Patsquinade

The Short Stuff

2009-11-07T15:10:13Z

09:35 Boys got H1N1 shots last night. Gavs has small fever today as aftereffect, so Damsel and I are trading off home shifts. #
00:08 <20 bugs! May still log some hours this weekend, as one of them is kind of a "Patrick breaks the game, please fix" one. #

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The Short Stuff

2009-11-05T15:09:47Z

09:30 Maine, this was your chance to look good. In < 10 years, it'll be done with the National Guard outside the courthouses. #

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With all due respect...

2009-11-04T20:49:21Z

So, in non-Dragon-Age news, Maine.

Okay. I am the stereotypical straight-married guy who has gay friends. I know that a lot of people are hurting right now, and holy god, seeing rights stripped away like that is terrifying. It breaks my heart to see my friends shake their heads and realize that one more state doesn't think that their love matters or doesn't believe that they are really people and citizens. So to all of you, please accept my sympathy and my good wishes.

Now, with that out of the way... Maine. Hi. Hello. Maine, I'm talking to you.

You contemptible bunch of buffoons.

I'm sure somewhere people are talking about the majority speaking. I agree with them. The majority has spoken. The majority of the tiny fraction of people in Maine who voted want to strip away the rights of gay people to marry. The majority was also not hugely in favor of desegregation, either. The plural of voter was often "lynch mob" back in the good ol' days. Segregation wasn't ended with a series of friendly votes in which people realized that they were being lied to by rich bastards and old churches and hate-filled bigots. It was ended when the National Guard showed up on the front steps.

Did you actually think that this was your chance to make gay marriage not happen? Did you look at the whole of human history and actually think that, you ignorant bigots?

This was your chance to accept progress with pride. To show history that you were moving forward.

And you blew it.

I don't think it'll be Obama -- he seems more concerned with healthcare, and I sense that he doesn't want to fight a battle of public opinion on multiple fronts. I don't know who it'll be. But it'll be someone. Someone in power is finally going to state the obvious truth that gay marriage is absolutely necessary, and they're not going to put it up for a vote, because that's not what you do with basic human rights. You don't let six wolves and four sheep vote on what to have for dinner (or in this case, what, fifty-two wolves and forty-eight sheep?).

The National Guard will stand outside the courthouses and force you to grow the hell up, and you will be remembered in history like those sad ugly white people yelling at the black kids coming to class.

And this isn't the fifties. This is the twenty-first century. Your bisexual grandkids will still be able to Google your sorry ass and see that you were a spiteful hateful closeminded bigot. They'll have your lying ads, annotated with footnotes showing how you knew you were lying at the time. They'll have your ugly homophobic comments and your hate-filled fake news reports captured in crystal clarity on whatever magical Internet++ they're using decades from now. And they're going to be ashamed of you.

All you've done -- all you've accomplished with your lies and hate and fearmongering -- is to delay the inevitable. In the next few years, every widow who loses her home because she "wasn't really married" to her life partner, and the life partner's kids have a good lawyer? Every man who dies scared and alone because the man who should have been his husband wasn't allowed to be at his bedside? Every not-spouse who dies because of not-health-coverage, coverage they would have gotten were they married? Every one of those things that happens between now and whenever the National Guard puts a little learnin' on you? That's on you. That's your legacy.

(And unlike a lot of liberals, I'm still a believer. I believe in an afterlife just as much as you do, you Bible-thumping snake-oil salesmen. And I don't envy you when you step up to St. Peter for whatever metaphorical accounting for one's life you have to do.)

Hell and the National Guard. That's what you've got coming. That's all you've got coming.

You pathetic irrelevant throwbacks.

EDIT: After getting a brave anonymous comment from someone who thought using the term "lynch mob" to describe an angry post on the Internet reacting to a situation in which actual literal lynch mobs are a possibility was a good idea and in no way self-Godwinizing, I've disabled anonymous comments. Anyone who wants to come rant at my intolerance for people stripping others of their basic human rights can do so with a username, and years from now, their kids will be able to Google them and see what they said.

Dragon Age: Origins

2009-11-04T06:22:29Z

I arrived at BioWare in March of 2005 with my wife and a four-month-old baby. A game called Jade Empire was a couple months away, and the team was deep in last-minute crunch. A game codenamed SFX, later to be named Mass Effect, was in very early development.

