newc0253

What I want to know is, why the frak do I have to wait for it to unlock? Didn't I back this game? Didn't I help kickstart it? Wait, I hear you say, if you wanted in early, there was the Backer Beta. To which I say, frak that noise. I wanted to play the finished game, not some sloppy seconds half-version. I didn't back your game to be its beta-tester. So here I am, someone who gave royally to see this game made, reading about how a succession of random nobody gaming journalists (a job which ranks just above piano-player in a brothel, by-the-by) have been playing the final version of the game in the week before release and oooh it's so much fun. Listen here, Obsidian, pull up a chair. We've known each other years. Over a decade, in fact. So here's something you need to hear. Your backers deserve better than this. They deserve the final game before the press, in point of fact. But what about piracy? I hear you cry. We can't make money of this game unless we cooperate with our publisher to enforce a single release date. If we give backers the game early, it will just get pirated. Well, no. That's a terrible reason. For a start, the press are some of the worst leakers. Always have been, always will. Secondly, piracy? You must not think very much of your backers to think they would give you money to make a game and then immediately frak you over by putting a copy on the internet. But also, piracy? If you were really worried about that hitting first day sales, you wouldn't have made it available DRM-free. So take this from one of your oldest fans. This is a lousy way to treat people who have backed your game. Because I was there on the ground floor, helping you out by paying over the odds for a product that only existed in our dreams, and here you have me waiting in line with all the other customers, the overwhelming majority of whom haven't backed the game, and all while some frakking journalist plays it for a week Shame on you, Obsidian. Shame on you.

What I want to know is, why the frak do I have to wait for it to unlock? Didn't I back this game? Didn't I help kickstart it? Wait, I hear you say, if you wanted in early, there was the Backer Beta. To which I say, frak that noise. I wanted to play the finished game, not some sloppy seconds half-version. I didn't back your game to be its beta-tester. So here I am, someone who gave royally to see this game made, reading about how a succession of random nobody gaming journalists (a job which ranks just above piano-player in a brothel, by-the-by) have been playing the final version of the game in the week before release and oooh it's so much fun. Listen here, Obsidian, pull up a chair. We've known each other years. Over a decade, in fact. So here's something you need to hear. Your backers deserve better than this. They deserve the final game before the press, in point of fact. But what about piracy? I hear you cry. We can't make money of this game unless we cooperate with our publisher to enforce a single release date. If we give backers the game early, it will just get pirated. Well, no. That's a terrible reason. For a start, the press are some of the worst leakers. Always have been, always will. Secondly, piracy? You must not think very much of your backers to think they would give you money to make a game and then immediately frak you over by putting a copy on the internet. But also, piracy? If you were really worried about that hitting first day sales, you wouldn't have made it available DRM-free. So take this from one of your oldest fans. This is a lousy way to treat people who have backed your game. Because I was there on the ground floor, helping you out by paying over the odds for a product that only existed in our dreams, and here you have me waiting in line with all the other customers, the overwhelming majority of whom haven't backed the game, and all while some frakking journalist plays it for a week Shame on you, Obsidian. Shame on you.

hats, umbrellas. either way, they're kicking back on a beach in some non-extradition country drinking drinks with some form of covering.

Sorry but that's not a badge. That's a vanity plate. As for the game, i'm beginning to think Chris, Tim and the rest have already skipped town with the Kickstarter money and are sitting on a beach in Mexico or somewhere with those drinks with the little hats.

says the guy who, by his own logic, is feeding a troll. as others have pointed out, however, the badges were promised and - in my case, at least - amply paid for. i mean, we're talking badges on a message board on the internet- how hard can they be?

seriously, this is taking too long. i'm beginning to think this game is vaporware (or, as we call it here in london, 'vapourware').

developing the game should be priority number one Nah, the game's gonna take ages anyway. Badges are low-hanging fruit, an easy win.

The badge, at least, should be easy. I say make it priority #1.

so where's the game already? or at least my backer badge.

First of all, it has to be an RPG. A story-driven one too, so none of your Dungeon Siege 3 shenanigans. A big yes to Party-based. Although Vampire: Masquerade was also awesome. I'm indifferent to isometric and turn-based myself. But if you made one, i'd definitely kick in. Otherwise, whatever setting you think works best for the kind of game you want to make. I'd certainly play another Planescape game but don't blow money on getting the licence for someone else's IP if you can do just as well without it.

actually i thought it was clever the way Bio held them back until Act 3, although Meredith had a much more substantial lead-in than Orsino. what failed was the execution in Act 3. it isn't that they weren't introduced soon enough. after all, Bio could have constructed Act 3 with a series of quests around getting to know both characters. instead, both characters were ciphers for their respective factions, and boring ones too. Meredith, in particular, could have been really interesting. instead, she was shrill and one-note.

