acquisition is made worse 'cause the developers not give the player any clues regarding what quantity o' resources is appropriate AND they adds a cost factor into fuel and probes, without no context to make an educated decision regarding optimum or reasonable expenditure for probes and fuel. is as if the biowarians were contemplating some sorta strategic resource management mini-game, but then they simply stopped 1/3 into development. is clearly the most pointless feature we can recall in a bioware game, and is arguably the most asinine. as for vol's idiotic observation about the lack of fury over the dialogue wheel... maybe vol didn't notice, but as dialogue wheel is old news, few is the people trying to sell the notion that the dialogue wheel is innovative or a monumental rpg advance. HA! Gromnir got banned from bio 'cause we criticized the dialogue wheel. every dialogue wheel thread on the me1 boards were locked. chris priestly rationale for locking: the potential for spoilers. HA! dialogue wheel is a resource saving device for developers to be getting multiple uses out of a single vo recording... nothing more. Gromnir were more than a little surprised by the sheer number o' folks who fell for bio's line o' crap regarding dialogue wheel innovation, but... etc. *shrug* is old news and nobody cares no more. folks who ain't yet figured out that dialogue wheel is little more than a bit o' biowarian sleight o' hand ain't never gonna realize. we could be likes karzak and scream 'bout dual-wielding thieves and curse bioware at every opportunity, but that would be a waste o' our effort. dialogue wheel was part of me1 and me2... and it will be part o' me3. sure, whenever we hears claims o' dialogue wheel "innovation" or "brilliance" we respond with no little venom and mockery, but there ain't been many such comments in some time. after all, mass effect were a 2007 game... would be pretty tough for bioware to sell the dialogue wheel "innovation" a second time +2 years after the fact. hell, even vol would be unlikely to buy that kinda nonsense. HA! Good Fun!

I haven't heard of him dying in either of those situations. It's when he isn't chosen for anything that he tends to die and it doesn't seem to be tied to upgrades or anything. Time spent killing the final boss doesn't seem to have any effect. Bumped it down to casual and took him out with 5 shots from the widow. Mordin still died. the final time we played end sequence, our final boss battle party were as follows: miranda, grunt, Gromnir. we had jacob lead the normandy survivors back to ship. all team members were loyal. all ship upgrades were complete. no casualties. HA! Good Fun!

we had that problem with jack. her shockwave were very effective, but unless we babysat her through battles by choosing her cover position, she rarely survived beyond the time it typical takes to heat up a cup o' coffee. mordin, on the other hand, were far more durable, but we has heard deraldin's complaint from others. mordin also appears to be one o' the characters that dies easily during the end-game battle, regardless o' loyalty or upgrades. *shrug* between neural shock and incinerate, mordin were a very effective party-mate for Gromnir, but as we played an infiltrator with heavy incinerate, mordin were kinda redundant for most missions, save for when we faced many krogan... or harbingers. mordin and Gromnir letting loose with incinerate at same time were enough to instant vaporize the armour o' any foe... 'cept for praetorians, scions, and end-boss. btw, has anybody checked to see what impact cryo bomb has on biotic barriers? we confirmed , at least on the xbox, that cryo ammo shreds biotic barriers (even though documentation does not identify this fact). as our xbox recent went belly-up, we did not get a chance to see what impact cryo-bomb has on biotic barriers. if cryo-bomb does to biotics what incinerate does to armour, then mordin becomes even more effective... in addition to being a well-written and amusing character. HA! Good Fun!

yeah... without benefit o' meta-knowledge/hindsight, the player gots little notion as to how much resources will eventually be needed, so is making sense to let loose rapine and plunder 'pon unsuspecting planets 'cross the galaxy-- eventual end up with excess resources and surfeit credits. the whole economics and resource acquisition scheme is flawed. is no genuine strategy or intelligence involved. is no skill related to resource acquisition. so far, the best argument we has heard for planet harvesting in me2 is that it gives the player a break from frenzied gaming-- creates a relaxing interlude. ... what? turn off xbox or pc if you wants a break from gaming. maybe talk with some of your party mates or shoot monkeys on the krogan planet. dunno, but if all the resource acquisition accomplishes is to give the player a "break" from the game, then something is serious wrong. HA! Good Fun!

dunno. we didn't have all upgrades our first play-through. even so, we were pretty strapped for cash at end of the game... and that is with the big credit bonus we got for importing a level 57 me1 character with the rich achievement. HA! Good Fun!

