User:Eganogard

About
Ok, so I'm not really omnipotent. I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle and a slice of prosciutto.

Too Many Video Games Has Rotted My Brain
I've been gaming since the early 1980's on Intellivision, Atari 2600, & Commodore 64. I'm disappointed to see that after 30+ years of video games, developers still haven't figured out how to make a character run around an object instead of into it and getting stuck. There's nothing like watching Hawke's AI be defeated by a table during a brawl at The Hanged Man to make my day complete.

Currently playing: DA:O / A / 2.

Also a fan of: The Elder Scrolls, Thief, No One Lives Forever, Hitman, Fallout & a few RTS games. Off-screen, I play a mean game of backgammon too.

Yes! We Have No Bananas (a.k.a. I'm a Wiki Newbie)
If I do anything wrong, or should be doing something differently, do not hesitate to use my talk page. Please be polite, but fear not - I'm slightly less crazy than Ruck.

Thank you to wiki community members D-Day, Viktoria Landers, Mostlyautumn, Tierrie, and the King for helping me out, and not ripping my head off & beating it to a bloody pulp when I make a mistake.

Miscellaneous
● Every once in a while I don a spiffy costume and magically transform into a misspell-fighting superzero. My superpowers include being a douche, and the internet. Kids, don't grow up to be like me.

● On the wiki I mainly edit articles, whether that involves simply fixing misspellings / formatting, or hefty re-writes & cleanup. I'm definitely no expert on the DA lore, and not crazy enough to believe that my viewpoint is always right, so I'm hesitant to delete content without confirmation from other wiki users on an article's talk page. I also tend to focus on taking screenshots & adding pictures to articles that have none. I try to give some priority to articles with or  tags. The forums and blogs are interesting to read sometimes, but they're not my cup of tea.

A Wish List for Dragon Age 3
Temporarily moved to a blog: A Wish List for Dragon Age 3.

Names for Dog
Temporarily moved to a blog: 40 Names for Dog. It will be updated to include reader's suggestions & return here in early October.

Recommended Dragon Age Mods
''The following mods are must-haves to me. Most are widely used to improve functionality or interface.'' This is a personal list on a personal page, and is not endorsed by Dragon Age Wiki or wikia.com. If a mod is listed here I use it regularly, but I am not associated with any mod in any way whatsoever. ''Use mods at your own risk. Don't blame me (or anyone else) if you try one and you / it breaks your game.'' Dragon Age: Origins AddItem - Add an item to your inventory. (duh!) Player needs to know the (DA:O) item ID code. Advanced Party - Makes rogues automatically move into backstab position & more. Advanced Quickbar - Adds extra quickbars, click up/down arrows to swap between them. Advanced Tactics - Major improvements to the tactics system. Auto Loot - Press a button and all party members loot nearby containers / corpses. Character Respecialization - Reassign a party member's specializations, skills, & attribute points. Make Console Commands Visible - A fix that allows users to see the console text. See trivia for more info. Dragon Age 2 More Tactics Slots - Allows up to 100 tactics slots. Visual AddItem (VADDI) - Add an item to your inventory. Doesn't require (DA2) item ID codes. Works with Both Games  (a.k.a. one "mod" to rule them all!) Tab Hightlight Toggle - An AutoHotKey file that changes "highlight usable objects" to an on/off toggle: my ticket to a less painful gaming wrist. On Windows 7 I needed to enable XP Compatibility Mode (SP2) for it to work.

Tips for Writing Wiki Articles
Some things to keep in mind while editing or creating wiki articles. ● On the internet the audience can be anywhere or anyone. There are huge variations in the reader's DA knowledge, gaming experience, age, location, culture, background, dialect, and language skills. Think in terms of everyone rather than you, I, or even we.

● Keep language and ideas SCD: simple, concise, and direct.

● Remember the 5 W's: Who, What, Where, When, Why - and How.

● Wiki articles should be friendly for users with little or no game experience / lore knowledge. It's not the easiest thing to do, but try to see things from a newbie's point-of-view when editing articles.

● There can be a fine line between sufficient & too much information. Avoid repeating information found on other pages pages, that's where internal links and see also can be most useful.

● Remember that # can be used in links to bring the reader directly to a specific section of an article. A link such as tips looks like tips.

● Avoid using (what may seem to be common) expressions. People outside the U.K. may not cotton on to what cotton on means. People in Boston call a pizza a pie, and people in Montreal call a slice of pizza a pointe, but in the interest of being easily and widely understood, that type of language is to be avoided.

