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I suspect that I will be spending much of this weekend playing Dragon Age. I only have what, nine days left in the month? In order to focus on my writing during November for National Novel Writing Month I make myself abstain from video games. Sadly, this is much harder than it sounds. I am right now about half way through Orzammar, which is my last treaty quest to do, but then I still have to find the Sacred Urn and save the arl and get to the Landsmeet...sigh. I would love to say I will get this game wrapped up before November, but I really don't think it's going to happen. Of course, that could be a good thing, since as soon as I finish I would want to start a playthrough of the DLC, and probably Dragon Age II after that...yeesh. Seriously, I am addicted to this game, and DAII even more so than Origins.

You would think that I would have gotten my fix this past week when I played the new DAII DLC, "Mark of the Assassin." But no. It only made me hungry for more. Sigh. Also, Felicia Day, who voices the character of Tallis that joins your party for the new quest, is awesome and I would like for her to please be in every video game I ever play ever again, okay? Can we make that happen? 

At least I will get a little bit of a fix each Tuesday throughout most of November. Felicia Day's webseries, Dragon Age Redemption (starring none other than Felicia Day as, hey look at that, Tallis) has arrived and I am enjoying it immensely thus far. We only get six episodes though, but hey, I will take what I can get, really. 

Here are episodes one and two if you've got twenty minutes to kill and a swords & magic itch to scratch:

  

The live action Templar is pretty nice to look at, and he seems to not be as much as a zealot as most of the Templars that DAII throws at you. This is a lovely bonus. I am very curious about the mythology about the Qunari they are building up between the DLC and the webseries too. I know everything was completely approved by Bioware, so I am hoping that we get some more back story on that as the show progresses.

So, anyway, that's my plan for the weekend (well, for my "me" time anyway, I actually do have some quite fun stuff going on that involves other people as well). I hope you all each have an equally fun weekend ahead of you!

Just don't forget to watch out for darkspawn, yo.

State of The Gaming

I often joke that I have sold my soul to Bioware, but you know, I am not so sure anymore that it's a joke. I haven't been able to muster up any kind of interest or excitement lately for games that aren't made by Bioware, all the while, the games that are, I can't get out of my head.

For example, I am very close to completing my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2, complete with all of the downloadable content. It looks likely that I will finish it in the next few days, probably by the end of the weekend, but within a week at the most. Last night I finished reading the first Mass Effect tie-in novel, Revelation, written by the game's lead writer Drew Karpyshyn. It was fantastic. Set before the first game, it tells the story of how Anderson and Saren first met and why they really don't like each other by the time Commander Shepard comes on the scene. I am very glad that I went ahead an purchased all three of the existing novels at one time, because I immediately jumped into the second book, Ascension, once I finished the first. Those plus my playthrough will probably be enough to tide me over until March, when Mass Effect 3 is released.

But now comes the question of what to play next. The plan is to start up a new playthrough of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to get myself once more familiar with that world before the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic is released at the start of the new year. Make no mistake, I am really excited about The Old Republic, and I do want to give KOTOR another go before that comes out. Yet I am not so sure...

...because there is, of course, Dragon Age to consider. Isn't there always? Even though I am playing Mass Effect at the moment, and getting very excited about the forthcoming The Old Republic, Dragon Age is still very much on my mind. I just can't shake it. I have a feeling I might not be able to completely shake it until I have played through all of the origin stories in the first game, and possibly until I have romanced all of the available love interests in the second. To get my fix while I am not playing, I have been lurking on the edges of the fandom of late. Primarily at Dragon Age Confessions (which is pretty much my new crack) and deviantART. There are some really super comics being made by fans. Some are just one-shots, some are episodic stories, going through the events of the game(s). There are some amazingly talented people out there, y'all. It's crazy. I know there is a new book coming out in December as well, so I am really looking forward to that. Plus there's Felicia Day's web series, which finally has a release date of October 11 (yay!) and a new DLC quest featuring her character from said web series. I have thus far managed to avoid the fan fiction. I know it's out there, but I am really trying to not go down that road, because I fear there would be no coming back. I dunno, Dragon Age just fires my mind up and gets my imagination pumping in a way that nothing in the entertainment world has done since Stargate Atlantis first came into my life.*

So...yeah. I have until at least the end of the year to do my playthrough of KOTOR. I haven't decided if I'll play its woefully subpar sequel again or not, but I am kind of leading toward no. Say it takes me about a month to play--that means I don't really have to start my playthrough until the first of December. Which gives me a little over a month to do another run through Dragon Age: Origins (and the new Dragon Age II DLC), since November is a no game month (writing). I mean, it's something to think about at least...