And I was living the dream working on Dragon Age (later to become Dragon Age: Origins).

I was only on for about five months. I wrote a training module about a search for a kidnapped war hound that Dave Gaider said he thought he could imagine seeing in the game, and then I wrote a pair of origin stories. Both were cut after I left -- one that wasn't very good, and one that everyone liked but which no longer connected with the rest of the overall world.

In July or August, I got moved to another project that needed a newb, and while I've been transferred up and down the length of the studio, I never got back to Dragon Age. When the Damsel joined BioWare, she came onto Dragon Age as well and did a bunch of editing for about a year before, like me, getting moved to someplace she was needed more.

The game came out today. Above 90 on Metacritic, great sales if the pre-orders are anything to judge by, and a whole lot of really excited fans. It was a game made with love, a deliberately old-school CRPG with cutting-edge technology. It's got a ton of content, from humorous Easter Eggs to epic magic to all-too-human intrigue. It's unapologetically hard, even on Normal. People are already comparing notes and realizing just how different their stories are based on decisions they made.

I'm going to play the hell out of this game, and I'm going to marvel at the amazing game the team put together and be grateful for getting the chance to have been a tiny part of it, even for a few months.

The Short Stuff

2009-11-02T15:03:26Z

16:03 @DoktorZee I went back to replay the endgame for one of those not-counting achievements! #
17:48 @matthewdyer I test on a console devkit, but I'm not an official tester. The official testers use both. #
19:45 @DoktorZee Are you going solo or joining the BioWare team? I figure the Bio-Bros have to stick together. #
19:46 Signed on for Movember. Growing 'stache to raise money for prostate cancer research. Donate at: tinyurl.com/ygmbtf6 #

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Movember

2009-11-02T02:38:21Z

So my terrifying Halloween costume was part of an overall larger scheme. I've decided to join Movember Canada. As of today, minus the majority of the rub-on tats and body paint, I am now clean-shaven and very pasty.

Movember Canada is raising awareness and funds for prostate cancer by having people sponsor men who are willing to shave themselves and look like idiots and then attempt to grow facial hair during the month of November. On one hand, it's a fun way to finally lose the crunch beard, which had gone totally out of control. On the other hand, I have family members who have had prostate cancer, and if me looking like an idiot (because really, shaving has really confirmed that I do not have a face that begs to be clean-shaven) can get some people to donate money to a good cause, then I am down with that.

BioWare set this up, so it's a bunch of Bio-geeks in on it together. I figure that most people reading this blog know somebody who has died of cancer. If you'd like to donate, here's one way to help make that less likely to happen again. You can make donations at my page.

Thanks.

(And I think I'm going for Wyatt-Earp-style handlebars, but if somebody wants to drop a hundred bucks and suggest something more embarrassing, I am down with that.)

The Short Stuff

2009-11-01T15:03:23Z

15:41 Taking weekend off, then fixing #masseffect2 bugs and starting my Vanguard run. This time, maximum face-punching. #
21:08 RT: @jesswynne: RT @Metafrantic: The LGBTQ issue of @crossedgenres (#12) has been released! crossedgenres.com Please RT! #

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Happy Halloween, everyone!

2009-10-31T22:32:47Z

So, for reference, Subject Zero is a character revealed for Mass Effect 2. She stirred up a great deal of controversy, and I thought that she deserved a little bit of the Patrick Treatment.

Ergo, my Halloween costume, already tweet-spoiled:

So, in case you were thinking that I was just dressed up as a Thunderdome reject, take heart: I was actually dressing up as a Thunderdome reject in drag.

Much thanks to the Damsel, who applied most of the body paint (with my son applying the rest, including the nose for the smiley face on my tummy) and all of the back tats, especially my multitudinous tramp stamps, and also pretty much made the nipple-halter thing herself out of a belt and whatever else we had lying around.

The best part of the day was people completely failing to recognize me, which was kind of fun, as I am not usually a master of disguise. Evidently losing my crunch beard, which I'd had for about a month, had something to do with it.

Me: Okay, I'm wearing body paint and a nipple harness, and you think the disturbing thing is the fact that I shaved?

My Wife: Yes.

So there we go.