● Avoid using "you" unless referring specifically to the reader his/herself (i.e. providing instructions for what the person behind the computer needs to do, such as type a console command). I'm not going to fight a darkspawn no matter what I'm told to do. But the Warden or Hawke might.

● Be organized. Keep related information together, and use article sections appropriately.

● Be certain. If you're editing an article and realize that you're not so sure about something, either verify it immediately, or postpone the edit and discuss it on a talk page first. If you find yourself tempted to say "I think" or "maybe," that's a good indication that you may need to stop and think about what you're saying.

● Be unbiased and factual. This goes along with the points above and below. A wiki article should stick to the facts. You may think that a certain shortbow is beautiful, or that Aveline's face looks like it was hit by a cinderblock, and you may be right - but those statements still don't belong in a wiki article.

● Be professional. I have a lot of fun with my own personal user page, it's where I offer opinions, goof around & make jokes, sneak in some pop-culture references, and have fun with some odd internal/wikipedia links. The wiki's articles, on the other hand, are not an appropriate venue to do any of those things.

● Be consistent. Look at a few similar wiki pages to see what should be included, and how to format it. (If you don't know how to do something, look it up: There's a lot of good information on Wikia's help page, or refer to the other artices.)  Cut & paste templates from other articles to make certain things look pretty, if you are comfortable doing so.

● Be focused. Avoid distractions such as txt'ing, talking on the phone, watching pornography, building a miniature version of Noah's Ark, or mixing a Tom Collins while editing. If you drink a few too many of 'em, wait until the room stops spinning to edit.

Trivia (& lighthearted nonsense)
Current score: Serious 2, Trivia(-ish) 5, Nonsensical Fun 3

About Trivia...
● Despite the strong dislike of "trivia" around here, it's one of my favorite things to read. The rules are very strict, but perhaps wiki users should be free to read trivia if they wish, and make their own judgments / draw their own conclusions based upon what is presented. It seems that ruthless edit trolls believe that their dislike of trivia is what is best for everyone else, and that does not make for a very pleasant wiki community. As comedian George Carlin said in response to a Mississippi reverend who complained about foul language on the radio, "There are two knobs on the radio - one turns it off - and the other one changes the station." Don't like trivia? You don't have to read it.

● If contributing trivia that makes a similarity to something in pop-culture, remember this: Everything is a Remix (an interesting independent documentary that examines music and film before moving on to more serious subjects). On the Kirkwall page, someone had made a similarity to something in the TV show Buffy, neglecting that it was not at all an idea original to that show. I can name over a dozen books, films, or television shows that used the same idea without much effort, and probably list fifty after some research. Before contributing trivia related to something you enjoy, take some time to find out where the idea really comes from. My own example (below), which I wouldn't add to a wiki article, includes a similarity between Ser Karras and Father Karras, a main antagonist in one of the Thief games. My observation is valid, however, there is also a Father Karras in the classic horror novel / film The Exorcist. Spelled slightly differently, "Karas" or "Karass," it could also be a reference to a Saint, a villain in Doctor Who, a fictional word meaning a group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will in the novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (one of my fav. authors), a Mexican boxing family, etc., this list could go on and on ...

Trivia(-ish)
● A high percentage of "Round shields" in DA2 are not round.

● Fun Fact: It's impossible to find the DA2 quest The Way It Should Be via a search on Dragon Age Wiki. I think that's because all five words in the quest's name are so commonly used that they all get ignored (to avoid 1000's of results).

● DA:O's console doesn't display text because a file (fonts.ert) is missing from the install. The "mod" that fixes the problem isn't really a mod, it is a copy of the missing file.

● Coincidence, Conspiracy, or Crap? In DA2, male Hawke's default given name is Garrett, and there is a minor antagonist named Ser Karras. Those are also the names of both the pc / main protagonist and main antagonist respectively in the well-received 2000 game Thief 2:The Metal Age.

● My generic DA avatar actually looks like (a dwarven version of) me. No extra-wide nose, and no splattered blood (bor-ring!) irl, but the eyes and hair are right.

Nonsensical Fun
● Truth, Lies, or Videotape? I only have one testicle. I lost the other one to an Orlesian Purse-Cutter.[1 ]

● There once was a man from Nantucket, he walked the Deep Roads donning nothing but a dead metal bucket. Early one eve, Hawke came along and activated cleave, then chopped the poor fool's head right off.

● I'm totally cereal!

Photos Added
Slideshow images are 548px or smaller; click an image to see a larger version (if available).

