I just found out that my first spring job is delayed a week, so I'll have basically unlimited time to play DA2 next week.

[/happydance]

Looks like I can't install, only download. I don't get my activation key until noon on Tuesday. Which is probably a good thing, it'll keep me from staying up all night Monday to play.

Speaking of direct2drive, if you can handle not activating until noon Tuesday, it looks like they have a 20% sale all weekend on all RPG titles, so it would be a good time to preorder DA2 if you haven't already. Coupon code is "burnout" at checkout.

ROFL

Now I get the release date of Sunday, April 8th. Still get the Austria pop up for UAC in Windows 7.

The third dlc tome (of things not lost) was unlocked.

Just watched a live demo, and they showed a high dragon battle. Completely different from the first game. It looked the same at the start, but a couple minutes into the fight the high dragon flew up to a perch and then drakes began to spawn all over the place (the high dragon was still launching fireballs the whole time...). The guy playing the demo (Mike Laidlaw, the lead designer...) cleared those groups and eventually the high dragon came back down onto the battlefield. And then a couple of minutes later more drakes started to spawn along with some dragons the size of the ones in the Brecilian forest temple.

At this point he switched the game from Normal to Nightmare, just to show people watching what Nightmare looked like. And his party got wiped in about 15 seconds.

It was bah-ruh-tal.

His comment was basically "my party wasn't high enough level to do this fight on Nightmare (everybody was I think 19) and they weren't set up tactically to do it." Which makes sense, because his guys were knocking each other over all over the battlefield. He then went on to say that a couple of the testers were able to beat the fight on Nightmare, so it can be done.

This of course feeds into my belief that, as much as people are bitching on the forums about it being turned into console style button smashing (it's not...), it's going to be harder to beat this game on Nightmare than it was to beat Origins.

He also showed off the Black Emporium, which looked pretty cool, along with some of the dlc gear, including Blood Dragon armor, which I didn't even realize was back in the game.

Oh man, I hate the multi-step battles.

Well, I have the correct release date now in my release date check. Tuesday March 8th, 03:02.

I've got some bad news for you, then. In another demo (I think I linked it on here, maybe not) he talked about how they'd adopted MMO style strategy into some of the boss encounters.

Most of the people who've been ranting about the game being 'dumbed down' apparently missed that. They're in for an ugly surprise if that's really the case, and I'm not just hallucinating...

That would be unfortunate. The freedom to choose your own way to defeat a boss is pretty important IMO. MMO style would lead me to believe me that the fights are scripted and there is only really one way to defeat them.

Looks like the final wipe for Legends is tomorrow. I haven't played it much since the last wipe. Unfortunately I can't play the game at work (heh), and I don't want to waste my time at home playing Legends when I can be playing DA2.

If you are ever tempted to buy crowns, you can buy a Groupon and get free facebook credits. I'm not sure if this can be done multiple times (on different days) but it would be a good alternative to just flat out buying them.

I think you're worrying maybe a little too much. MMO style combat developed out of the dungeons and dragons tradition. The MMO 'trinity' owes as much to Baldur's Gate as it does to Ultima or EQ or WoW.

And, at least to me, combat it Origins was pretty bad, in terms of not being challenging, even on nightmare. The spell effects were cool, and it was interesting leveling skills up to see what they do, but that Dragon fight I saw yesterday was about a thousand times more interesting than the one in Origins (although it was obviously an offshoot of it, rather than a completely unrelated event). And any variety in terms of ways to beat things in Origins was pretty superficial. It all pretty much came down to tank and spank in the end. Although there were some different things in Awakenings and Golems (which were I'd say fights more liken to MMO boss fights).

And the scripted events are going to be there like it or not. The videos with the Rock Wraith, where the party has to hide behind columns, has been out there for months.

Yeah, perhaps. I'm not too worried I guess. I actually like the story more than anything, to be honest.

I finally got around to playing the demo yesterday. Looks awesome. Pre-ordered the game, will pick it up from Best Buy after work tomorrow. Very happy the wife is working tomorrow night.

I don't know about you guys.... but I'm totally feeling an illness coming on....

I finally beat Origins....


I'm definantly getting this.



You guys play online? how does that work with Parties etc? is there a CP clan?

Can you trade gear?