The Short Stuff

2009-10-31T15:02:57Z

10:22 #masseffect2 twitpic.com/nj33s and tweetphoto.com/5wfvacap -- my Halloween costume for work. :) #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-30T15:05:00Z

17:37 Stood outside in snow with no coat shaving beard for costume. #

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For Fuck's Sake, People (homophobia trigger warning)

2009-10-29T19:35:45Z

OH RPG GAMING SITES NO!

Quote of note, in regards to Dragon Age: Origins having homosexual romance options:

"David Gaider must really get a kick out of writing homosexual relationships.

In any case, I'm not going to buy this game. I don't consider being flirted or stalked by fags as entertainment in the slightest sense. "

-- Surlent, a totally heterosexual dude who is not even a little curious about why it felt good when he played center in football and the quarterback didn't go in shotgun formation and cupped his taint, the quarterback's muscular fingers lightly brushing the tight surface of Surlent's uniform around the ass, just before shouting, "Hike!", and now he pays women to put on football helmets so he can achieve an erection.

Fortunately, others responded appropriately. I added a brief, "Methinks the homophobe doth protest too much," and the mods noted that the user had received a warning. Sounds like your basic "One asshole who gets kicked in the shins by the rest of the group" situation.

And then we got this in response (emphasis mine):

"Why would you warn Surlent? He just stated an opinion. Unless you warned all of the gay approvers too. That would be okay, I guess. I mean if you're going to warn everyone who is heterosexual and dislikes homosexuality, you'll be warning half the male population of this website. To me, calling someone a homophobe is as demeaning as calling someone a faggot. Since you allowed homophobe then faggot/fags should be allowed as well. You can't pick which group to be intolerant to. Please let me know if RPGWatch is going to take a stance against people who dislike homosexuals, because I would have to leave too."

-- crpgnut, who puts a smiley after correcting "homophobe" by saying "homonauseated would be closer" to show that he's just joshing around, lol, I hate gay people, roflqueers.

To me, calling someone violent is as demeaning as punching someone in the face! To me, charging someone with manslaughter is as demeaning as committing a murder! To me, being called a racist is as demeaning as using the n-wo... Oh, wait, stupid straight white people whine about that, too.

Every time I wonder why it's so damn hard to get a gay-friendly plot or character into a game, I just have to look to the Internets for an answer.

The Short Stuff

2009-10-29T15:03:23Z

22:34 #masseffect2 It IS possible to survive the endgame and save your team! Unless you are dumb like me. #

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State of the Job

2009-10-28T05:17:56Z

I finished another Mass Effect 2 playthrough over the weekend. Every time I play this game, it's looking better. The endgame had me on the edge of my seat, which is absurd, since I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.

I think that people are going to be really impressed by the combat. The overall balance has moved from wars of attrition (whittle an enemy down and hope that if you're on Hardcore, they don't spam Immunity) to fast nasty firefights. Even popcorn encounters can turn deadly if you're an idiot who doesn't use cover or pick the right tool for the job... but on the upside, you can really take down enemies fast and hard when you know what you're doing. Everybody, you and your enemies, is more dangerous.

Of course, half of the official forums are filled with people concerned that because our combat is better, we're less of an RPG. In Mass Effect 1, you were an impoverished vagabond pawing through crates for your next meal or a good set of Incendiary ammo mods until about level 20, at which point the balance of power shifted, ammo mods started rolling in, you ended up with more money than stores willing to accept it, and you got to purchase the Spectre Weapons and Auto-Win the Game.

I've been really impressed with how far we've come in Mass Effect 2. We haven't said much about it yet, and this post will not be the post that breaks out all kinds of exciting news on the subject, because, you know, not my system. I'll spoil journals instead. We still have them. An awesome person figured out a way to make them auto-pop on screen so that even those of you who never ever ever ever look at your journals (I'm looking at you; seriously, I had to write a lot of entries, but do I get a thank-you?) will see the occasional helpful hint pop up. It's a massive improvement (unless it turns out to break the game memorywise or something, in which case it will be cut and I will weep sad designer tears and then move on). On the upgrades and mods front, I dumped a bunch of money into it and really liked the results. And due to the awesome balance of our money system, I could not just buy everything and Auto-Win the Game. I had to, you know, think about the way that I played and what I wanted to emphasize.

Same deal with character advancement. It's less about "Hey, make sure not to take First Aid or the Persuade skills, since you get those for free! Max out everything else!", as the official walkthroughs would say, and much more about figuring out what you want your Shepard to be. It's been a long time since I agonized over spending my points quite this much... or grinned in triumph as a new or upgraded power completely changed the field of battle.

