Video Games

[DSMatticus]

My very first playthrough, it dropped from the first knight you see. I got used to that sword. My second playthrough, it took a while.

That is exactly what happened to me, until I replaced it with the zweicopter.

[Maxus]

My very first playthrough, it dropped from the first knight you see. I got used to that sword. My second playthrough, it took a while.

That is exactly what happened to me, until I replaced it with the zweicopter.

I never took the zweihander. Hard to use it in enclosed spaces, like an open field, and the extra stamina loss got on my nerves after a while.

I did, however, eventually switch to the Black Knight Greataxe.

[rampaging-poet]

What platform and what level are you. Because if you're on the 360, I'll totally try to jump in there with you.

I'm just over Level 80, but unfortunately I'm playing the PC version. I also picked up the Black Knight Sword from the first black knight. For awhile I used a spear as a backup weapon for enclosed spaces, but I've gotten more comfortable two-handing the Black Knight Sword for that instead. Now the only time I use my (divine) spear is when I'm fighting the regenerating skeletons in The Catacombs.

On my next play-through I'll probably try to get a Balder Side Sword ASAP because it's pretty much Black Knight Sword light. The moveset is almost identical, although the damage is lower. On the other hand the Balder Side Sword can be ascended into an elemental weapon which I'm sure will help for multiplayer. Other than the Gaping Dragon I haven't run into anything that's easier to kill with elemental damage than with the overwhelming power of the Black Knight Sword.

In any case, I just need to get through the Painted World before heading to the Kiln of the First Flame. I know the Painted World is optional, but I thought it would be best to get a little more experience and loot before tackling the final area.

[Koumei]

Terraria updated, and... I have to say, as much as I like the game, I really just like the crafting and mining and exploring and discovering new recipes and such, expanding the house with mushroom workbenches and fancy lights and stained glass, and then building a giant golden cock and balls.

The goblin invasions and zombies are just an annoying thing you have to deal with in the meantime. Though the bosses are actually kind of cool, wailing on Eye of Cthulhu and the Devourer of Worlds is enjoyable and makes you use that double-jump, grappling hook and variety of weapons.

[PhoneLobster]

Terraria updated

I have found... things... which at least as of last night the internet still isn't explaining to me.

The most pressing of which are the "special" locks. There are three DIFFERENT unique key requiring locks on random chests in the dungeon I just explored. I have no idea where to get the keys and when I checked at most there were one or two people out there going "hey... there's these chests..." and the wiki's hadnt even gotten that far.

But I also found a weird extra dungeon thingy deep beneath the jungle with a locked door with ANOTHER unique key required.

Oh yeah and I fought the bee queen and took her bee gun. Bee gun is hilarious. It shoots out heat seeking bees.

The sky islands are much improved. And no longer have stupidly locked chests you can't deal with until WELL past relevance of the contents.

As usual I have discovered countless items it would have been brilliant to have as a starting item, but are useless by the time I found them. Even Bee Gun is a tough underpowered, but snowball cannon and ice sword are pretty much useless for the character that found them.

On the plus side early on a regular cave bat randomly dropped a "Chain Dagger" which I used with basically nothing else (I completed the last item in my COPPER Armour set just as the bastards arrived, I was literally in the middle of putting my pants on) to fight off an annoyingly early goblin invasion.

Also it is a touch annoying about how Crimson and the alternative ores work. Since they're all exclusive I'd like to be able to pick what generates on creating a world, but, apparently not to be.

[Koumei]

I should mention I bought the game on the weekend, so I have a small house with four rooms, two NPCs and disproportionate power because I joined my girlfriend's world for a bit and she gave me a full set of Magma Armour, a Magma Hammax and the Drill which will Pierce the Heavens. And a double-jump bottle, grapple-hook (these two you should just flat-out have at the start of the game), and an item that turns me into a fishman when underwater, so drowning does not happen.

That said, I have found a bunch of my own weapons in my game that are serving as ideal weapons (the axe and drill are great, mind). The chain dagger and ball and chain are amazing for dealing with:
A) Flying Crap (Eye of Cthulhu, Devourer)
B) Masses of things/multi-segment enemies (Goblins, Devourer)
C) Basically everything, actually

And I crafted my own SPACE LASER

But yeah, I haven't found any of the special underground places other than the occasional little "it looks like a tiny house underground" where you get some chests and a clock or something. Also haven't been searching the sky yet.

