Musopticon?

I know you were, but it's not really an easter egg, more of a cameo by the series.

There's always hints, the first few enemies have definitions like "Young Something" or "Something Scout" and pack a punch less and the games more or less point you the right way immediately. You'll still get your butt kicked though. I hope that the first missions advices stealthy manouvering to its utmost, since you'll be in your hospital pyjamas most likely, it'd be worse than dumb to have Thorton pick a gun from a corpse and blast everyone he meets and pretend the whole setup is plausible.

If the BIG HUGE armored freaking suits weren't already a clue enough. I just hope they'll embrace what made SHOGO good - cheesy writing and 80's anime complexes.

I guess it's okay if you've never read anything.

I think it's a fine idea of having two gms, we had that some time ago and it's crazy how easy and less haggard some things, like playing npcs and managing dice-intensive encounters become. Really, if the gms are really familiar with each other and the setting it will likely work even better than one dedicated gm.

I can already think of a few games. Morrowind: 1/100 Oblivion 2/100 Wow, I should have my own review site!!! Lemme try: Mass Effect: 7/100 Wow, it's really easy!

Seeing Opeth and Entombed today at Pakkahuone, Tampere. Am pretty excited, though before that hav'ta run to the uni to return exams, arrange a meeting and see an old friend come to town. In other news, she looks so cute when she's asleep.

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Sorry, I got the names mixed. Who was the apparition who got his face full of ammo just before you pressed the switch and ended the sequence? The one yelling "kill me!" or something akin.

Beta Satan - Girls(album)

From the top of my head I can think of only a few games not already mentioned, such as Mafia(full monty there) Max Payne 2 and Silent Hill 2. Then some random ones with severe hinting, like Freelancer and Chrome. Truth to be told, those two did have more characterization that action titles usually get. Freelancer especially had a very strong cast and Trent and Jun'Ko are easy to like and honestly down to earth.

I actually think that the Elves as underdogs and racial fear with ghettos shares something with Sapfkowski's Witcher world, where xenophobia runs rampant and other fantasy races are as opressed as they get. So its nothing new in that regard. On one hand, I applaud them for not having a farm boy start available, but on the other, they could try to break some bridges with tradition.

I'm more upset about there being no option to play a hedge mage, of even superficial ability, but I guess it's a setting thing rather than being a flaw. Anyways, I really like the city elf option, dwarved noble is also something new. We don't often get to start in a dwarven settlement of any kind and it will be nice to see a more down to earth rendition than "oooh, you got machines"-diatribe like in every other fantasy game where you officially hit the half-way mark by entering The Dwarven City. All in all, it looks like Bioware is trying to shuffle the deck a bit and that's nice. The Dalish origin still looks like Bioware's take on romantic Gypsies, hoh.

Kaftan missed the mark a bit, the Reapers are a lot more like the Wolves/Inhibitors of the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds. Even the warning mechanism being a big shiny thing set as a trap in space for races advanced enough to find and to signal the destroyers to appear was ripped from there. Naturally, Bioware changed some particulars, like the fact that Wolves can be individuals to an extent and even sarcastic, they're still very similar. On the naming, pshah, John Shephard sounds official and military-like, like a certain Adrian for instance, I don't think it has that much signifigance. Especially since the actual character is such a blank slate.

I recall seeing a shot of Jaheira somewhere(looked fine) and heard about someone posting the other npcs, but I haven't seen any screens. Would someone here know of any?

Right.

Yeah, you guessed it. Though I'm still kinda sure it was Beckett who got spoiled, not the player character.

Or the Hearts of Steel one, where they landed in the 1800s and took the form of steam engines and DaVinci esque flying machines. http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/images/shockwave.jpg http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x112/ng...el_Megatron.jpg http://www.cyberfembot.com/CustomToys/FrontPage/RED_01.jpg http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/transfor...of_Steel_2b.jpg Those look a bit less inspired than the WW2 ones, but it's a cool concept nevertheless.