And all of that makes us good competition for Borderlands, except that we're single-player, which means we're toast unless there's a compelling story.

I will preface this by saying that I'm a wuss who tears up at least once per Pixar movie (yes, even Cars, why does everybody sneer at Cars, did you not all see the part where McQueen goes back to push the King through the finish line, what the hell, people?), and accept that this is just going to sound like another dev shilling his game, because... well... I'm a dev, shilling my game... but it's pretty awesome.

Key moments, key choices. Written, then looked at critically, then rewritten and edited to be stronger and better and sharper and then stripped down to do just what they need. Give that to VO teams who do the impossible on every project (imagine doing 10 to 20 CG movies in terms of length, and also, by the way, branching dialog that makes it much harder for an actor or director to intuitively get the sense of how the scene is playing, and oh, the main character was written by seven different writers with a pair of editors pulling hard to keep the voice consistent). To directors who have to know the game inside and out to provide crucial context, to actors who are willing to throw themselves into a role and trust that we're going to do them justice. To audio folks who do a great number of things I don't understand, the audio equivalent of Photoshopping, to make things perfect. Bring that back to the Cinematic Animators and Cinematic Designers who turn it into movie-quality scenes, again with the added player-control factor. And the art teams that make the characters, the levels, the audio folks who actually make the lines have consistent volume and the background music fire correctly and... and all of it.

And yeah, rah rah team, I know, but damn. I walked through the beginning of a romance with a character, and watching Shepard and the character banter back and forth, the body language, the lighting, the dialog, the acting... it was the first time I think I've looked at one of our dialogs and thought, "Wow, that's sexy." Not boobs-and-pistols Bayonetta sexy, but "two characters obviously interested in each other and testing the waters" sexy. (Caveat: not written by me. Written with significantly more skill than I'd have had.)

I saw a squad member drop to their knees crying, and it worked. I felt bad and wanted to help. At some point -- and it ain't writing, or at least it ain't just writing, it's the VO team and the voice actors and the artists and the cinematics folks all pulling together with programming support that gives us more animations and higher quality than we've ever had before -- at some point, we passed through pixel-town and made characters that people are going to feel an investment in.

Also, one time I biotically knocked an explosive crate into a bunch of husks, at which point it exploded and blew them off a ledge, and that was pretty cool, too.

In summary, I am very happy and feeling really good about going back to the >100 bugs I have waiting for me, because I know that this game is worth fixing at least 60 of those and dumping the rest on my wife, the editor. (Love you, sweetie!) And also, when your biggest regret in terms of cut content is that you had to remove something the generic krogan shouted during combat because it violated German laws regarding mistreatment of corpses, you know the game is in pretty good shape.

The Short Stuff

2009-10-27T15:01:54Z

08:05 Dude has fever. People at work and his school have H1N1. Trying to remain calm. #
16:57 Dude seems to be doing better. Not doing great myself, but no fever on my end, at least. #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-26T15:03:00Z

16:40 Tried to teach my son how to throw a baseball today. Not sure whether that is actually the right definition of irony. #
19:38 @ruzkin The Couchening: "Remember, Ruzkinlander, if your ass hits the cushion, it's over." #
19:38 @Klace A Dragon Age module would be an EXCELLENT way to apply, yes. :) #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-25T15:01:51Z

12:29 @megmccarron Glad you made it to Austin! Crit well! #
00:23 Up with acid reflux. And oddly, Beastmaster is no longer on. #
07:20 Now up with boys. Backyardigans not quite Beastmaster. #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-24T15:01:36Z

18:18 @megmccarron Oooh, your GF is going to be PISSED. :) #
18:19 Playing #masseffect2 today. Wish I could file anti-bugs when things are just awesome. #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-23T15:02:25Z

17:25 #masseffect2 Okay, I just embarrassed some husks today. As in, I was wondering if we had the T-ball mercy rule. Yay Throw! #
21:23 Boys asleep. Cats fed. Laundry loaded. Damsel still at work. Ah, crunch. #

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An Evening During Crunch

2009-10-23T00:50:01Z

So it's a night during crunch. I came home for dinner, but need to go back to work after the boys are asleep. The Damsel is supposed to do the bath. She's in there for awhile, and I am annoyed, because I can't go in to work until the boys are asleep, which requires them being out of the bath, clothed, storied, and snuggled. I am, due to my crunch status, perhaps not entirely sensitive in the way in which I voice my frustration with this after we get the boys dressed. The Damsel reacts as expected for someone who is also in the middle of crunch, at volume and length, and then returns to brush their teeth with the Dude pulling on her arm.