For workshop facilities I currently have an iron anvil, workbench, mushroom workbench, ebonwood workbench (testing to see if they allow different things. They don't), furnace, sawmill, loom, cauldron.
Ores and crap: loads of wood, iron, ebonwood, demonite, silver, copper, gold, ebonstone, meteorite, some obsidian.

Not sure what I'm "supposed" to be unlocking or making next.

[Maxus]

What platform and what level are you. Because if you're on the 360, I'll totally try to jump in there with you.

I'm just over Level 80, but unfortunately I'm playing the PC version. I also picked up the Black Knight Sword from the first black knight. For awhile I used a spear as a backup weapon for enclosed spaces, but I've gotten more comfortable two-handing the Black Knight Sword for that instead. Now the only time I use my (divine) spear is when I'm fighting the regenerating skeletons in The Catacombs.

On my next play-through I'll probably try to get a Balder Side Sword ASAP because it's pretty much Black Knight Sword light. The moveset is almost identical, although the damage is lower. On the other hand the Balder Side Sword can be ascended into an elemental weapon which I'm sure will help for multiplayer. Other than the Gaping Dragon I haven't run into anything that's easier to kill with elemental damage than with the overwhelming power of the Black Knight Sword.

In any case, I just need to get through the Painted World before heading to the Kiln of the First Flame. I know the Painted World is optional, but I thought it would be best to get a little more experience and loot before tackling the final area.

For the regenerating skeletons, I used the Astora Straight Sword you find from the zombie dragon. The one-handed strong attack is thrust that knocks a couple of vertebra out of a skeleton's spine, and they have to float their torso back up, giving you time to set up the next hit.

The painted world is either REALLY hard, or really short. I couldn't tell you how without screwing with it for a bit, but I remember there being a sort of shortcut to get to the end in a hurry.

It is, however, one of my favorite areas in the game. And the painting itself is cool.

[DSMatticus]

Not sure what I'm "supposed" to be unlocking or making next.

Your girlfriend skipped your armor up to the best thing before hardmode. The task before you is as such: start a new world. You and your creations will thank me for this. In your new world, take the Drill which will Pierce the Heavens and turn it the wrong way. When you arrive in Hell, begin stabbing demons in the face. Eventually one of the ones that can fly will drop a voodoo doll of the guide. You are surrounded by lava holding a voodoo doll.

On the off chance that you resisted temptation, build a decently long platform over all the lava pits and through all the buildings towards the nearest map edge. Stock up on battle potions, go to the edge of the platform closest to a map edge, and toss it in. Survive your comeuppance (you monster), and you will receive the Pwnhammer and the world you are in will be blessed with a giant streak of Corruption and a giant streak of Hallow (pet the unicorns, go on, I dare you). Also, both biome types will now spread through stone and sand and containing them is a nightmare. This world will eventually be unlivable, and you probably shouldn't try to build a real house/NPC village here. But now you're in hardmode, and Terraria Pt. 2 begins.

[rampaging-poet]

For the regenerating skeletons, I used the Astora Straight Sword you find from the zombie dragon. The one-handed strong attack is thrust that knocks a couple of vertebra out of a skeleton's spine, and they have to float their torso back up, giving you time to set up the next hit.

The painted world is either REALLY hard, or really short. I couldn't tell you how without screwing with it for a bit, but I remember there being a sort of shortcut to get to the end in a hurry.

It is, however, one of my favorite areas in the game. And the painting itself is cool.

It turns out I should have had about 30 blooming moss clumps on me before going there. Lesson learned. I grabbed a lot of loot, then walked past the boss instead of fighting her because I was still poisoned and only had a few uses left on my estus flask even after double-kindling the bonfire. I'll definitely get some more blooming moss and poison resist before going back for round two.

[PhoneLobster]

Ores and crap: loads of wood, iron, ebonwood, demonite, silver, copper, gold, ebonstone, meteorite, some obsidian.

Not sure what I'm "supposed" to be unlocking or making next.

While paving over hell and fighting the wall of flesh seems like the next step it isn't entirely clear.

Because you might have missed out on a bunch of stuff.

1)You need lots of crystal hearts, are you full on health or at least close to it? Because you want to be. Go exploring underground to find a bunch.

2)You need lots of mana. Are you full on mana? Go walking around on the surface a bunch at night to find more stars.

