LibriumArcana.Games

Or: How Bioware bribed me with Lockpicks.

It's coming soon, like, tomorrow, and that's going to mean many of us are going to effectively disappear.

So let's set up some ground rules.

First off, NO SPOILERS. You know who you are. I get that the game is going to be good and when something amazing happens, you're going to want to talk about it with someone who will appreciate it. It's huge, you want to gush, and I get it, I do.

Wait for it. Please.

Seriously, geeking out over a game or movie is all well and good, but everyone has different schedules and abilities to play these games. Not everyone is going to be able to make the same progress as everyone else and posting or talking about spoilers is kind of a dick thing to do in a public forum. I will absolutely delete skype and trillian and not check my email, this forum, facebook, or twitter if I must. Understand, this means I will stop participating in and running the Skype games if anyone makes this a serious enough issue.

When I am done I will let you know and we can nerd out then.
</rant>

Reviews so far have been good, but there's been a bit of a hiccup pointed out by Angry Joe: The Keep, Bioware's "You don't have to play 120 hours of two games + DLC to enjoy a custom-crafted world, honest!" program has some...issues. The Keep is in BETA currently, and since the game launches tomorrow, it's entirely possible that the time since gold has been spent fixing it. That said, expect the following:

Tomorrow, for better or for worse, The Keep's website will be likely limited in some way. Many people will be attempting to access it. It will almost certainly break.

Knowing if The Keep is working or not may take a few days, as the game is likely in the ~60 hour territory, and will require multiple playthroughs to make sure everything is firing correctly.

How serious an issue this may be is currently unknown. It could be only as bad as the Conrad Verner thing from Mass Effect 2, or it might be really bad. You may want to wait a day until setting down a serious playthrough. Hey, look, Multiplayer!

[REDACTED]!

There are some unsubstantiated rumors flying about that the copy protection kills SSDs. So far, no actual evidence of this being true exists, the source seems to be some Russian piracy site.

God damn it Bioware, you're not making this easy.

In reference to the above, the Inquistor's Edition is, largely, a pile of shit. It is poorly packed and poorly constructed.

• Pros:
• Cloth Map of Thedas
• Orlesian Coins (though coins not metal, sadly)
• Inquistor's Journal (Nice, but I have higher quality leather journals bought from Barnes & Noble)
• Tarot Deck (with Varric & Bianca as "The Lovers")

• Cons:
• The Box is shoddily constructed. Parts of it were falling off when I took it out of the packaging because they were cheaply glued on.
• The statues are stored and constructed in such a way that removing them breaks two of them because someone doesn't understand structural integrity and stresses.
• The inside of the box is not "Imprinted Red Silk", it's shaped red felt.
• The lockpicks are utter garbage. Full scale my ass. They are shitty too-thick plastic toys with a cheap leather case.
• The "secret compartment" that requires the lockpicks to open is a fucking flap with a hole in it. GTA 4 at least gave me a metal box and key, even if the lock didn't, you know, lock.
• "Quill" appears to be a prop, unlikely to actually take ink and write, making inkwell relatively useless.

Also multiplayer comes with voice communication with no options that I have yet found for push to talk or adjusting volume. It also was a bit laggy when I played.

We'll see how this turns out, but this is not a positive first impression thus far.

I messed with the Keep a bit before work today. I had to constantly check the wiki to fill in my Tapestry, as I played maybe 1/6th of DA1, and none of DA2.

Well. This should at least be interesting. I'm still waiting a day or three to play it, to allow the patches and such time to settle. In the meantime, there's LotRO.

I've just done the bulk of the Tapestry, and I am reviewing it now. Amusingly, a flaw in DA2 meant that I had a conflict in my Tapestry.

I am hereby practicing thread necromancy.

The challenge this weekend is beating five missions of any difficulty without being knocked down.

Also, seriously enjoying the mayhem possible with the Arcane Warrior.