Geez Bioware, why do you have to make so many awesome games, huh?

*This actually gives me a little bit of hope. While I am still completely in love with Stargate Atlantis and all things Stargate, I did eventually come up for air. So thankfully it seems unlikely that Dragon Age will continue to consume me like this forever. Fingers crossed anyway.

Completely Immersed

An announcement was made this week that a third Dragon Age book will be coming out (hopefully) later this year. As with the first two, the book will be written by David Gaider, who was the lead writer for the Dragon Age games (as well as a slew of other Bioware titles). The first two books were extremely spiffy, as I believe I have mentioned here before, so I'm sure you can imagine how excited this news makes me. The third book, titled Asunder, will tie in with the events of Dragon Age II. (Which, by the way, I finished last night, go me!)

This news, plus renewed chatter from Felicia Day about her forthcoming Dragon Age web-series (squee!), got me thinking (again) about how immersive the best science fiction and fantasy worlds are. If you have ever wondered why SFF fans are so completely into whatever they are fans of, I truly believe this is the reason. The amount of work that goes into creating these universes is staggering. There's enough there to allow the fans to actually imagine themselves within the world having their own adventures, with or without the "main" characters of the game or movie or show or what have you.

For my money, these are the top three most immersive SFF universes, the ones I want to just keep playing in and never come out:

Number 3: Star Wars
The really, truly, wonderfully cool thing about the Star Wars universe is that it goes so far beyond the central three (or six) stories. Beyond that handful of characters that everyone knows so well, whether they think themselves fans of Star Wars or science fiction at all. The expanded universe, both canon and not, extends for thousands of years before and after the original trilogy. There really are stories enough there to fill the entire galaxy that Lucas dreamed up way back when. Even with the tight reins he keeps on his sandbox, there is still more than enough room for everyone to play. Pick your flavor: Jedi? Mandalorian? Bounty Hunter? Smuggler? Sith? Clone? Imperial? Rebel? X-Wing Pilot? What era do you want to visit? There's a book or a game out there that will let you experience pretty much any story you might be craving.

Number 2: Stargate
Okay, one and two on this list are very closely placed, I'll grant you. With Stargate I can immerse myself completely in the story and the mythology of it all and, I won't lie, frequently imagine I am stationed on Atlantis butting heads with McKay on a daily basis. There are many, many books, most of them very well written. I hope Fandemonium keeps producing them for years to come. Big Finish Audio also produced two series of audio dramas, read/performed by the actor who portrayed the character each story is about. That's just darn cool. Then there's the fan fiction. That's a whole different kind of playground, but still a fun one. While the shows sparked no shortage of imaginations, everything is still so centrally linked to the main characters of whichever show one prefers. This isn't a bad thing, granted, what made Stargate so enduring was its amazing and memorable characters. I will be very curious to see if this doesn't expand a bit now that all of the shows are off the air. It would be lovely to see a (canonical) Stargate expanded universe that could grow to the size of the Star Wars EU. But even if that never happens, there is still the already mentioned fanfic. Some of those writers have already started telling stories about the next generation of 'gaters. Still, Stargate does come in at number two because, in the end, fiction though it may be, it is still set in a world that very closely resembles our own. It just isn't quite enough of an escape.

Number 1: Dragon Age
Of course. Oh, come on. Did you really think this was gonna be anything else? You know I have to really love this world to put it above the all-awesome Stargate. As I've said before, there is something about the world of Thedas that just draws me in. I am like a fish that saw something shiny and when I went to investigate, found myself being reeled in to shore. It seems more than likely I'll be getting a new, Dragon Age-related tattoo before the summer is out. I am already thinking about when I'll get my next chance to play it again. Sadly, that won't be any time soon. But hopefully the web-series and the new book can tide me over until I can get back. After all, we are only forty years into the Dragon Age itself, which leaves us another sixty to play around with. That's gotta be at least two or three more games, right?

I know I am not alone in this--the fandoms just these three universes have ignited are proof alone of that. But I also know there are so many more fandoms out there. Do any of you have a world that you just dive into head first? Where do you go to play, knowing full well you're likely to get lost, and being more than a little okay with that fact?

