What games are you playing now?

Oh they changed that in the EE version then. In the original version there was at least one other place you could get a dragon scale.

I only remember getting some kind of goofy looking magic staff. I recall that it was really powerful but also very slow compared to swords.

Added:
That Staff is killer game is super easy after you have it.

Well, you can actually save in the middle of that battle... also you can charm the gargoyles, making it much easier.

I added some info in the spolier tag.....
 
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I'm not sure why you've marked it all as a spoiler.
Guys, the reason to replay TW2 on Roche's side if you have some second thoughts - is that staff. It's cheesy, it's odd, it's this and that, but to have TW2 and not get that staff at least once is a sacrilege! :D
Now what staff, where and what it does… That's a material for spoiler tags.

Meanwhile, as I've said, replaying Skyrim and short after I've started I went for the DLC. Dragonborn. Yea, the one where you go for a Morrowind island.
What surprised me is lack of thousands of bugs in that area. Yes, there are a few annoyances, but definetly nothing even close to vanilla map. Not only that, but the story, quests, puzzles and characters are superb! Did Bethesda really made this DLC, I mean it's totally different from the dumb original game?
I've cleared everything there (except 3 side quests, possibly grind/radiant as they want me to go back on Skyrim map) so let's say I've finished that DLC.

Compared, I'd give 1/10 to Skyrim and 9/10 to Dragonborn DLC.

Why not 10?
One reason is that some new powers and abilities are OP. Oh I will use them definetly, but still it's OP. For example daily dremora trader to summon and sell stuff. Then dwarven sphere companion, hell why this baby wasn't in the vanilla game? And my favorite: no more friendly fire on Lydia!
Second reason is that dragon riding is made 34653658234623485 times worse than similar thing in Ego Draconis - it's not fun at all!
 
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Playing the original Heretic via the Doomsday engine. Long time since I've played Doom-like games, need to get my circle strafing vibe back.
 
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I got to the last sector of FTL ! I managed to
kill flagship once but the second one pulverised me with the drone overcharge ! I think having the cloaking mechanism will be a must to win this game... I am still not 100% sure on which weapons to use, but having to small ion ones isn't very helpful... Will need to go with at least one missile weapon
 
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I've been playing Batman: Arkham Origins, the spin-off game that wasn't done by Rocksteady. So far, it feels exactly like a spin-off game done by an external studio, so the same basic experience, but with far less polish. The controls aren't as tight, it's a lot buggier, and the boss battles are far too long and annoying, but since I'd heard all of that before I started it didn't come as a shock, and I'm still quite enjoying it. We'll have to wait and see if the other boss fights are as badly done as the Deathstroke one.
 
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Skyrim Legendary Ed. This is the first Bethesda developed game that's ever managed to grab my attention for an extended amount of time. I haven't played enough of the TES series to really say definitively but, it seems like they're creating slightly smaller land masses and saturating them with more and more quest content and the story/voice acting seems to be improving too.

With CD Projekt Red moving Witcher to larger areas and now into open world, maybe TES is looking to shore up their stories. I would be thrilled if so, though I wouldn't be surprised if long time fans aren't.
 
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Finishing Drakensang: TRoT. The Dark Eye will follow shortly (probably right after Director's cut of Deus Ex: HR).
Can somebody remind me why those games weren't as popular as they should have been?
 
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Finishing Drakensang: TRoT. The Dark Eye will follow shortly (probably right after Director's cut of Deus Ex: HR).
Can somebody remind me why those games weren't as popular as they should have been?

In my opinion, there were several reasons :

- Poor marketing by dtp
- Dragon Age came out around the same time - people were flooding it
- Unknown setting worldwide
- Didn't quite fit into the current fashion of fantasy settings (dark, brutal, C&C, "dark & gritty" etc. )

but all in all I rather believe that it was a combination of the poor marketing with Dragon Age being "hip" at that time what ultimatively broke it.
 
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- Poor marketing by dtp
This is the major reason.

The second reason is some odd ongoing selling scheme where you couldn't buy those games easily just anywhere. Yes, the stupidity still continues, the last release (the whole saga drmfree on one DVD) I had to "smuggle" from amazon.com. See, amazon.com won't ship it to my country so I had to pay to the third party (they have an office both here and in USA so amazon delivers it to their US office then they've sent it here and etc).
Usually I wouldn't bother with that shipment sillyness like it's nuclear weapons I'm trying to import, but I couldn't buy TroT expansion anywhere else before and it's included on this DVD.

