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[impressioniste]

I spend most of my 'free' time these days playing video games. I actually got very very involved in the Assassin's Creed series, and have finished several of the games and am working on the rest. I still have a passing interest in Dragon Age, but the game I've been spending almost all my time on lately is Dragon's Dogma

Comments

[reddwarfer]

Dragon's Dogma was so close to perfect for me. The only qualm I had was the weirdass romance dynamic. Because in both playthroughs I had, I ended up romanced to not-the-person-I-gave-the-ring-to. In the second one, it was Aslam (I think that's the name...it's been a while since I played) the dude who was the inn-keeper. And I was like...bwuh? Normally, I really wouldn't care...but if you remember the post-game world, he's usually at the Pawn place...but if he's romanced, he's stuck in your originating village. Which is a giant pain for when you want to manage your inventory and rest and shit. And the first time, it ended up being the duchess. I did like that it appeared to be gender irrelevant. But...weirdass dynamics. I had so much fun with it. Still need to do the last battle in the second runthrough. I got stuck on trying to kill the damned Ur-Dragon for the cheevo.

I'm definitely going to get the updates when I get xbox points. It's a great game.

I know you were into Dragon's Age, but did you ever play Mass Effect? Because it is the best. The best thing ever. Seriously. And I loved all the DLC, too, which really makes it whole. I just. It has awesome characters and an awesome story and just...I have spent over 800 hours playing the trilogy. That is not an exaggeration. I looked it up on my raptr account.

[impressioniste]

Yeah, the affinity system ended up being REALLY buggy, and caused a lot of problems, especially since it was required that you raise certain characters' affinity to max levels for various reasons (like the merchants for equipment, etc), and the game didn't differentiate between romantic/non-romantic affinity. It was just like HIGHEST AFFINITY = ROMANCE.

A lot of people ended up getting really weird love interests, like Fournival or the innkeeper, eheheh. Some of the weirder ones will screw up your game a bit, and the innkeeper is one of the bigger problematic ones. Luckily I had a heads-up when I played my first time so I didn't have that problem.

They recently just had an 'Ur Hunting' week event where they completely nerfed the online Ur-Dragon to make it super squishy and easy to kill, so that players could all get in on it. The offline version is still fairly squishy, but the online one is crazy. It takes about a week to kill, now, and that's with people pounding on it relentlessly all week. Well, the PS3 version does, anyway. I'm not sure about the Xbox community.

I do wish the 'fandom/community' for Dragon's Dogma was a little better. There's this weird dichotomy of female character hate blended with a majority of anoerexic, young-looking, scantily clad female pawns. I keep seeing complaints about 'that whore Aelinore' and comments about 'sex slave' pawns and it's kind of disturbing. But what can you do, I guess.

I... have played way too many times. I had Maximilian as my LI on the first playthrough (which was deliberate on my part), but also had Selene move in with us (oops?). Then I accidentally wound up with Barnaby, the guy running the pawn guild, on my speedrun playthrough--which is really weird because he's a Pawn, so I don't understand why he's romanceable. I get why Selene is, because of story stuff, but that doesn't stick for Barnaby. Then I got Julien, and Reynard. I still have to go through Mercedes, Aelinore, and Madeleine.

Sometimes the game spazzes out and it doesn't care who you gave your ring to, it defaults to the last person you speak to before the quest/even triggers and sets them as your LI.

I did get a little bit into Mass Effect. I was actually starting my first real playthrough when the new expansion for Dragon's Dogma came out, so that got pushed on the back burner. But I know some story stuff and I'm somewhat familiar with the characters and setting.

[reddwarfer]

I am like...dedicated to getting people to be addicted to Mass Effect. I love it so hard.

I actually tried both times to get Maximilian and failed both times. lol. But I played it right when it came out, before any patches and whatnot. Same thing with Amalur.

I hope they put out new RPGs soon. It's really the only genre I play. Dragon Age 3 is gonna be announced at E3. I can't wait.

[impressioniste]

Maximilian is actually really hard because of the way the game is set up. For some reason, some characters will never show max affinity (pink glow) until you do their quests, and Max's escort quest is at the VERY end of the game, literally right before the game chooses your LI (and sometimes you can even do it after, which doesn't help).

I sat there shoving Quills at him and other stuff for an hour and he never pinked, even when I gave him the ring, but as soon as I finished his escort quest, it automatically changed. I shoved another ring at him after that just to make sure.

I was really heartbroken when I did my speedrun and Max's affinity was like at zero, he called me all sorts of names and stuff after I had the encounter with the duke postgame :c Then I boosted it back up for my third run, and even though he wasn't my LI his dialogue changed and instead of calling me a traitor and such he just apologized for having to do his job and seemed really sorry for having to come after me.

He's a refrigerator-shaped teddy bear in a giant pink curtain ;A; He's such a minor NPC but I love him for some reason.

Ahhhhhhasdflaksdlksd I have about a million in-progress games of Amalur going on, too. I haven't finished it, but only because I keep getting sidetracked by other games. I loved it and was so sad the company tanked.

[reddwarfer]

I only played Amalur once and it's because there's no way to get a different game. There's no different choices you can make. I played Dragon Age and Mass Effect a million times because you can play it ten times and still see new things, depending on what you choose. I kept losing interest in Amalur because it's not very deep. Still beat it. Got all but one achievement. (the only achievement remaining is to play it on hard and I can't imagine doing it again, just for that). However, I had fun. It was fun. I loved the different ways you could build your character. I adored the house upgrading. I hope there's something like that in Dragon Age 3.

I got Max pink, so I was totally surprised when I ended up seeing Duchess. Even more so when I saw Innkeeper dude. Because I never gave him a single gift. So weird.

inorite? I loved him from the moment I saw him and wanted for him to be my boo. :( I'll have to play it again as soon as I pull myself away from Mass Effect. I'm currently Stevemancing with my dudeShep. And next, I want to Samanthamance with my ladyShep. And possibly replay a LadyShep/Liaramance. And after that, I might play Dogma again.

[impressioniste]

Yeah, not having different choices is a bummer, that's about the only complaint I had about the game, I think. And Faeblades and Chakrams were so awesome. I could play a mage and tear through stuff with chakrams, I wasn't tied to a staff. It was great.

There are a handful of characters I got attached to in Amalur, despite the sort of general shallowness of most of the characters. I loved the three companions in the House of Valor bit, and there were a couple of other NPCs like Agarth and General Tilera that I got attached to.

Haha, yeah, sounds like your game fell victim to one of the weird affinity bugs.

I was planning to do a Femshep/Liara game when I actually get to a full run of Mass Effect.

[reddwarfer]

FemmeShep/Liara is one of the best romances in the entire series. (It's second to FemmeShep/Garrus, imo)...especially if you have Lair of the Shadow Broker for ME2. Actually, I'd even insist that ShadowBroker is why it's the bestish romance of the series. There are so many wonderful moments for the two of them. I'm actually getting excited about the idea of you playing Mass Effect. (See above. I just want everyone to love it as much as I do. I can talk about it for hours and hours and hours)