The Adventures of Mathman and Dragongirl Continue!

In addition to all of the wonderful artists and art to see at Emerald City Comic Con there were, of course, many panels featuring various actors, writers, artists, and geeks. My husband and I attended five panels over the weekend, one on Friday and four on Saturday. All of them were quite enjoyable, I have to say. There were several more we would like to have seen, certainly, but we tried to limit ourselves to the ones that really called to us (okay, to me), so that we could still have plenty of time for all of the other wonderful things we wanted to do!

The first panel we attended, Friday afternoon, was the Wil Wheaton Awesome Hour. As you might guess, this panel featured none other than geek superstar Wil Wheaton. He read a few excerpts from his own works and then the floor was opened up to audience questions. In person I found Wil Wheaton to be just as human and as humorous as he comes across in his blog, which is just a joy to read. As much as I love to read his thoughts on writing and gaming and his updates on whatever projects he happens to be working on, my favorite posts are always the little "slice of life" entries he puts up from time to time. He is a real person, and he is extremely adept at capturing those moments that we all have in our lives that make them worth living, and putting them down on the written (or typed) page to share with others. You can imagine that I was pleased as punch that his first reading was one of those "slice of life" stories. This one about a moment of bonding he and his son had over his comic book collection. I did manage to get it on video, but it is of truly poor quality, very long (around eight minutes), the audio starts to get choppy at the end, AND Blogger doesn't want to upload it. So. No Wil Wheaton video for you. Ha, ha, I kid. Luckily for you, there were many other people there, some of them much better at capturing video. These are a little long, but of good quality, and the two stories he told us, enjoy.

I also was pretty excited that he announced that he was able to tell us the return date for the rest of this season of Eureka, though I have already forgotten what it was, sigh. But I remember that it was quite soon, so yay! 

Saturday was our marathon day of panels. We attended four in a row. I was a bit concerned that we wouldn't be able to get in for the first one, or get good seats, or that they would kick us out between panels. I was worried that I would be stuck in that seat for four plus hours and not even be able to get up and run to the restroom. It turns out my fears were pretty much groundless, yay! This year ECCC rented out the super mega huge panel hall, capable of holding up to 3,000 people. I only saw one panel line for that room the entire time we were there, and it was for the panel after the last one we attended. (Though I think there were lines for the last few we saw, but we were already camped out). They didn't clear out the room in between panels, and there were restrooms in the back of the hall itself. My husband and I did screw ourselves over a little bit after the first panel though--we got there about forty-five minutes early and were able to snag seats in the sixth row, but after the panel, it looked as if people in front of us were getting up to leave so we thought we'd hop up and get some closer seats. Except what really happened was that everyone in row two and back was standing up milling around trying to do the exact same thing...we thought we had seats up closer and while my hubby went to secure them, I told someone else they could have our seats. But, someone beat us to the closer seats, so we actually ended up moving back a bit further after the second panel. Not too far, thankfully, we were still in the front section of seats. But, valuable lesson learned for future conventions.

Anyway, on to the panels. First up was The Guild, featuring Wil Wheaton (again), Amy Okuda, and FELICIA DAY! It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. The format for the panels was that ECCC brought in a local celebrity personality to host each panel, talking with the actors for a little bit about the show and each actor before opening up the floor to audience questions. Felicia promised that season five of The Guild is in the works and does feature a convention, but would say no more because, as she pointed out, she hasn't actually written it yet.

She and Wil talked about gaming a bit, Amy talked about gadgets (she doesn't game much in real life, but LOVES tech and gadgets). Fans asked about how they have managed to embrace their geek pride and how they deal with people who still give them crap, or how they would suggest others tackle that issue. Wil and Felicia drew naughty doodles (and gave one of them to the first question-asker). Someone asked the group in general (but Felicia specifically) about their thoughts on fan art and fan fiction. Felicia professed her love for fan art but stated she hasn't seen any of the fan fiction, and that she isn't likely to seek it out since as the writer for legal reasons it is better for her not to have seen it. Wil was in full support of this, admonishing that once seen it CANNOT BE UNSEEN. I think he has found a few stories about Wesley Crusher...

Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, Amy Okuda, and the moderator.

Wil doodles something naughty on the table...

