Random Thoughts: Dragon Age, LA Noire, and more...

Another edition of the Random Thoughts for me and it kicks off with Dragon Age: Origins.  I've finally gone through all the extra content the game had to offer.  I had played through Awakening, Golem of Amgarrak, Witch Hunt as the last pieces of unfinished business on that game.  So, here I am to ramble a bit.

Blasted Dragon Age Bugs!

My experience with Dragon Age Awakening sure is deteriorating.  First off, I got slammed by a damn bug that prevented Sigrun from taking the joining.  After reading wiki pages about the quest, I had to repeat the last part just so I could trigger another bug that would get her to do the joining before the conversation ever comes up to convince her to join the Grey Wardens.  After that, I thought it was going to be smooth sailing, but then, here comes another one!  Mischa is inexplicably missing in Amaranthine!  Damn it!  Damn it!  Damn it!

Random Thoughts: Google Hangouts and Dragon Age

Google forced the switch, abandoning Google talk in favour of this new Google Hangouts.  All I can say is that this app absolutely blows.  Suddenly, my chat list is populated by:

1. Acquaintances I don't chat with;
2. Mailing list e-mail addresses;
3. People I've only reached out via e-mail once or twice.

To make matters worse, the only way to fiddle the list is to go to another Google service and basically delete people you don't want to chat with.  The UI to get to the contact I want to chat with is also incredibly cumbersome.  Google?  This software is a piece of shit.  That is all.  Moving on.

Rune crafting sucks.  Don't like crafting.  Never did in any RPG.  To see that Dragon Age: Awakening doesn't have any vendors that sell armour runes better than novice ones suck.  Abso-freaking-lutely sucks.

While I'm at the 'This thing sucks' mode, I would like to say I never liked Dragon Age: Origins' cute puzzle to get the Sacred Ashes.  Awakening has a few optional ones, and I don't like any of them.  Still, BioWare did a heck of a game series and I'm still looking forward to Dragon Age 2 (despite the complaints of everyone who has played it).

Random Thoughts: Linux, and Dragon Age

First thing is the important part.  I don't normally do message sending on Linux, but lately, having to maintain servers, it's been a critical way of communicating with another user logged in so both of you can coordinate while on that server.  So, I will just leave this note.

Use the wall command which broadcasts messages to everyone logged in.  It's an extension of the mesg command (use man pages, mate!).  Type wall, then hit enter.  Then write your message (20 lines maximum).  EOF (typically CTRL+D) ends and transmits the message.

Second point.  Dragon Age Origins: Awakening which so far has been a cruel drag to play.  Something about the writing is absolutely uninteresting and the game really gets a bit more fun to play for me when I'm not having to deal with the main plot quests.  Ugh.  Plus, why is BioWare so keen on stripping my Warden of his gear to make me lose inventory items?  This happened twice now.  First with the damned Sacred Ashes quest and then on the Silverite Mines.  Bah!  Dragon Age Origins is great.  Awakening is teetering on the not-so-good area.