One thing to add, I could buy it from amazon.de, no problems there, they do ship it no questions asked, but it'd be worthless as the game there is with german language only and I don't speak german!

But IMO if Drakensang somehow ever comes on GOG, it'll sell like a cure.

——

Still replaying Skyrim.
As I've said, I've finished Dragonborn DLC almost completely (can't kill the overpowered giant boss in a cave that kills me with 2 hits yet, and can't find some "brother") and unlike vanilla game this DLC is awsome.
Built all 3 houses from another DLC, messed with it for hours, etc, even adopted a kid, that DLC is utterly stupid and you gain nothing from it. It's not fun at all unless I've missed something. Everything with it is boooooooooring. The only thing from it worth something is that my smithing skill got a few levels.

In the vanilla finished companions and mages quest chains, many sidequests and a few main story quests. Next I plan to do is thieves guild.
Bugs are still there, many bugs, but I admit not as much as in the initial release. Instead of over 500, let's say now I've seen only 500.
Unbelievably, Lydia is still blocking passages but this time when she does it, I just fus-ro-dah her. Decided not to use unblock mod - simply don't want mods for stuff that were supposed to be patched by Bethesda.
Poor Lydia, right? Feel free to accuse me of sexism, violence and whatever else. Kids will learn much from this game. If a woman is stubborn, shout on her like crazy. That's why it's GOTY. Unlike other games, GOTY contains an education.
 
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- Didn't quite fit into the current fashion of fantasy settings (dark, brutal, C&C, "dark & gritty" etc. )
It's intresting that you throw C&C in there. I know that you're anything but positive regarding "mature" or "gritty" games and can see the rationale without agreeing with it, I can't understand why would C&C be a part of that group. Not to mention that I didn't find Dragon Age too heavy on the C&C side.

Decided not to use unblock mod - simply don't want mods for stuff that were supposed to be patched by Bethesda.
Just for the sake of arguing, do you also apply that reasoning to other games (i.e refusing to use unofficial patches and fixpacks)?
 
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Dear Green Place
Just for the sake of arguing, do you also apply that reasoning to other games (i.e refusing to use unofficial patches and fixpacks)?
Ages ago I walked over internet under a different nick. It was extremist.

Maybe you don't remember that nick. But it's possible that somewhere you dig up who was BG1/2 and IWD1/2 troubleshooting moderator on now defunct Black Isle forums.
But also if you played Shadows of Amn before ToB was released… I believe at sorcerers.net there is still BG2:SoA fixpack created by… me. Who else?

Please do read my posts here instead of skiping them because "that imbecile joxer is probably raging on phonegames and grind again".
If you did read my posts, you'd notice I recently details I've posted about Edwin/BootsOfSpeed bug in BG2. How would I know about it if I didn't work on it?

I don't refuse unofficial fixes. If I did I would never be able to enjoy G3 and VtM. Or Drakensang with unofficial patches applied. And didn't you see that I've reuploaded TroT fixpack because it's not available any more on the original site? Yes, the link is on this forum in Drakensang section. Why would I have it initially if I refused to use such stuff?

In the case of Skyrim, sorry, but the game is one huge pile of bugs impossible to polish properly by modders. Honestly, so many bugs I haven't seen in any other game out there, ever. The only reason ppl ignore them is because Skyrim doesn't crash to desktop frequently - some other almost bugless games were massacred by critics just because of random crashes like that's the only thing worth calling a bug.

If Bethesda corrected major game glitches instead of fixing only "rare occurences", fans could eventually make a proper unofficial patch. Instead, unofficial patches additionally break the game (check for example Skyrim wiki and for a note about some bug with housing that appears if some unofficial patches are used).
I do respect the work ppl did, hell I did such stuff in the past too. But in the case of this game… Sorry. I won't use any unofficial patch till Bethesda fixes general annoyances instead of rare glitches in the bloody bug-o-rama. Which will happen never, they won't fund that.

And we're talking about a bestseller GOTY here. Something Drakensang, Gothic3 and Vampire:TM didn't get! Something that was by many a better game than DX:HR and TW2! Sadly, those two were polished and patched by devs.

I hope this clears it for you.
 