Everyone who liked JA2 should make the jump to Silent Storm and Sentinels pseudo-sequel. Unless the one thing in JA you liked was the funny 80's action movie setting.

Oh yeah, and the Goths had their own silly naming as well.

Anyways, I'm a level 2 Ranger then. Pretty cool, never having played tabletop D&D before. Frozen Fingers of Midnight would have been the best scenario so far, if our resident Chelaxians didn't overpower everything(barbarian only takes damage with a critical, thanks to tower shield, fighter took monk levels for imrpoved grapple and has a spiky armor, the cleric is a total tanker) each time "A CHALLENGER APPEARS". Otherwise, the Golarian vikings, Ulfen, have a great feel to them and the scenario had about 5 different endings, so great design there. We ended up sending back missing you-cards to disappointed factions leaders that all had a "From Rus...Ilarris with Love"-caption in them, but at least Jacquo Dalsine, head of the most corrupt Pathfinder lodge can't reach us in an enchanted polar kingdom based on Russian myth, hurrhurr. And it will be great to try to fit the 1,5 months travel by caravan trip back to the Inner Sea to the character lore once we play the next scenario on Wednesday. Love it.

Oh yes! Though personally, I prefer Chief Whosemoralsarelastix and the senator Surplus Dairyprodus. I see that the names are pretty different by region, but I love it just as well. Fishmonger Amaryllix lol Its even funnier if you know that the -rix suffix meant "king" in Gaetane and Senone Gaelic.

And we haven't even seen sniper rifles, bazookas, etc yet, it was only mentioned that the four weapon types are only ones that have unlimited ammo. IIRC, there was a mention someone that there would be powerful weapons, perhaps ones that you gain from special circumstances or for special missions, that would have limited ammo. Not counting scifi stuff, like the GEP gun, Deus Ex had smg, shottie, sniper rifle, several different pistols and melee weapons. It, however, didn't have hand-to-hand so I think we are pretty even right now.

Honestly, really honestly, Maria, read my post again. I'm really happy that they are going so traditional with this. I like it, as I wrote, Bioware haven't done high fantasy for a while. This is exactly the kind of Weis-Tolkien-etc stuff that welcomes back everyone who used to escape into Ansalon or Lorien after algebra or a crappy EP class in the rain. It's as if someone took a homebrew setting for a tabletop second ed D&D and gave it a massive budget. It gives me hope for a Malazan books game, actually. They started as a homebrew GURPS campaign, IIRC. I'm not even going to go into parallels with contemporary fantasy writing with your examples of "not high-fantasy". The test, the xenohobia, etc, it's already done and therefore only adds to the feel and look Bioware seem to be going for. As for the music, I'm sorry. The music didn't update for me, I just had the very BG2-esque theme playing through the parts of that site I visited(not all), I'll look into it, but bombastic is exactly what Lotr music was. Even Basil Poledouris did athmospheric and low-key parts, it doesn't change it one bit. On the Dwarven example, you're right, since it seems a bit more decent, unlike the Dalish delivery for instance. Though I'm pretty sure that the "exposition" is the style that most of the characters in the game will be speaking in, since Mass Effect had dozens of these walking encyclopaedias pretending to be characters. Well see about that. The choose your origina page quotes really set me on edge to be honest. Diablo 2, a game written in 1998, had a much more consistent speech, I don't mean that it had a patois like Thief 1, but that it didn't feel like somebody talking in English grammar book examples. And "hack" means a dungeon hack. You're likely familiar with the term. Gather party, arm them, go where there be dragons. Sorry if I get on your nerves, its not intentional. And mkreku, The Witcher had angry, dirty, vernacular-speaking peasants that had exactly the kind of mood that you'd expect from someone who knows his life is shoveling manure and going to the church at sabbath, city people who couldnt care less about dropping their -ing forms and being hypercorrect and actually angry minorities that weren't written to sound like they are so-awfully condescending and superior to you. That Dalish example which they made into a freaking wallpaper is one dandy example of why I call "trite". In reference, look up the Witcher counterpart, Yaevin.