38 replies to this topic

[Darziak]

Thanks to gamers like you, Dragon Age II is off to a great start – breaking the 1 million mark in less than two weeks and faster than Dragon Age: Origins. We appreciate your support. As a special thank you for helping with the game's early success, BioWare would like to present you with a download code for 2010's Game of the Year, Mass Effect 2 on PC. As always, we sincerely appreciate your support and passion as we remain focused on delivering quality interactive experiences now and in the future. Look for more exciting things coming from Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars: The Old Republic in the future, including our recent launch of Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC.

Website Linky
Vid Linky


When I received this in my email I thought it was a fake.

Edited by Darziak, 05 April 2011 - 10:13 AM.

[Yovaneth]

And if you already have ME2 - and DragonAge? A lack of thought on Bioware's part, methinks.

-Y-

[Tempest]

I'd welcome this in reverse - I'm not sure I'm going to pick up DA2 anytime soon, but as a free bonus for already owning ME2 it would be golden. Then again, I can see Bioware's logic - they've already made most of their money on ME2 and are now milking the ME2 DLC and DA2. So if you have the latter, you can start making money for Bioware with the former.

[Vicen]

And if you already have ME2 - and DragonAge? A lack of thought on Bioware's part, methinks.

-Y-

I agree...what the heck!

[the bigg]

The copy of ME2 you get this way doesn't have any DLC (not even the Cerberus Network stuff), so they're certainly planning to cash in via DLC (to acquire a full' copy of ME2 you'd need to fork out 15$ for Cerberus Network, 35$ for the rest of the quest DLC, and 10$ for the rest of the equipment DLC).

[cmorgan]

More and more, I like the bigg's "wait until GOTY". It looks, though, like they have figured out a way to make money out of mods. After the initial wave of popularity, add some new content and sell it. Heck, even distribute the original game for free, but sell the mods. The good news for players - they have the resources to create "mods" at a pretty high level of accomplishment. The bad news... the cost-per-hour-of-enjoyable-playtime just keeps going up.DA2 will be a summer purchase, I think.

Edited by cmorgan, 05 April 2011 - 01:58 PM.

[berelinde]

Dunno. I would never actually buy ME2. I'm just not into sci-fi games, as a genre. I might DL it as a freebie, though. As for DLC, if I wouldn't pay money for the game, odds are I won't be buying DLC for it anyway.

[Archmage Silver]

Useless "gift" for me as well. I'm not going to bother downloading it for just the sake of it.

[Kulyok]

Does it mean that we just got Mass Effect 2 for free? That's odd. I'll probably try it out, then: should go right in after Star Wars Expanded Universe and Doctor Who.

[Archmage Silver]

Yes. Nice for you I would imagine...

...log into your EA account in-game before 11:59pm PDT on April 30th, you will be eligible for this offer.

[Kulyok]

It's actually a little bit odd for me, because here in Russia nobody buys computer games or movies or books anymore - it's piracy all around. I myself felt like an idiot when I actually pre-ordered an expanded copy of DA2, bought it and registered. But it's nice that we got "two games for the price of one" or something like that. I got the code and will download it today or tomorrow. I didn't get the e-mail, by the way, but maybe that's because I disabled the option in my profile.

P.S. I hope I'll be able to enjoy the second game right away - I never played the first Mass Effect. But then again, I played Baldur's Gate 2 before BG, and felt no discomfort.

[the bigg]

If you start a new game in ME2 rather than importing a ME1 save, it will assume you made choices that might or not make ME3 significantly harder; moreover, you start with less resources, and at 1st level rather than 2nd-5th, which makes the early game more tedious (and, because of the peculiar XP system, you'll never close the gap level-wise). If you know you'll never play ME1 and don't care about being spoilered, I suggest downloading a save game and perusing the Mass Effect Wiki to contextualize the choices mentioned in the save game description.