As a Leo, the Damsel tends to react quickly. As a Taurus, I tend to build steam. As such, I process her response for a minute or so, building up some truly awesome replies, and then head into the bathroom and say, "See, the thing is--"

At which point the Dude walks out of the bathroom, stands in front of me, and says, with a firm but not angry voice, "It's done, Dad."

Completely nose-smacked by my own son, I walk back out into the living room while the Damsel, who is laughing but also very sportsmanlike, informs the Dude that no, she was grumpy with me, which means I get to be grumpy with her back. She comes out into the living room to let me discuss my issues.

I bring up my counterargument. She responds, growing heated herself, only to have the Dude whistle her down. (He can't actually whistle, so he just says "Reeeeeeeeee!" in a high loud voice.)

"Mom," he says firmly, "it's okay to get angry, but then you need to calm down."

The Damsel sputters for a second or so before growling, "Yes. Yes, you're right."

So this is our son, the peacemaker.

It's fascinating seeing how much he's like us, but also how different he is. I realized a few nights ago that while he has my focus -- he can tune everything out to build the crap out of some blocks, while the Damsel's strength lies more in multitasking than focus -- he's an extrovert, not an introvert. And this just boggled me, because I always assumed that the focus was part of the introversion, that you had to be one to be the other. But nope, there's the Dude, as social as his mother and as focused as me, totally breaking my conceptions of what parts of me make me who I am in the process.

(When I mentioned this to the Damsel, she snorted and said that that explained why she's flummoxed by the Bud sometimes, because she doesn't know how to deal with a drama queen who is also an introvert.)

Filling in the Gaps

2009-10-22T01:52:07Z

I realized not too long ago that I really like ambients. Not, in this case, the combat barks, but the little "people talking as you go by" conversations that you put in to fill out the world and make the place feel like something that doesn't disappear as soon as you get into the elevator to head to the next level.

They're one of the few bits that doesn't involve the player. They're tiny, they're incredibly limited because you can't really have many animations or even hand-gestures without pulling in CineDesign (and CineDesign is busting butt to make the big important conversations), and they're just kind of... there. These little dialog snippets, a chance for you to tell a tiny short story. It's like conversation-based flash fiction. Can you make somebody care about someone in just a hundred words of dialog?

Sometimes you put them there so that an area with no quests still has some noise as the player walks through. Sometimes you put them in because none of the focus testers could find the healer's tent, and you need a few people going, "Wow, that healer over there sure is great!" to give the player a clue. Sometimes it's a reaction to something cool the player did, and sometimes it's just a slice of life that feeds into the illusion that these pixels and polygons are real people.

I wrote something yesterday that made both of the editors tear up when they edited it today -- and another bit that had them laughing out loud. Moments like those are what you live for. There are players who fell in love with people we at the company never even bothered to name, demanding the return of Refund Guy (a guy who had a very long conversation about trying and failing to get a refund for his purchase). I don't know if it's because he was funny or because he was angry or because he helped give more life to the setting or if it was just because he seemed like an ordinary guy, someone the player could identify with. But it's a tiny clue into what makes people like our characters, and what we can do to make them like them more.

The new ambients should be in the game soon, and the voices will come in before too long. We'll see how it goes.

The Short Stuff

2009-10-19T15:02:57Z

19:34 #masseffect2 Hello, new weapon upgrade, are you looking for a good home? Shepard's pistol will take good care of you. #
19:35 #masseffect2 Oh, they got that environmental hazard working, did they? Apparently I'll be reloading. Sorry, dead followers! #
20:04 #masseffect2 No, hacking minigame, YOU suck. (It's actually VERY FUN except when I lose and get no credits.) #

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Stuck in the Mud

2009-10-17T23:48:59Z

Got another novel rejection last night that resulted in some bummerment. I thought I had a good shot with this particular agent, but apparently not, based on the first three chapters.