Contributions (a.k.a. What Have You Done For Me Lately?)
''All words are mine. Any indented text is a follow-up / update, not a reply from another user. Date format: dd/mm/yy''

Articles Created

 * 24/08/12 created The Turncoat's Walking Stick


 * 24/08/12 created Rune-Covered Gloves


 * 23/08/12 created Roar (helmet)


 * 21/08/12 created Acolyte's Staff (disambiguation)


 * 21/08/12 created Acolyte's Staff (Dragon Age II Act 2)


 * 21/08/12 created Acolyte's Staff (Dragon Age II Act 1)


 * 20/08/12 created Mercenary's Longblade


 * 20/08/12 created Mercenary's Staff


 * 20/08/12 created Varric's Tailored Leather Duster


 * 17/08/12 created Modified Officers' Issue


 * 17/08/12 created Fereldan Man-at-Arms Issue


 * 15/08/12 created Apostate Staff


 * 15/08/12 created Apostate's Boots


 * 15/08/12 created Apostate's Cuffs


 * 15/08/12 created Apostate's Robe


 * 07/08/12 created Smuggled Fereldan Blade


 * 07/08/12 created Fereldan Field Armor


 * 07/08/12 created Fereldan Field Gloves


 * 07/08/12 created Fereldan Field Boots


 * 07/08/12 created Fereldan Broadaxe

Edits

 * 29/08/12 rewrite Loose Ends


 * 28/08/12 rewrite The Bone Pit (quest)


 * 26/08/12 edited Dead Man's Pass


 * 26/08/12 rewrite Varathorn


 * 26/08/12 rewrite Spy!


 * 25/08/12 rewrite Dissent


 * 25/08/12 rewrite An Errant Letter


 * 25/08/12 edited Master Ilen's Shop: completed list of act 1 items


 * 23/08/12 edited Mage Goods: added act 1 items & created articles for items where necessary; found and corrected an error on an act 3 item that was causing problems with the template


 * 20/08/12 rewrite The First Sacrifice


 * 19/08/12 rewrite The Destruction of Lothering


 * 12/08/12 categorized approx. 170 (formerly uncategorized) wiki photos


 * 10/08/12 - 08/08/12 edited/cleanup: A Map of Sorts - Messy kills - A Debt in the Family - Wade's Superior Dragonbone Plate Armor - Templar Armor (Dragon Age II) - Malcolm's Will - Senestra - Ceremonial armor set


 * 06/08/12 edited Altar of Dumat: thorough cleanup/polish


 * 02/07/12 edited Forbidden Knowledge: A major overhaul of the walkthrough + added a bug workaround

Forum / Blog Comments

 * 05/08/12 comment Dragon Age Question of the Month (August):


 * I'd stick with the way it was handled in DA2. It lacks the capacity to craft items anywhere/anytime, but for me that is a minor issue, I know when I'm going to do quests so I can prepare in advance.


 * Running around to multiple vendors for crafting supplies in DA:O is a major annoyance for me. If a similar system comes back in future games, at least make it one-stop shopping by having the vendors stocked with both greater quantities, and a larger variety of supplies. Even for the simplest items, such as a lesser health poultice -- Its great that Varathorn has unlimited elfroot, but he doesn't sell flasks. The recipe only needs two items and still my time is utterly wasted on needless map-hopping? No thanks! Just stick with DA2's system.


 * 25/08/12 Posted a blog, "A Wish List for Dragon Age 3".


 * 18/08/12 Posted my first blog, "40 Names for Dog".


 * 05/08/12 comment Forum:Companions Worth Seeing in DA3:


 * I want Morrigan's son as a companion, with quest(s) to find and put an end to either Morrigan and/or Flemeth once and for all.


 * 05/08/12 comment Dragon Age III: The Line Up:


 * I like that idea too... so far a grown-up Connor, Tranquil, aging Isabela (who now relies more on her wit rather than her breasts), and Morrigan's child are at the top of my list for potential companions. Realistically, I doubt I'll be seeing any of those [as companions], but it's a fantasy game and that's my fantasy, ok?  ;)


 * 04/08/12 comment Forum:Is Mage Vs Templars really worth a story?:


 * I've had my fill of mage vs. Templar during DA2. It definitely won't go away for DA3, but I hope that either: 1) It will not be the prominent aspect of the story, but rather a sideline where the player can choose a side or even remain neutral if inclined to do so; or, 2) If it is the main focus it must be very thoughtfully done, hopefully without predictable and cliché'd events such as a treacherous betrayal by a high-ranking member of a faction.  There should be a lot of content where M vs. T is a non-issue and the player can forget about it.  If this is the main DA3 quest line, it should end there.  No uncertain ending so it drags on and on in future sequels.  M vs. T is an interesting part of the story/universe, but not enough to be the story.  I would only tolerate that much focus on it for one game; if it becomes overwhelming & there's no escape from mage vs Templar I'm packing my bags and moving on to another RPG.