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Please do read my posts here instead of skiping them because "that imbecile joxer is probably raging on phonegames and grind again".
You forgot "free to play". :)

Sorry, just playin'. Carry on.
 
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Just that? I also forgot Commodore64 games era with inability to save anywhere you want to, but well… Maybe it's early Alzheimer. :p

Anyway, why FO4 won't be released in 2014? Because next year the (almost) bugfree competition is simply too much for Bethesda!
 
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Well..not really, no.

I think the reality of the effect of bugs in games can be separated in how they affect you, the player, and how they affect the game's sales/reception/reviews. The context of the production/development (i.e. budget/AAA values etc) is certainly important in the latter case and I would gladly agree with most rants regarding hypocrisy and double standards of the gaming media when it comes to titles of Skyrim's scale. I would also agree with how that context can significantly alter you're own perception of the game's quality, I know I would be more forgiving of Divinity: Original Sin bugs than Dragon Age Inquisition bugs and that would play into my personal opinion of the game.

Then there's how the bugs affect your own enjoyment of the game. Unless someone is a purist and would install nothing that doesn't come from the developer and has the publisher's approval, which you are not, I don't see why one would knowingly pass a chance to increase his enjoyment and avoid the frustration that bugs cause. Unless, again, your argument is that the available fixpacks cause practical disadvantages, or disagreeable alterations (see Wolf and G3's CPs) that outweigh their benefits which you seem to be alluding in your wiki example, but wouldn't apply (assumingly) in the unblock mod, I don't see how that inconsistency in principle is justified.
 
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Dear Green Place
Kostas, I'm sure you just want to help, but the address is wrong.
From a serious developer, assuming Bethesda is, one would expect at least reading the buglist on their official Skyrim forum. Yes the list with 500+ bugs. But who am I kidding, they are illiterate. They don't watch foreign movies because reading takes too much of effort. You can't possibly imagine the scale of headache they'd get if they did read at least fist 100 entries in that huge buglist.

You've mentioned DA:I, tell me, did you ever see me saying DA:O was buggy? You didn't. Why? Because Bioware did their part on the patching process! DA2 was a crap excuse of a game, but IIRC I've stumbled upon total of 4 bugs in that game in the release version. And IIRC they've patched them later (sorry, can't confirm as I just can't be arsed to replay that game). No matter how evil they've become, Bioware at least respects fans.
 
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Kostas, I'm sure you just want to help,
Not really, I haven't even played Skyrim yet. That's partly due to waiting for the situation with the bugs+DLCs+GOTYs+fixpacks+mods to stabilize so that when I get to finally play it it'll be in a shape as better than the original release as Bethesda games usually get. I'm just curious about your reasoning.
You've mentioned DA:I, tell me, did you ever see me saying DA:O was buggy? You didn't. Why? Because Bioware did their part on the patching process! DA2 was a crap excuse of a game, but IIRC I've stumbled upon total of 4 bugs in that game in the release version. No matter how evil they've become,Bioware at least respects fans.
I don't see why you can't give Bethsoft crap not respecting their customers yet still allow yourself to be spared of the problems. My point is that it's yourself who you're punishing. Your meaningfully reacting to their crap is independent of how you go about in your gaming experience.
 
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Dear Green Place
Well I finished all the paths in the Witcher 2. Hopefully decisions will carry over into Witcher 3. And I beat the Operator on Dark mode. :)

Lots of red haze bombs and hiding behind a pillar after every wave so I could save my progress.
Now I have to decide between Drakensang 2, Divinity 2 : DKS, or Alpha Protocol. I think I'll play the latter for a break from fantasy.
 
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Not really, I haven't even played Skyrim yet. That's partly due to waiting for the situation with the bugs+DLCs+GOTYs+fixpacks+mods to stabilize so that when I get to finally play it it'll be in a shape as better than the original release as Bethesda games usually get.
Don't wait more, install, play. Check if I'm right that Dragonborn DLC is not as buggy as the core game and designed awesomely that it IMO deserves 10/10 unlike the rest of the game which can't get more than 1/10 from me (dunno about vampire DLC since I haven't touched it yet, but will be in next few days).
Remember to include SkyUI mod, I did play without it the first time and honestly the original UI is not as bad as some suggest, but once you install SkyUI, you won't remove it as it's that good!

Drakensang 2
:shocked:
What are you waiting for?!
Install now, play yesterday!
 
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