The next panel was the Fringe panel, featuring John Noble and Jasika Nicole. They were absolutely adorable! I had completely forgotten that Noble is a Brit, don't ask me how. His accent made me all giddy, and I just wanted to hug Jasika. They talked about all sorts of different things on the show, as well as Noble's work in The Lord of the Rings movies and Jasika's musical background. One of the fans told them that he and his friends all have a viewing party and then eat or drink whatever Walter eats and drinks on the show each week (even things like his cough syrup cocktail). I feel this is ill-advised (Noble very graciously did not call the guy a kook), but to each their own, I guess. He tried to suggest though, that Walter not eat so many Red Vines, as they were getting sick of them. But there is so much fail in that suggestion for so many reasons that I'm just gonna leave it at that. Though man, did that panel ever leave me craving Red Vines...

According to Noble, he feels that the show could just go on forever. Wouldn't that be awesome? It is clear that he loves playing this part, and Jasika also seems to really enjoy Astrid. She hinted that there is a really cool Astrid episode coming up later this season and that she hopes her character(s) gets some more front and center screen time as the series continues. One thing about the series that they weren't too enthusiastic about, however, are their scenes with Gene the cow. Apparently working with a live cow on set is not a picnic. Though let's be honest, that probably shouldn't be a surprise. I managed to capture a little bit of the panel on video, this one is much shorter than the Wil Wheaton clip (only about two minutes), and just a little sampling (of much poorer quality, but what can you do).

After Fringe came Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner (of Star Trek The Next Generation). I am not a huge Star Trek fan, just for lack of exposure more than anything else. I have been slowly getting into it, and my husband of course grew up watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. This was the panel that he was really excited to see, and kind of my carrot  for him sitting through the first two panels with me (he doesn't watch The Guild or Fringe, not because he doesn't like them, just because he has never had the time to get into them). I quite honestly expected most of this panel to go over my head, being full of Star Trek references I did not get. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that it instead was funny as hell. As my husband said, these guys have been doing this for so long that they just came out there and started making stuff up.

Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and moderator.

Goofing around.

I have to admit, there were a few things that my husband had to explain to me, but for the most part I laughed my ass off the whole time these guys were on stage. Also, they talked about Wil Wheaton a surprisingly lot. That amused me. I felt a little bad for the fan who asked Spiner to sing the "Lifeforms" song that Data had performed in one of the movies, because he couldn't remember it at all. But, as he rightly pointed out, probably everyone in the audience knew it better than he did, because he had only seen the movie once or twice and once he had recorded the scene hadn't really thought about it any more. I found it an interesting commentary on the fan/actor relationship, actually. As fans, we will read or watch something over and over, possibly memorizing part (if not all) of it during the course of events. Certain lines or scenes will stick with us forever, speaking to us on a direct level, and it is a common assumption that something that so profoundly influenced our own world must of course have done the same for the writer or actor who brought that to us. But really, no, it was just a job for them. There may be certain bits they enjoyed more than others, but it is very rare for the actor or writer to get anywhere near as deeply immersed in these universes they create as we the fans do.

Anyhoo, it was a lovely panel nonetheless. It was like swimming in a rainbow with thousands of beautiful naked babies, really.

And finally, we come to one of the big ones for me. It is a toss-up to say which panel I was more excited for, The Guild, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Guild probably won out, but just because Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton are right now two of my personal heroes. But still, Buffy! With Nicholas Brendon AND James Marsters? I mean, come on, how awesome is that? Clare Kramer was there as well, and even though she was only in one season, the guys treated her like one of the family, and it didn't seem like she was too left out of the panel.

This was a fun one, to be sure. I love that Nicholas Brendon is looking so deliciously geeky as he ages. To the girls who were sitting next to us Friday night during the Wil Wheaton panel griping about the fact that Nicholas Brendon now has grey hair even though he's about ten years younger than James Marsters (who dyes his hair and works out religiously because he likes to play ACTION roles), well, all I have to say to them is phttbt.  I like me a geeky looking man who can accept that part of life is growing older (and wiser), and who is okay with a little bit of grey. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows my husband.

Anyhoo, the panel was a lot of fun. In contrast to Wil Wheaton, Brendon and Marsters openly embraced the glut of fan fiction out there for Buffy, even the stuff that pairs up their own characters romantically. Brendon honestly seemed a bit more perturbed about the turn that the comic books have taken in pairing (SPOILER) Xander and Dawn together than about the existence of Spike/Xander slash fic. Marsters, on the other hand, who had just said he actually hasn't been following the comic books and didn't know what was going on, was quite surprised to learn about that particular turn of events. I actually managed to catch that question on video. It was awesome. Even with the camera shaking (because I was laughing so damn hard) you can still see Marters' reaction in this one. I think most of the fans were on the same page, man. Seriously.