I thought Tali's actually had a time limit.. or at least if you spent too long doing other missions there was only one possible outcome... if there is a time limit, we didn't notice. we did all other recruitment (save for legion) and most loyalty missions previous to recruiting tali. we also did virtually all the available side-quest stuff and anomalous world assignments... had clocked over 30 hours o' gameplay and were level +20 before we started tali recruitment quest. HA! Good Fun!

vol is a goof. "Notyhing about the doc screams '20 somehting hottie'." you mean other than the youthful body and face? *chuckle* as for not being entertained and failing... HA! is like arguing with a chimp. sure, Gromnir will win such a battle of wits every single time, but we looks damn silly trying to have a serious discussion with a poop-hurling simian. HA! Good Fun!

Ah but the point is special forces groups , while willing to do the odd suicide mission, aren't designed for suicide missions. They're meant to do the mission and get out alive. Remaining capable of performing further missions. Unconventional warfare does not equal suicide missions.. and me2 weren't a true suicide mission neither as is evidenced by fact that it is possible to get out alive with entire crew intact. regardless, special forces groups is full aware that they may, at any time, be called upon to plan and execute what is likely to be a one-way mission. fact that the mission is probable one-way does not somehow diminish the need for sane and dependable squad-mates... it increases the need for such trust. HA! Good Fun!

am not certain about lead writer, but we will admit that mordin were our personal favorite character from me2. am agreeing that much of me2 seeming shortcomings is probable due to fact that bioware is building up to me3... but am still seeing me2 lack of identifiable villain as a mistake. yeah, it would be foolish to go back to the saren well yet again, but with the revelation that the collectors is actual re-purposed we sees a wasted opportunity for a me2 villain. a collector general with some self-awareness of the origins of his race coulda' been interesting on multiple levels, no? dunno. we woulda' done different. me2 and da:o are both examples o' games with climaxes that were somewhat anti-climactic... good games otherwise hobbled by a less than satisfying final battle with a foe that had 0 personality. after killing the archdemon, Gromnir says, "was that it?" had a similar reaction at end of me2. we played me2 for near 40 hours, only to find that nothing really happened in me2... were all just stage setting for me3? *snort* bad cess to those bioware writers who chose to lay foundations for me3 at the expense o' me2 story. is no rule that says a writer cannot set stage and entertain at same time. HA! Good Fun!

ain't nothing wrong with reapers as a villains... but lack of development really hampered me2. a remote and enigmatic Villain is problematic in a crpg precisely because the protagonist must be written to accommodate a range of player styles. you can play shep as renegade or paragon and it not genuine alter Big Picture of me1 or me2 story. no writer of movie scripts or novels would ever seek o write a heroic story wherein the protagonist were vague. nevertheless, bio goes even further by leaving the villain vague? why? at the end o' me1, shep faces a galaxy shaking conflict involving a rogue spectre, a geth fleet and sovereign, the forerunner of the reapers. if you not stop saren and sovereign, the reapers emerge en masse from dark space and all sentient life in the galaxy can pretty much kiss their arses goodbye. by comparison, me2 climax involves a somewhat perplexing confrontation with the collectors and a half-baked human-reaper hybrid. ... harbinger, speaking through the collector general, gave us some insights into the reapers and their plan for humanity. remote and enigmatic menace. ooh... spooky. *shrug* particularly as we had already confronted a reaper in me1, the collector threat didn't seem near as threatening. even worse, the collectors simply existed... no personality or emotion. boring. bio spends sooooo much effort creating drama for the normandy crew but they forgets to create any drama for their me2 villains. is a mistake... a big mistake. is not that the reapers suck... is that they were not developed. HA! Good Fun!

take away hair color and voice and nothing 'bout chakwas would suggest older than 20s. no crow's feet or lines on face to suggest age. no saggy bosom. is visually nothing that suggest age other hair color. as for somebody suggesting that all the burnouts and psychos is typical or reasonable for a suicide mission, am gonna have to disagree. take a look at how special forces units is screened and recruited. stable family men is much preferred as having a life beyond the unit gives those guys something tangible to fight for, and a built-in support group to keeps 'em grounded. psychotic but brilliant v. competent and stable how much you trust the psycho to have your back? build an entire unit o' unstable and untrustworthy? that is indeed a recipe for a suicide mission. drama is important. is understandable that bio chose to populate the new normandy with characters that were to face and overcome serious personal obstacles. such characters is Dramatic characters. drama is better than boring. even so, the number o' crew members who were having to deal with a potential suicide mission AND daddy/family issues or childhood traumas were staggering. Gromnir could recruit solely from ACoA members lists and chances are we wouldn't have been able to put together a more damaged bunch o' future effexor junkies if we tried. HA! Good Fun!