3) Have you explored the Dungeon? Even after hell armour it's fairly relevant and full of junk you want, in particular you want a HAND GUN. So you can get some hellstone and make it into a PHOENIX BLASTER. The space laser might do as a substitute, with piles of mana and mana potions, or with a full meteorite armour set, but its inferior. And you need good missile attacks vs the wall of flesh, there are other options like spells that drop in the dungeon or hell, but the Poenix blaster (with meteorite ammo) is the go to option.

4) There's new content in 1.2 Not sure exactly how much or what, but there are things you can go do pre hard mode like find the Hive in the underground jungle and fight the be queen. Or repeatedly fight Skeletron for his rare drops. And just... stuff...

5) If you have a single Shadow Key (from the dungeon) you can explore hell and unlock shadow chests for relevant loot.

6) Have you got the "best pre-hard mode sword" yet? To make Nights Edge you need a muramasa (sword found in chests in the dungeon), a Grass Blade (sword made from jungle materials), a Fiery Great Sword (sword made from hellstone), and EITHER a Lights Bane or a Blood Butcher (swords made from corruption ores). THEN you need to take all four to a corruption altar in order to make it. It's not necessary, the Fiery Great Sword alone is close enough, and if you like Balls And Chains you should just try searching shadow chests in hell for a Sun Fury instead. But it's nice to start hard mode with it, and apparently it can now be made into an awesome early hard mode weapon by combining it with a sword that drops sometimes from the wall of flesh no wait its a new one dropped by some sort of... Pirate Army?

7) If you are paving over hell, you can now actually do it with TARMAC! If you have piles of stone and gel. It would make you run faster during your fight there. It's silly, and probably expensive in Gel. But you can actually do that now.

Anyway. Yeah. Decide if you want to do any of that stuff, then pave over hell and start hard mode (and make sure to go and smash demon altars with your Pwn Hammer once you do, just watch out for the wraiths).

EDIT: Oh and I'm not sure I'd bother starting a new world. If you build your NPC complex sensibly they survive no problem, at least pre-1.2, so unless you are using your world largely for creative rather than functional stuff you don't really have anything that desperately in need of protection.

[Koumei]

1)You need lots of crystal hearts, are you full on health or at least close to it? Because you want to be. Go exploring underground to find a bunch.

Yeah, I only have 300 HP, and just surviving against those fucking sickle-throwing demons (while falling in lava and presumably facing a wall of flesh) suggests I'll need ~3K.

2)You need lots of mana. Are you full on mana? Go walking around on the surface a bunch at night to find more stars.

I have two stars worth of mana. I sort of... ignored it because literally the only time I used the space laser was when I ran out of glowsticks and needed to light the screen up while underwater. I then went and farmed jellyfish while draining the ocean into hell. What kind of magic stuff will I be wanting to look at?

PHOENIX BLASTER

Gotcha. I'll clear the dungeons out properly.

The ocean-into-lava thing is occurring in a new world, and this one has Crimstone. I killed the Brain of Cthulhu, then got taken out by Skeletron. Ultimately I need a better weapon - ball and chain wasn't as good against him, and the drill and axe don't really bring enough damage to the table.

Shadow chests sound awesome. As does crafting fancy swords and killing the bee queen and such.

[DSMatticus]

Yeah, I only have 300 HP, and just surviving against those fucking sickle-throwing demons (while falling in lava and presumably facing a wall of flesh) suggests I'll need ~3K.

Full is 400, so there's that. Ironskin potions are amazing and you want them. If exploring hell/paving your runway is proving to be a nightmare, craft a bunch of obsidian skin potions (lava immunity). Fireblossom + waterleaf + obsidian + bottled water at an alchemy station. Waterleaf will grow in clay pots submerged in water. Fireblossoms will grow in clay pots submerged in lava.

I have two stars worth of mana. I sort of... ignored it

This is honestly a valid lifechoice, magic never stops sucking unless 1.2 changed it up. Swords, spears, guns (and the flamethrower, later) are the way to go. Your best pre-hardmode options in each category are the Night's Edge (already discussed), the Dark Lance (find in Shadow Chests), and the phoenix blaster (handgun + hellstone bars)/minishark (buy from the gun dealer). The minishark has a low damage but high fire rate; the Wall of Flesh has low defense, and if you don't mind burning through the extra ammo I think the minishark is the way to go.

only time I used the space laser was when I ran out of glowsticks and needed to light the screen up while underwater.

The Dark Lance (best pre-hardmode spear, find in shadow chests) and Night's Edge both emit light when swung, which is amazing.

[PhoneLobster]

What kind of magic stuff will I be wanting to look at?