It led to a good talk with the Damsel, who has read, well, just about everything I've done at both work and on my own time. She made the point that at work, I'm the guy who wrote a ton of dialog while other folks worked on the galaxy map. And, well, I will unapologetically refer to myself as the Michael Bay of the writing team -- I am all about the explosions.

And she said (very nicely) that my writing at work had more "Holy crap!" moments than my own personal writing, in her experience. Maybe not because my personal writing isn't good, but because most of the time, I'm writing in fantasyland, and when I do that, I have to spend a lot of time building the world, which is my least favorite part of writing. I like the dialog, the fight scenes, the twists and turns. I am not, as everyone who has read my stuff will attest, Setting Guy.

So I'm doing some thinking about what to do moving forward. I think that each novel I've written since going to Clarion has been more marketable than the last -- Courtship and Cutlery is fun, but has all kinds of weird government geekery and people riding on ostriches. Palace Job moves pretty quickly, but everyone is still doing crystal-fu that takes a lot of getting used to. With the new epic, I feel like I've got a real world that I can play in for a long time, but I'm still trying to convince people to read about a world where folks fly around on crystal gliders and then get out and have swordfights.

And I don't know. I really love the new epic. Once ME2 is done, I want to clean it up and then get to work on the next one. But as the Damsel noted, I'm getting a common theme in my agent rejections these days, and it goes all the way back to the dreaded Competent I got at Clarion from David Hartwell (and pretty much every other teacher) -- the rejection letters almost all say that my story is fine, but they just work up the enthusiasm that would make them want to represent it. If my big weakness is setting, and that weakness is stopping stuff from selling, then maybe I need to do something closer to what I was thinking of before, where I write in a modern setting so that, you know, I can hide my inability to make up new worlds by going with the familiar.

Or maybe, again, I'm never going to sell anything on my own. Maybe I'm pretty much always going to be a video-game writer. I can think of worse fates. Seeing what the guys in Art and CineDesign and Tech Design have done with the words I wrote, what the VO directors and actors have made out of the scenes I've written... it's humbling. And hell, Mass Effect has sold, what, several million copies? I could do worse.

This isn't a giant emo whinefest. I'm just doing some thinking about where to go from here. Play to my strengths and write more modern stuff, or try to build my setting-making ability and get the epic to a level where agents can actually work up enthusiasm for it. I don't know.

The Short Stuff

2009-10-17T15:05:34Z

14:58 @megmccarron So did you go right to Alanna for the little girl, or are there better gateway drugs? #
15:58 @megmccarron So more of a "Dora conquers the Visigoths" kind of age? #
18:12 @Sjosz Hey, I didn't blast THAT much. #

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The Short Stuff

2009-10-16T15:08:48Z

19:21 Continuing my #masseffect2 playthrough on Charm/Intimidate pass. Very persuasive but few combat abilities. Bruised but charming! #
21:57 @truffle TWO HEAVY MECHS! FOR SERIOUS! #
22:50 @truffle Matt Fisher's level was fun for my Nothing But Persuade character, and I was only on Veteran. Good luck! #

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Patrick Makes a Redheaded Sorceress

2009-10-16T01:49:34Z

After seeing people all over the forums making their Dragon Age characters, my wife insisted that we download the character creator, despite the fact that as EA employees we could probably, you know, get our hands on the actual game. (Through the miracle of this blog, this will appear to be my wife's pushy demand, to which I grudgingly agreed, and not any geekery on my part. Whee!)

My first attempt is a auburn-haired elven woman with a future in magery:

I don't usually put makeup on my female characters, but in this case I was trying to get as close as I could to an existing character:

(Actress Amanda Righetti in her role as Grace Van Pelt on The Mentalist.)

Given that I didn't have a picture of Van Pelt at the time and was working from memory (and also given that I'm a terrible artist and not even very good at describing how people look in my writing), I'm not unhappy with how it turned out. I shouldn't have selected the smiling face for the character's portrait, but really, even if Van Pelt mostly looks pensive, I'm not going to stare at a non-smiling portrait for the next 80 hours.

People with an interest in CRPGs should definitely check out the Dragon Age character editor. I've been in the dark about Dragon Age while running hard on Mass Effect, and I'm really impressed by how much customization they have for the face. (The character stuff is not as customizable, but most of that is just to give you a picture of what the real game will be like, as I understand it.)

See you all online!