 * 05/08/12 re: "a coalition of Mages and Templars who are sick of the idiotic violence and working together against both of the main parties to end the war." I really like that idea Ser Duranic, I think that it could have a lot of potential to make it more interesting, and provide a much needed option not to support either side.


 * 04/08/12 comment User blog:The Milkman/Characters and Conflict:


 * Speaking of cliché, how about drunken dwarfs? I would have liked them to be culturally-rich & intelligent without being a bunch of drunks for a change. I roll my eyes every time I give Og an alcohol-based gift in DA:O, and even moreso when he becomes the resident drunk in DA:O:A. The elves lost all their history and tradition - they would make better candidates for a bunch of depressed/despondent alcoholics.


 * The generic has pros and cons, it makes the game eerily comfortable and easy to pick up for new players, but it is also detrimental to immersion for me. I don't want to see dwarves living in clouds up in the sky or elves that have developed space travel, but too much attachment to the stereotypical fantasy/rpg doesn't work either.


 * 05/08/12 It's just a matter of where to place emphasis, I liked Varric over Og because he had a more developed character. Og was a generic 2D fighter & drinker, that was abundantly clear and very much in my face. Some amusing comments and a brief personal quest aside, he had absolutely nothing going on. Varric liked to drink too, but he had life - the generic stereotype didn't define him.


 * I don't think screaming "I'm a stereotype" at the top of my lungs is particularly funny. As I said before, Og did have some good lines... but an alcoholic-fighter character would have been more amusing as a human, or even an elf, imho. It breaks the mold a little bit, and would make some behavior unexpected rather than expected.


 * After 25+ years of drunken dwarves in my video games, it gets a little boring. They're more common than a $5 hooker at the crackhouse.


 * 25/07/12 comment Forum:Be nice to DA2 day:
 * A small detail, but I like the auto-locking quickbar in DA2. I'm always forgetting to lock it in DA:O and losing a button at inopportune moments.


 * 22/07/12 comment Forum:Be nice to DA2 day:
 * Hmmmmmm... Well, my DA2 disc contains very few scratches. And it did come in a very nice box.  DA2 is better than the Atari 2600 E.T. game, and you're right, it really is far superior to syphilis.


 * I can think of a some honest answers: I like the crafting resource system in DA2 (no time wasted travelling to multiple vendors for supplies).  I like the home & its conveniences.  There were some positive interface changes (ie. sell all junk / take all buttons), and the tooltips were more informative / item properties less vague.


 * 21/07/12 comment Forum:Are mage's supposed to represent the middle east?:
 * I think you have the right idea, it's an allegory, but specifying a real-world group of people to whom it pertains, if any, is impossible without confirmation from someone actually involved in the game. There's hundreds of examples in history that someone could make a similarity to. IMHO it doesn't need to be associated with anything real - just being a reflection upon ourselves is enough.


 * 21/07/12 comment King Cousland/Dragon Age III to be Open World?:
 * Are you implying that Reggie Fils-Aime doesn't know what "insatiable" means?


 * Sure, gamers are very severe in judging products - the games must be worth both our time and our money. I get angry after wasting an hour at a bad movie, and games are much more involved. As consumers we demand a LOT more entertainment value from a game in comparison to other mediums such as tv, film, or music. It's a tough industry.


 * Although arguing about what may or may not happen with DA3 is completely ridiculous, people are venting their frustrations after paying for a significant slap in the face with DA2: "rush-job" is an understatement. People are reacting to what we were sold, and predicting an outcome based on what has occurred in the past is not abnormal. One bad title can be enough to sway opinion, it happens all the time. Developers lose the public's confidence by releasing a mediocre product, and that decision was theirs to make - therefore they only have themselves to blame for skepticism.


 * 20/07/12 comment King Cousland/Dragon Age III to be Open World?:
 * This is an industry where original ideas are rare, and things constantly change. Of course they're looking at competing products that are a commercial success - who wouldn't? Although implementing major gameplay changes is risky, it can be done. Warcraft used to be an RTS, and Elder Scrolls Online is on the way. Our wallets voted in favor of a new Warcraft, but DA "on a larger scale" of some sort, whether open world or not, seems necessary. The limited number of areas and all the map repetition in DA2 felt really cheap and lazy IMHO.

─┤ http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb1343065423/common/avatars/thumb/e/eb/5308644.png/22px-5308644.png │ e │ g │ a │ n │ o │ g │ a │ r │ d │ talk ├─ 23:10, August 24, 2012 (UTC)