Magic was an iffy option in old terraria, just too mana dependent. But people made it work, somehow. And now things seem a little better on pricing.

At your level there are actually rather a lot of magic options floating around now. Including a bunch of new custom magic staffs made out of gems and metal, the top end of which might be competitive for what you do.

But most of the first magic options in the game kick in at around Dungeon/Hell as rare drops. Even with buffs some are questionable, or not suited vs the wall of flesh, so fire flower (hell), magic missile (dungeon), the hell version of the firey magic missile (hell), the aqua scepter (dungeon) are not great for a wall of flesh fight (but now sufficiently good for other things, aqua scepter is good in the dungeon and vs massed mobs, magic missile and such are great vs wasps in the jungle). Oooh and bee gun, probably useless vs wall of flesh and weak after that, but awesome fun vs general mobs before that, possibly viable vs skeletor or brain of cthulhu.

But anyway... as I see it for magic you might actually use vs wall of flesh...

SPACE LASER, damage is low but the shot passes right through so you can damage the wall every hit, maybe more than once while also hitting its annoying claw tentacles up front. You'll want a lot of mana, or the full meteorite armour that lets you fire the space laser for free! (But leaves you weak for defence so drink a speed potion and an iron skin potion and carry the second size of healing potion).

WATER BOLT (dungeon). Might do the job, but you are going to need mana potions, and maybe that thing that auto drinks mana potions for you when you run low (built out of a jungle drop and a mana potion last I checked). I've never liked it but it's very popular, I think you need a good drop with high quality random traits for it to be really viable to wall of flesh level.

DEMON SCYTHES (rare drop spell book off demons in hell). You know those things demons in hell shoot at you? Well its those. Get a good quality drop of this and its generally awesome, should do OK vs wall of flesh if you have piles o mana.

Still, the Phoenix Blaster (or if you have ridiculous gold the Mini-Shark) with Meteorite Ammo let you carry 1000s of shots instead of the... not many shots... from mana reliant things. Meteorite bullets pass through things and bounce off stuff (and add a little damage). They are the better option vs the wall, and easier to get, AND even if you go at the wall with Demon Scythes or whatever magic you should probably have one of these for "crap I'm Out of Mana!" back up.

[Archmage Joda]

So, I fear that sometimes I may have bursts of bad judgment as far as wanting certain games goes. Like when I wanted Evoland, which I eventually judged wasn't quite worth 10 dollars. Of course, now the game I find myself being tempted by is Knights of the Old Republic 2. Why that one, when it has such a poor reputation? Simple, I like the force powers of star wars d20 and I rather liked the first KotOR. But like I said, Kotor2 has a rather...infamous reputation, so how can/should I talk myself out of it?

[Hadanelith]

Don't talk yourself out of it. Get the fan-patch that mostly rebuilds the game to the way it was meant to be, and enjoy it. It's actually fairly good. Not great (that would have taken more dev time than they were given), but good.

[Archmage Joda]

Would I be able to install said patch on a steam copy of the game?

[Hadanelith]

I...think so? I have an original disc copy, so I'm not really sure about the Steam version. To be honest, I'd be very surprised if you could not install over the Steam version; it's probably the de facto standard version at this point.

[Koumei]

Started exploring the dungeon after explaining how things work to Skeletron. I enjoy the boss fights, they're pretty cool. Didn't really find anything useful in the dungeon (other than the goblin and mechanic) before I got killed by the endlessly spawning enemies. This game would be a lot more fun if the only baddies were the bosses.

Is there a mod for that?

[Blicero]

Would I be able to install said patch on a steam copy of the game?

That's what I did, so I would assume so. KotOR2 is absolutely brilliant, especially with the fan-patch.

[Stahlseele]

OK, i find myself at work, bored out of what's left of my mind, thinking about civ5 again . . and i start to wonder:

what's the most ridiculous addictive game for you denizens?

for me it's civ and the makers know it. if you end a round by winning or by quitting, you get 2 buttons:
Back to Main Menue
Just one . . more . . round . .

[name_here]

I got Dragon Age II last week. It exceeded expectations, but that was not a terribly difficult task because my expectations were on the order of slightly better than slamming my head into a low beam when it came to the main plot.

The big infuriating plot thing is basically that it's got the bioware puppy-kicking/orphan rescue problem despite not having a morality meter, except worse because it's supposed to be dark fantasy and not black-and-white. The main conflict is about treatment of mages, and you can either side with the people who favor herding them into concentration camps or side against them, and while this may seem pretty straightforward you're actually getting false-binaried into siding with the mind-controlling demon summoner mages.

