Amentep

The way that looks to me, I'd consider handling it by breaking the quest into four parts: FIND THE LAIR OF THE WYRM GET INTO THE LAIR OF THE WYRM KILL THE WYRM REPORT THE SUCCESS TO THE FARMER In your scenario you would get the Quest XP KILL THE WYRM at the time of killing it. You'd get Quest XP for GET INTO THE LAIR OF THE WYRM by killing the guards but could have gotten it as well by sneaking past the guards into the cave. Once the Wyrm was dead, update the Journal with something like: "Just killed an immature Wyrm. Cave nest appears close to farmland; possible that someone there will want to know" When you meet the Farmer and he gives you the quest, you'd get a dialogue to indicate you'd already found the cave and killed the worm, thus satisfying the FIND THE LAIR OF THE WYRM and REPORT THE SUCCESS TO THE FARMER and awarding Quest XP. However if you meet the Farmer first, you'd follow the 4 parts of the quest in order and receive the quest XP as you go. At least that's how I'd assume it'd go. No clue how Obs is going to actually solve it (and they may leave the final award of the quest XP for completing the whole thing, dunno, but smaller dispersments makes more sense to me).

Well we can hope it's justified. I hope they don't do a DA2 and just not really address the situation (because, frankly, there's no way Hawke-Mage should have not been tossed into the Circle). I'm betting half the appeal of people wanting to play Qunari is solely down to them being unplayable in the first game. Mind you in general, I'm for DA series expanding their racial choices, but they really haven't given a lore way to expand other than Qunari and...intelligent darkspawn I guess.

Every iteration of DA has changes made to the Qunari. I'm not sure how this is a "change". We know that there are Quinari outside of the Qun in DA2. So what, exactly, changed here...? This is more difficult for me to accept than the Qunari changes. DA:O went to great lengths to show how mages outside of the Circle are considered outcasts and the templars hunt them down. All of this is brought on by the Chantry in DA2. Now the Divine appoints a mage to lead an inquisition? Sorry but if Shepherd from ME made a cameo in DA:I I would not be surprised. There's no integrity left in the story. They should have stuck to the Greywarden/Darkspawn story they had going. It actually got interesting in the final DLC. The Divine (and again, that's my guess, but given that the Divine's right and left hands are assisting the Inquisitor, I think a reasonable guess) appoints the only person who can close FADE BREACHES that are causing death and destruction across Thedas to head up a group to investigate and stop the source of destruction that threatens the world, as they know it. I'm not sure why The Divine would go "Yes, well I know that you are the only possible hope in saving our world as demons reign down from Fade Breaches and slaughter the hepless, but you know...you were an apostate and I just can't forgive that. Sorry let the world burn, but we're 'tranquiling' your ass."

That's what it seems from what I've read, yeah. It does get tiresome, but I guess its an easy hook to explain why the PC matters in the story. And as I recall Bioware hasn't done a RPG yet that wasn't a variation of "The Chosen One" (unless its NWN - I can't actually remember the plot of the OC on that). BG series, JE, ME series, DA I, DA II were all pretty much annoited PCs. Edit - I've heard what PrimeJunta has said hinted at as well - with much of the story under wraps it'll be hard to say how it'll play out.

Mmmm, now I'm thinking "Stephen King's The Dark Half"...

The "Qunari" inquisitor isn't culturally a Qunari. Technically the Qunari would call her - as I understand it - a Valshoth, someone who has never heard the Qun (as opposed to a Tal-Vashoth, someone who has abandoned the Qun). That's the trouble of combining a culture and an ethnicity, though, it lacks clarity. The Inquisition leader is the leader because they're the only person to have survived the initial Fade Breach which has given them special "powers" that can be used to close new Fade breaches, thus they get made the leader regardless of their background. Since the story is heavily in Orlais, I'm guessing the Inquisitor is put in their position by the Divine herself (thus mooting most Templar protestations). I don't find either scenario to be implausible based on the series so far (and again assuming that ultimately the Inquisitor is given the title by the Chantry itself to face the Fade breeches).

Mind you they're saying that the next Mass Effect is more than a few years away. While I'd imagine the stuff they're doing now will be in Frostbite, I do wonder if that'll be the end engine or not.

I guess he could always just do a bio-pic on Tolkein too.

♪ I feel pretty, Oh, so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright! And I pity Any girl who isn't me tonight. ♫

Well I don't think anyone is going for THE SIMILARION - THE MOVIE, so I guess after December. Which IIRC frees him up for the Tintin sequel.