i liked DA2. a lot. i don't think DA2 let down the legacy of DA1. i think the third act of DA2 let down the promise of DA2. i didn't have a problem with many of the things that folks seem to hate about DA2, e.g. the move towards a single, named character with voiced dialogue; the streamlined inventory or the more action-heavy, less tactical style of combat. i was also happy in principle with the adoption of the dialogue wheel - it worked well in ME1 and 2, although i think its execution in DA2 was sometimes problematic in particular cases. and i think the first two acts of DA2 made good on the concept. a focus on a single character in a single setting, building a real sense of place, strong writing, layered development, plenty of threads, a general lack of annoying characters. this was a Dragon Age story that showed real promise, one that i was happy to spend time in. and i also didn't begrude some of the shortcuts that were adopted. it seems to be the universal consensus that DA2 was a rushed job, but i didn't mind so long as the main evidence of this was a reuse of the same maps, and an overabundance of swarming gangs. but what i felt with the arrival of the Third Act was a certain degree of sadness that the most interesting part of the story seemed to have passed. Don't get me wrong, i like the overall theme of the Templars versus the Mages. it's one of the most interesting things about the DA setting, and the willingness of the writers to balance our sympathies. But sadly Meredith, once you finally got to meet her just before the end of the Second Act, is a let down. what would have been interesting if she had turned out to be a suprisingly sympathetic or complex character, but instead she's a shrill single-minded villain, a Javert in plate mail. now i don't mind being forced to take a side, and i don't mind being presented with the unattractive consequences of doing so. i get that grey areas sometimes have to resolve into black or white, and that lines sometimes have to be drawn, no matter how messy the reality. i get what the writers were aiming at here: a situation where you have to chose, but that there are negative consequences on either side. but Meredith is so shrill, it's impossible to believe that anyone would play the game on her side. and the way that the writers seek to balance our sympathies is to keep showing mage after mage becoming an abomination, so so much so that it's virtually a cliche by the end when Orsino turns to the dark side (what has to be the most pointless waste of a character in a Bioware game). but no matter how often its done, it never really convinces. what's worst of all, though, is how - having chosen to back the mages, very publicly and from a very early stage, the game forces me as Hawke to slaughter dozens of mages and templars who are on my side. as others have noticed, I'm the Champion of frakking Kirkwall, i slew the Arishok and a high dragon. and i've consistently and publicly and stated my support for mages, helped mages escape the templars time after time, and Thrask knows it. hell, the bloody nobles come to me in secret in an effort to depose Meredith. but i'm meant to believe that the dissident Templars and circle mages led by Thrask would rather attack me on sight and die in very large numbers than ask me if i'm interesting in helping their cause. i mean, for frak's sake, Bio, this is an CRPG. i get that there's plenty of minor decisions that i'm not going to get to make, and i'm happy to accept a certain degree of railroading from time to time for the sake of the plot. but don't make a game which gives me at least a dozen opportunities to make clear my sympathies for mages and then resoundingly ignore those decisions when it comes to major plot developments. So a templar screams 'he's with Meredith!', and i'm like 'dude, which Champion of Kirkwall have you been watching?' the shame of it is, this cack-handed series of developments comes at the expense of massive amount of promise and goodwill of Acts 1 and 2. the build-up of tension with the Qunari? Flemeth's apperances? the Dalish on Sundermount and Merrill's efforts to repair the mirror? the death of Bethany in the deep roads? Sandal's erie moment of prophecy? all that stuff was fantastic, and made me think this is all building to something. but apparently what that was building towards was something ultimately outside the scope of this game. you'd expect something as major as Bethany's death would have major consequences in Hawke's story. but i'm pretty sure there was no mention of her in Act 3 that i can recall. not even a picture of her in the house. you can't help but think that they didn't just take shortcuts with reusing maps: they shortchanged the very story they wanted to tell, and that's the biggest shame of all. if this sounds like a bad review, remember: i really liked DA2. i think it's two thirds of a nearly great game, and i think Bio will get a lot of hate for things that are ultimately quite silly, and so a lot of truly excellent stuff will be overlooked. but you gotta hope Bio learns its lesson from the negative reviews for the next installment... p.s. okay, i messed up the romance with Isabella but i can't blame Bio for that.

this is a shame. AP was a very flawed game, but it was also a very promising one. i, for one, was looking forward to a sequel that would iron out the game's more glaring faults.

do some people think there was a conspiracy against AP? really? you mean, like someone snuck into the building and gave it such a crappy interface? seems to me that it was more like self-sabotage by Obsidian - a desperate cry for help or, at least, more resources to fix the game. i enjoyed AP and i would play a sequel. But AP also richly deserved the kicking it got for its many flaws. few of which, i should hasten to add, were to do with story. but, and perhaps i've been spoiled recently, but AP was the shoddiest game i've played in a long while, and that includes several of those indie games that run off your browser. the graphics? actually, i thought these looked pretty good overall. a little crude in places and certainly not state of the art, but it all looked pretty enough on my rig. the gameplay? well, as i'm sure many have already said, it plays more like a commando game than a spy game. but it was generally fun, except when some lazy design decision or glitch meant that it wasn't, e.g. like a boss fight with endless waves of henchmen that only becomes possible to beat because the boss gets stuck in the floor or something. i came to respect the design decision behind the checkpoint system, making it exceedingly difficult to go back and replay a key moment. that might be fine if the game worked. but it often didn't. i like that the game has a very high replay value, but my experience with its bugs makes me not want to hurry back any time soon. the little timer on speeches? nice idea in principle but often silly in execution. me? i normally wait until the other person has finished talking before i decide what to reply. but not possible in this game apparently. it kind of breaks your story-driven, choice-driven RPG if i have to guess at what my response is to something i haven't even fully heard yet. but the GUI? broken, broken, broken. for a game to be delayed for so long and that basic mechanic to remain unpolished reaks of a half-assed approach. which is a real shame, because - had this game been more polished - it could have been a genuine phenomenon rather than an object of ridicule.

someone pirated the DLC? damn.