There's seriously a main quest when you are outright forced to slaughter a bunch of guys (from both factions!) for planning to overthrow Fantasy Hitler and go for a sane middle ground. This is because they automatically assume you're with Fantasy Hitler because... you publically denounced her in front of the entire city and have been actively sabotaging efforts to recapture escapees who have not been possessed by demons or turned to mind control. Even more hilariously, they take a hostage possessed by Vengence (who is not exactly a demon and was a perfectly nice horrific affront to nature in general and life and death in particular before he merged with Sir Asshole) in order to get you to back down on your alleged excessive paranoia about people getting possessed by demons.

I seriously wish there was an opportunity to side with the Qunari on the mage issue; while the comparative morality of the Saarebas system and the Rite Of Annulment(kill every mage in the city. No one is spared )/Tranquil Solution(destroy the souls of every mage, ideally in the whole world) is debatable, the Saarebas system(Assign mages handlers and cut out their tongues. Brainwash them into obedience. If they are separated from their handlers, execute them) appears to have been pretty successful at keeping possession rates down and you're totally allowed to endorse the Rite Of Annulment, which predictably goes to hell because the entire basis for this whole system is that mages in this setting can get themselves superpowers by demonic possession basically at will; what were you expecting them to do when you told them you were going to exterminate them all? Not summon demons?

Basically, there's no way to actively point out that the leading cause of demonic possession is the alleged system to prevent demonic possession because mages who get sentenced to death for leaving their literal prison tower to visit mom tend to let demons possess them to fight off the templars. The First Enchanter apparently knew a blood magic spell to use the corpses of mages to cosplay as a Great Unclean One from the very beginning, but only used it after the Rite was invoked. Speaking of that incident, would it have killed them to not have that happen when you side with him and are winning? Well, I guess the voices in the Knight-Commander's head provide a bossfight on the other path too, so I suppose they'd need another source of bossfight.

It also commits pretty much the cardinal sin of endings; things would quite possibly have been better if the main character were never born, because you helped retrieve a cursed artifact that drove the Templar leader even more insane and kicked off the whole mess. I guess theoretically once the ensuing genocidal war settles down, things might suck less for mages, but it is also possible the Qunari will sweep in and conquer everything, which is only comparatively a good thing.

The gameplay is pretty decent, but like Dragon Age Origins they use the tactics system as an excuse for coding shitty AI. And the system is flawed; the conditionals are insufficiently complex. The specific problem I ran into is that I set up a tactic for the blood magic lady to use her blood-control AoE on large groups and then she kept using it on enemies who did not have any blood. Also, companions no longer wear armor you find but instead have their own fixed sets. This makes picking up powerful items used by other classes incredibly infuriating.

Oh, and then there's the infamous map thing, which I knew about going it. See, like many games a lot of areas reuse maps with different parts blocked off. Unlike many games, the area map display is unchanged, making it extremely obtrusively obvious and rending the map near-worthless.

[Maxus]

The genocidal war is gonna be the whole third game, I hear.

[name_here]

The genocidal war is gonna be the whole third game, I hear.

Apparently. According to the wiki, the leadup is elaborated on in a bridging novel.

Kirkwall taught the mage circles two things:

1. The templars will obey if the voices in their Knight-Commander's head tell them to slaughter all the mages in a city because a guy who everyone openly acknowledges is not and never was a member of the local circle and who is standing right there confessing blew up a cathedral (which, to make the total lack of connection clear to absolutely everyone, the First Enchanter would have entered before the explosion had the Knight Commander not interfered in his efforts to file a complaint to her nominal superior)

2. The mages are capable of taking on the templars in a fight, even in an area with an extraordinarily large contingent of templars for the mage contingent

Taking these lessons to heart, a number of senior mages proposed open succession. Cooler heads temporarily prevailed, but the situation rapidly deteriorated to the point that the Divine found it neccessary to order a secret mission to free a number of captured mages from her own alleged subordinates. This came to light, and so the Templar Order is in open revolt against the Chantry, as are the mages.

It is not entirely clear why the surviving witnesses to the Kirkwall incident did not make the primary lesson learned "If you ever see so much as a speck of that accursed rock again, throw it down the deepest mineshaft you can find, followed by everyone who touched it, and flood it with molten iron". But it wouldn't be Grimdark if people did sensible things, so instead apparently hardly anyone knows about that aspect.

Anyhow, characters:

Carver:
I played a warrior, so prologue got him.

