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Actually, I happened to snag Mass Effect 2 near the end of the promotion this past weekend.
EDIT: Looks like it's still on sale for $20 on Impulse! Case anyone reading this is interested.

I'm not sure what DRM issue you ran into. Mine went smoothly. I did have to sign up for one of EA's crappy accounts and register the code though. Sigh. The hurdles we have to go through these days just to play a game. Seriously, we're not looking at government secrets here.

I transferred my ME1 character. Hooray! I love RP sequels that allow you to do that. I haven't gotten far in the story yet, but so far so good. So very good.

Changing half the keyboard inputs through me for a loop...

I totally agree with you here. Do they really need to re-arrange this? Were there that many complaints? I've been trying to change the keys as close to what they were in ME1. I wish you could transfer those settings along with your character. That would have been nice.

Don't know about you, but I keep running into walls and expecting my character to automatically use it for cover. Keep forgetting that ME2 requires you punch some key to use cover. Haven't died yet, but came damn close a few times.

Noted. But I'm willing to bet the traders are just the same as they are in towns. They don't change from place to place. For example, I think all Dye Traders buy/sell at the same rate because their prices and inventories are set by the servers, not the location. So any NPC with "trader" in the name should give us what we'd expect from any town.

I'm not saying we need any of them now. But if we're looking to add new NPCs, I'd go with the traders.

I went around and picked up my 5 gifts for this week. Used up all my glittering dust crafting the items. Would you believe the Rare Materials Trader was completed out of those special planks he wants? I was able to get 2 at 250gp a pop. I wonder what the price will be near the end of the week.

Got more Honeycomb, some Honey, and a bunch more of those Mysterious Summoning Stones. I really need to start using those things more (I have 19 left!). I remembered to use one today when all my henchies got pasted in the desert. A Lvl 20 Ooze accompanied me as I peeled their corpses off the ground and returned them to the living.

No worries - given it was a holiday and all, I wasn't really planning on a game especially with the storm etc.

See y'all for our next foray (9/18)

[Mass Effect 2]

It ain't multiplayer (boo!) but I did grab Mass Effect 2 this weekend from Impulse. A few observations:

IT'S HUGE... Seriously, it was almost 11 GB plus another GB in "Digital Deluxe Edition" downloadable stuff. I haven't had such a stretch of downloading since the CEP with a modem days 

Performance on my laptop is pretty sketchy - I'm really pushing the envelope with this one. I understand a bit why y'all needed to update your gaming systems. On the upside, the game does look pretty damn good even at the low settings.

Also, EA sucks... Ok, at least the DRM does. After downloading it failed to run giving me an activation error which required downloading another utility to fix the DRM activation error issue. Gods. At least that went smoothly.

As a game, it's pretty much more Mass Effect, which is a good thing. Changing half the keyboard inputs through me for a loop - not quite NWN2 bad, but damn, why does every sequel need to change up this stuff? I'm still adjusting, but it should get easier...

Also, I mentioned in our scheduling thread that I had rejiggered my partitioning on my hard drive to make space for Dragon Age - well, inexplicably, Impulse cancelled that promotion before their emailing had indicated but had a ME2 price cut instead. Go figure. In a way, I'm glad, since the marathon that was the ME2 download was going to be TWICE AS LONG for the Dragon Age bundle. The horror, the horror...

Anyhoo, if any of y'all haven't played ME2 yet, this might be a good opportunity to give it a go...

I'd be cautious adding any new feature to our guild without checking out their benefits. I included a weaponsmith a few days ago and all he does for his 20platinum is customize your weapons. This morning I thought, maybe we sell items to him he'll have them for sale for the rest of the guild? Nope. So, that's 20 platinum really for nothing.    I fear the other merchants (armor) might be exactly the same.

Anyway, I'd go for the others over time just to have them, but right now nothing jumps off the page and screams drop 50p-100p and pick me!

Only core skills? Damn, I was hoping for more. Nevermind then. I guess we can work on getting some of the other traders, give us the ability to buy/sell just about anything.

Well I completed the two other Ascension missions. Elona Reach was pretty easy, so easy in fact that I almost tried to do the bonus. Dust of Despair was a bit more tricky. Did fine until near the end when I got overwhelmed by damage. So I tweaked my skills and got it the 2nd time around. Whoo hoo! Now all that remains is Thirsty River.