[Kulyok]

Thank you! I'm not sure about spoilers, but since I'm to play ME2, I'll probably know everything about ME1 very soon anyway, right? I'll look at the links.

[the bigg]

The ME Wiki is more detailed about ME1 than what you'll be told during ME2; as such, if you later decide to acquire ME1 and play it, you will know more things in advance. However, if a save says that you killed Rana and another save says that you let "her" go, you can't decide between the two without knowing who Rana is.

Also of possible note while acquiring saves: you get the biggest starting advantage if you go with a level 60 save (or, failing that, a level 50-59 save), and you can choose a new class, making the original choice irrelevant; unlike other games, you aren't particularly disadvantaged by being Renegade rather than Paragon or vice versa (with the possible exception of some plot points for ME3, but most save games did the "right" thing in those situations even if it was counter to the main alignment); unlike other games, being female makes for a better game (simply by virtue of the English voice actress).

[Tempest]

And on that note, if you're interested in playing the game as a Paragon (i.e. good-aligned), download one of those saves The Bigg linked - the default for ME2 basically assumes that you were a colossal **** in the first game and took the Renegade solution in every decision. The difference in how the ME2 universe feels between the default and a Paragon ME1 playthrough is striking.

[the bigg]

Even if I wanted to be 100% Renegade, importing a level 60 save makes you start with 4000 XP (5th level), 100k credits and 10k of each resource, vs. 1st level and 0 credits/resource for those starting from scratch, and the bonus is noticeable for the whole game, as it amounts to 8% of the max attainable XP, 5% of the max available credits, and between 3% and 20% (!) of the required resources.

[Kulyok]

Wow! Yeah, I'd rather have the XP, money and resources. I think I'd rather play as a "good" person, though: I want people to like me and so on. Um, I hope there's no former love interest inherited from the saved game? Because I'd rather start a new romance in ME2, if there's any.

[the bigg]

From that site, you can choose to download a non-romanced save. That said, Kaidan or Ashley are only met in an almost-cameo (where they break up badly with you); Liara appears briefly during the standard game, and joins the party for the length of her DLC (Lair of the Shadow Broker), where you can break up amicably. Of course, nobody knows if there'll be any consequence in ME3 - I doubt there'll be more than another cameo for Ashley or Kaidan, but I wouldn't piss off Liara.

Edited by the bigg, 06 April 2011 - 04:55 AM.

[Tempest]

Wow! Yeah, I'd rather have the XP, money and resources. I think I'd rather play as a "good" person, though: I want people to like me and so on. Um, I hope there's no former love interest inherited from the saved game? Because I'd rather start a new romance in ME2, if there's any.

If you use a default save, it has you as having romanced Ashley or Kaidan depending on your gender. And while they do indeed break up with you, they later apologize and want to patch things up - and they are pissed at you for good reason. Cerberus, the group you work for/with in ME2, is not a nice group of people, and did some very nasty things in the first game. And do some very nasty things in the second game, come to think of it, even if the boss is nice to you.

And yes, there are new romances in ME2 - Jacob, Garrus, and Thane for the ladies, Miranda, Tali, and Jack for the guys. With Kelly as a "soft" quasi-romance for either gender.


And for a little synopsis of what the Paragon/Renegade split means: are you playing as Captain Picard, or Admiral Adama?

Edited by Tempest, 06 April 2011 - 05:22 AM.

[Kulyok]

Thank you for the pointers! Weird, why would I work for Cerberus, if I'm the good guy? Okay, okay, I guess the answer would contain too much spoilers for me, I'll have to find out myself. But three romances! Plus one more from the ME1! Pluse a quasi-romance! That's so cool, why would they only give us two romances in DA:O? Five is much better! Imagine: romancing Orsino, Jowan, Cullen, Teagan, Loghain... (Sigh).

(I don't like Battlestar:Galactica much, so I guess... Picard? Don't like Star Trek: Next Generation much, either, come to think of it, but Picard is okay. But Londo Mollari rules all).