Bethany:
Hawke's nice mage sister. Not much else to say on the character front, really. She approves of pro-mage stuff and basically every non-jackass thing Hawke does. Mechanically, Caster Supremacy is in effect, although she doesn't have any specialization. Took her along whenever possible unless I was trying to please Fenris/piss off Anders.

Then I took her into the Deep Roads and she did not come back

Varric:
Our incorrigible narrator. He amused me greatly and provided a useful injection of sane on many occasions. Mechanically, he was a rogue. Actually, for most of the game he was my only rogue, so he came along whenever. He also has a crossbow that cannot be swapped out that's pretty solid and levels with him.

Merril:
The team demonologist blood mage. She is quite nice if not altogether there in the head, but is pretty solid on important facts like "The correct answer to a demon offering to possess you is no." Pro-mage in general but not to a crazy extent. Mechanically she can use blood magic to cast from hit points and use a massive AoE that can be upgraded with a chance to paralyze on anything with blood. Provided most of my blasting.

Isabella:
A promiscuous bisexual former pirate captain. That, uh, was her entire character as far as I could tell. She was a rogue who was not able to pick level-appropriate locks when I got her, and went to the bench after the fourth party conversation in which she contributed being a promiscuous bisexual and absolutely nothing else.

Towards the end of Act 2, she attempted to persuade me to stick averting war with the Qunari on the back burner in order to recover an object of value to persuade some slaver not to kill her. Since members of Team Hawke are expected to resolve threats to their lives by petitioning Hawke to round up the posse and kill whomever is threatening them, and this has previously been applied to Wizard Byzantium nobility (although that guy ran off and we couldn't close the deal) I told her to screw off. She did not return, but I rather suspect she'll still be alive next game because Bioware loves their promiscuous bisexuals.

Fenris:
Ex-slave with mystery tattoo-based superpowers from Wizard Byzantium. He hates mages for some reason, which was a problem because I happened to like mages in general and offing ones who went off the deep end didn't get much approval from him, so mostly he hung around at home unless I had ambitions of pissing off Anders.

The only not-dead member of the party who did not initially join me in supporting the mages, but later I had the option to say "I thought you of all people would know what it is like to be a slave" and he admitted I had a point

Anders:

The team Abomination, who holds the special distinction of being the only mage known to have made the entity possessing them a worse person. Hardline pro-mage, inexplicably gives Merril shit about blood magic and consorting with demons, even though in my playthrough he has previously done both. Mechanically he is supposed to be the healer, but I assigned him to benchwarming.

He got possessed by Vengeance, formerly known as Justice, who in the corpse of a Grey Warden had been a firmly non-asshole paladinish member of the Warden-Commander's traveling freakshow. Now he comes out whenever Anders encounters templar and expresses a desire to murder everyone who shows anything other than complete agreement with his views, nearly killing an escaped mage rescued from templar for calling him a demon, which he pretty much is. He's the guy who deliberately pushes everything over the edge by detonating a magical bomb in the Kirkwall Chantry, killing hundreds of mostly-innocent people. Annoyingly, despite the whole "possessed by malevolent Fade entity" thing, you cannot at any point straight-up murder him until after the bomb goes off. There's a weird bit where an alliance of mostly not-crazy mages and templars kidnapped him to serve as a hostage, and I did not get to say, "I told him to piss off three years ago. Kill him if you want." In fact, a bunch of more hardline templars show up pretty much as soon as he wakes up, but he just wanders off without being detained

Aveline:

Lady captain of the guard. Take a wild guess at her characterization. Mechanically she gets a lot of people to attack her and then does not take damage. It's pretty effective.

My team became Merril, Varric, and Aveline pretty much at all times by mid act 2, mostly because I happened to like them and it was mechanically pretty solid. My Hawke was a warrior who specced as a Reaver, which is all about trading HP for damage, and piled on as much health regen and extra HP as possible, and later picked up Templar because blasting templars with their own anti-mage powers amused me and it really helped against mage and demon bosses.

[Aryxbez]

This world will eventually be unlivable, and you probably shouldn't try to build a real house/NPC village here. But now you're in hardmode, and Terraria Pt. 2 begins.

For someone who's never played Terraria, this sounds like the world becomes a Post Apocalypse.

Also Shrapnel, riddle me this, what makes a Modded Oblivion appealing, over other Morrowind or Skyrim? Is it simply for the sake of variety?

[K]

Weird. They are making a digital version of Talisman.