It is really good, been getting it in trade.

My suggestion... .... .... .... ....wait for it... .... .... .... "END OF LINE"

Weirdly - to me at least - the "loot everything in sight" mentality is driven by the economy of the game. Very early on you need every copper piece you can scrape up so you'll take everything that might possibly be sold so that you can buy necessary equipment. The deep stash really doesn't solve the problem, it just manages it differently.

Well its not "bonus experience", its just experience in the context of PE. But the argument appears to be its okay to award kill xp for every Xvart you find, but to earn stealth XP you have to stealth past every Xvart. Seems inconsistant to me. Ideally if you're not wanting to create accidental incentives for people to play a particular way than the general expectations of outcomes should be similar, I'd think. Inaccessible would be awkward if you stealthed past something you were supposed to steal on your way out to progress through Map 2, but can't go back to Map 1. Units removed wouldn't make logical sense and people seem to dislike that sort of thing in games. And you can leave it like the IE games which meant stealthing was only good for finding traps and scouting too. Its not invalid. That said, I'm not sure how it would effect the "games pacing". I can't say that when I saw a Xvart in BG1 I was pondering over carefully about how much XP I got from it (but perhaps that's just me). Learning from killing is very gamey anyhow, to be fair. Generally people would spend years training and then expand how to apply that training "live" but that's not really the way games work. That said, I readily admit that I probably side more on a gameist side than a simulationist side. YMMV. Which isn't bad, IMO, just different. The ultimate proof is in tasting the pudding, IMO.

IIRC BG1 & 2 had random monster spawns (the skeletons over by that wizard hut in BG1 kept respawning, IIRC, and in BG2 you had the random traveling encounters). RE: Flagging something as unkillible - I'm under the impression this would cause all of Europe to go into outrage, like they did when kids weren't killable in Fallout. Or so I hear. I'd also imagine - but could be wrong - that setting quest XP is an easier solution than trying to toggle a on/off boolean for a lot of individual creatures during each instance. Also I suppose it raises the question of what to do if you stealth past Group 1 but fail to steatlh past group 2 and the two groups are in close proximity. Should only Group 2 attack (which is unrealistic) or should Group 1 & 2 attack (which is realistic, but causes the player to expend resources on killing creatures they can't benefit from by killing).

Scorpion King 3 was kind of boring. I like bad films, but don't be boring, that's the worst thing you can do.

Well if it was Fallout it'd be because you couldn't leave the ****ing turn-based combat, hitting "end combat" just opened the damn ****ing combat **** up again. If it was the IE games, I really dunno.

It doesn't mean that the game doesn't exist, though. You can still play KotOR I and II; the words are not, to use your example, removed from the pages. They're there for you to read and re-read. It just means it doesn't connect to the larger architechture of the "universe". As a long time comic book fan, this is almost de rigueur for the handling of those shared universes. And yeah sometimes I wish they hadn't rebooted that particular character, or this comic line or what have you. But at the end of the day whether it matters to the continuity is less important IMO than whether or not it was enjoyable to me. Continuity be hanged, I played KotOR I and II and enjoyed them and can do so again, regardless of Lucasarts/Disney.

I remember you getting some flak about the Light Saber Nunchuck idea in 2004 but don't remember the "real world Light Sabers" discussion. Must have blinked.

Would love a "Weird Western" setting but that's probably darn unlikely. Would also like a "Pulp Adventure" set in the 30s. Doublely unlikely unless "Pulp Adventure" is defined as "Action + Lovecraft Mythos" in which case it goes back to just unlikely. But, ultimately, I want Obsidian to do a kickstarter about a game setting they're passionate about. That'll probably work out for the best. Isn't the rights to that with Activision-Blizzard? (Sierra was bought by Vivendi who was sold to Activision). Unless you mean "Arcanum 2 in spirit and not in actual IP" in which case, carry on.

That's cool as long as it doesn't handle like a methodone addict going through the shakes again. Hope they licence the "Moon Patrol" theme for when you're in the Mako...

Lucy - Thought it was a fun film - its like Luc Besson decided to meld a 70s sci-fi movie with his own earlier action films. Enjoyment may be muted if you can't get past some of the initial wonky science.

Maybe its just me, but "my opinion as fact" rants don't amuse me.

Well if it is a horror RPG, I'm hoping you can create your character. Whether that is choosing how smokey your head is or what color your hoodie is, I don't know.

Even knowing all of that about real-trials vs TV-trials, I still watch re-runs of Perry Mason.