I too got my first Elite skill, Marksman's Wager. Grabbed it during Elona Reach. I think the Ranger in Thirsty River has a different Elite skill. I'll have to get another Capture Signet before doing that mission.

I will say that this time I tried something different. First, I decided to go all-bow build instead of a bow/pet mix. I tried out a number of skills I rarely/never use. Like Apply Poison and Favorable Winds. The dedication to my bow seemed to pay off in many of the fights. Next, I tweaked my henchie party list. Normally I go with 2 tanks, 1 healer, and 2 mages. This time I swapped out a mage for another healer. I think it worked out better.

It's amazing how diverse even a single profession is...

I like that. Alot. Not sure if you noticed, but you can save your abilities/skills setup as a template. There's a little button in that window that looks like a blue disk. I've only recently started making different templates for my main character. I created "archer" "bow-beast" and "runner" so far.

A funny thing happened on the way to post-searing Ascalon

See, that happened to me the first time I crossed over. I figured that happened to everyone. Hm, of course if nobody else is crossing over when you try, then the game must have to skip the PvP training fight.

A funny thing happened on the way to post-searing Ascalon:
A few days ago I crossed over a new character - however during the cross over my character and its henchies were placed in a competitive arena to fight other candidates prior to entering the actual cross-over mission. Egad. I lost. It was rather fun though. It seems that occasionally the game just throws you into a mission with someone - regardless of whether your party is full or not.

[The Wiki]

The Wiki

Seems to have everything we need:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

Guild Skill Trainer: Cost 100 platinum and only has core skills as listed in the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_core_skills

We can consider it an option, but um.. need to farm a lot more.  
I wonder if core skills can be acquired anywhere...hmm... trying LA now:
Nope - LA doesn't have all the core, yet has others.

So the Guild Hall Trainer would have just the core and none of the others. That, IMO, sucks. Maybe I could see 20platinum, but a 100 for that??? Come ON! What were they thinking?!? ((maybe if we're farming something tomorrow that I already have a lot of).

BTW - captured my first elite skill (and a 2nd one too). Seems like you can only have one elite skill in your bar at a time

EDIT: Jumped from town to town and not a lot of difference in the skills offered. I guess for the most part we're supposed to capture the "others".

It's amazing how diverse even a single profession is, let alone considering adding skills from a secondary. (again big gripe) For example - I've started with being a pyroelementalist, but have switched on occasion and mission dependent to lightening (which bypasses armor) and now after today's adventures with DP am now considering water with its slowing/freezing abilities (how that could've helped us escaped time and time again). What an amazing game.

Finally ascended? Sweet. I cannot wait to do that. I just want the ability to switch secondary professions. I hardly ever use Monk with my Ranger. I'm thinking about switching it out with Warrior. Then dump all my points in Beast Mastery, Tactics and <weapon>ship. Try out being a melee fighting duo.

IDENTIFYING regular items

I did not know that. I had noticed that some regular items had no gp value listed immediately, but I didn't think an ID kit would help. I'll have to remember that from now on. I am going to run through kits much quicker, but it sounds like it is worth it.

GUILD HALL UPDATE

So we now have a rune trader. That's great. I may take that 4k you gave me and use it towards one of the other services. Not sure which one.

I do want a Skills Trainer. It is top on my list. The trainers in towns have different skills available. It is a pain going from one to another, town to town, checking to see if you missed an available skill. I'm hoping a guild Skill Trainer will have all skills for your profession available. That way I can see what's left with one look.

DP, anytime you want a party member for a mission and I'm online let me know...

Thanks. I think I want to try the other two ascension missions on my own. But I have a feeling I'll need your help on Thirsty River. That mission is an utter bitch.

I'll probably be online today, though I don't know how much. I first want to get Fluffy up to level 12, then drop off the lynx at the Menagerie. It will unlock Tier 3 of the lynx, allowing me to come back and charm a lvl 12 Fluffy later. Any level lower, and all you can get is a typical level 5 version. Meh.

But anyways, I may pickup my level 20 Fatness and search the desert for those other ascension missions.