Anything but. Tali's probably the most mentally balanced chick in ME universe. mental balance? tali is number 2. dr. chakwas is, as far as we can tell, one o' the only women shep knows who ain't suffering from trauma, psychosis, hero-worship, or some other unpleasantness. for mass effect 3, Gromnir would prefer to develop a relationship with the doctor... though it not have to be romantic. develop a mature relationship with a supposed older women would be refreshing. ... and for those folks with an unsavory desire to love-up older women, dr. chakwas has benefit of being old only insofar as the voice-actor portrayal and her hair color would suggest. heck, at least wynne from dragon age were given some liver spots and a few lines on her face to imply agedness. if we didn't know she were old, and we turned volume down, we would never guess that the doctor were anything other than a hawt 20-something. we wants more chakwas in me3. me2 were too over-the-top with the character drama-- too many issues. chakwas were the only stable, non-traumatized, non-cerberus operative who we could talk to. refreshing. HA! Good Fun!

which sniper rifle do you use? Gromnir typically brings along the widow for boss killing, but there wouldn't be enough ammo for killing 75% of enemies. played as an infiltrator and we used the heavy pistol most frequent. the smg is nice enough, but this game depends on cover, and we does far more damage with a single heavy pistol headshot than we does spraying a bunch o' smg ammo into a target. peek out from cover to take two shots for a kill is requiring us to be exposed less than does smg. was kinda a no brainer for us when we had choice between assault rifle and the widow sniper rifle as we were building a sniper character, but am betting that we woulda' actual gotten more practical use from choice of assault rifle training. combined with heavy incinerate, the widow sniper makes relative short work of some of the more challenging me2 foes, such as scions, the end boss and those ymir mechs ( a single ymir mech is no problem, but we find that when we is faced with 2-3 in a single encounter they can be... troublesome). nevertheless, is relative few ymir, scions, and bosses. regardless, when we hear that folks is killing a majority o' foes with sniper, we wonders which version o' the weapon they is using: incisor, viper or widow? HA! Good Fun!

yes, and as the planet scanning is optional, it is perfectly acceptable for such a feature to be repetitive, tedious, and uninspired. heck, the loyalty missions is optional too... am surprised the biowarians put any effort into them at all as the status of such material as optional relegates such stuff to relative non-importance. ... 'course vol mighta' been simply talking nonsense... again. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

am gonna have to double check on the cryo and biotic barriers. Gromnir relies very heavily on heavy pistol headshots. is possible that the reason we sees biotic barriers strip away so quick is 'cause o' our weapon choice rather than ammo. HA! Good Fun!

quick observation: cryo ammo strips biotic barriers over on the bio boards and elsewhere we seen lots of complaints 'bout cryo ammo being useless. oddly enough, we found cryo ammo very useful. with heavy incinerate to takes down armour, disruption ammo for shields and synthetics, and cryo ammo to reduce asari commandos to mewling bed-wetters, Gromnir's infiltrator were never impotent in any fight. am wondering what others is seeing (or missing) in regards to cryo ammo. am gonna test out warp ammo this weekend... HA! Good Fun!

let us keep in mind that we ain't claiming that me1 were some kinda ideal o' crpg design. Gromnir were not a big fan o' the customization options available in me1 as we felt there were considerable redundancy and some obvious dog skills/talents... and it often seemed as if adding additional points to a skill did not have proportional impact on gameplay. nevertheless, we has played me1 multiple times and choice of class did not effectively end the character development options. based on manner in which we distributed points, a me 1 commando-infiltrator were a near invulnerable combat killer. as an operative-infiltrator, we we could leave tali or kaiden on the normandy as our tech skills were more than sufficient for any scenario. we had numerous variations o' both kinda characters. me2? if we play another infiltrator, we is gonna build the exact same way 'cause it just not matter. a few points changed in one skill or another will not change gameplay approach much or at all. btw, the functionality that allows you to retrain is a bit... odd. am admitting that we "gamed" the system as we used the operative-agent early in game to benefit from the paragon/renegade point bonus, and then switched to operative-assassin once we had maxed paragon points. retrain still felt like cheese. HA! Good Fun!

that is kinda the point, no? few options mean that there will be very little variation of builds. me2 offers largely pointless character development choices beyond the player's initial decision regarding class. lack of meaningful character development choices does not make me2 a bad game. some of the characters is entertaining and/or intriguing, and we generally liked the writing. me2 offered some nice opportunities to make meaningful or colorful gameplay choices. even so, given the lack o' functional diversity in character builds, the character development aspect o' me2 were somewhat disappointing... which is passing odd for an original bioware crpg. HA! Good Fun!