True story: Yesterday morning in the airport we were browsing the magazine stand and we saw the Michelle Trachtenberg Maxim issue. I think the store clerk thought I was a little bit nuts because I was giggling so much at it. You know what, it was a bit racy, Marsters, I agree.

In another moment of musical letdown, someone asked Marsters if he would sing a little bit of one of his songs from the musical episode of Buffy (which there had been a screening of the night before). He was game, but couldn't actually remember the words. After a valiant effort he exclaimed that he didn't do covers and that was that. Still, props to him for trying. He also was asked if we'll see him on Torchwood any more, and while he said he hasn't been asked back, he did declare that he would say yes in an instant if he was. This made me very happy.

The Buffy panel actually got cut a bit short--ending right on time even though it started late due to other panels running over. The last panel of the day was Shatner and he apparently had to start exactly right on time. Hubby and I debated staying for that panel, but neither of us was really gung-ho about it and we had had enough of sitting around by that point, so we decided to head out and stretch our legs by walking the floor a little.

All in all, I really enjoyed the panels, and I am so glad we got to see as many as we did. It was good times.

I will have more convention review goodness for you tomorrow, but for now I am gonna scoot. I've got to take my daughter to her Little Gym class and then go pick up a certain video game that comes out today...and sadly, we don't live far enough into the future yet that the laundry is gonna do itself. Which is a bummer really. Can someone get on making that happen soon? Free cookies for anyone that does!

Alrighty then. Ciao!

Oh, Plans Are A-Whirring

I don't know if I've said here or not, but my husband and I are officially celebrating our anniversary (number six) in Seattle this year. We're going to Emerald City Comic Con, tickets are purchased and the hotel and flights are booked. My super awesome mother-in-law is staying with Baby Girl and her fuzzy brothers while we're away so it can be a nice just-us trip as well.

I am so super excited about this! It is our very first convention (well, Hubby has been to a music convention or two), so I am also trying to make sure I do this right. That means planning on packing comfortable (and geekily appropriate) clothing, as well as figuring out ahead of time who and what we want to see while we are there.

It looks like we are going to just plan to spend all day in hall/room 4A on Saturday for the various panels they have lined up. We'll probably duck out after Shatner's panel though, we are both of like minds that we will be much more approving of the Browncoats movie if we don't actually watch it. It is something that I fear is much more awesome in theory than in reality.

Gah, and the guest list is crazy. I think I have narrowed it down that I definitely want to try to do the photo op/autograph signing with Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. Thankfully they are actually doing that together (along with Amy Okuda, also of The Guild) on Friday and Saturday, which means half of the standing in lines, yay! Boy howdy are those photo ops pricey though. Still...probably totally worth it.

I made a list of all of the web comics I read and noted which artists I know will be there (between what I could find on the con's website and what the artists themselves have said). I know which booths four of the five that I *have* to meet will be at, so that's a plus. Hubby has an artist or two he wants to try to meet as well. I am this close to printing up a map of the convention site and breaking out the highlighters and going to town with them.

So, it is looking to be a pretty full weekend. Thankfully the con doesn't run that late, and we aren't leaving until Monday morning to head home. This means we'll have Friday and Saturday evening, and most of Sunday free to relax and enjoy one another's company, as well as Seattle itself. I have never been, so I am just as excited about getting to see a new city as about the con.

The big key, I think, is trying to have a plan in place that leaves us plenty of time to just wander about as well, and to also be flexible if we see something interesting that we hadn't planned on, or if we miss out on something we did. It's a little overwhelming, but also quite exciting.

Now I just have to hope I don't go all fangirl and become incapable of relevant and/or coherent speech when we get there and start meeting people...

Consider Mine Captured

So I officially gave up on The Force Unleashed over the weekend. Not permanently, mind you, but at least for the time being. Here's the thing. Apparently, the game was originally designed for consoles (think Playstation, XBox, Wii, etc.) and not for PC. But the company that made it wanted to cash in on us PC fans as well and so "ported" the original version into a more PC-friendly format.

I was not actually aware until recently (until I started reading up on on the forthcoming Dragon Age II, in fact) that this is actually a really complicated process. Designing a game for one platform (console or PC) creates all sorts of challenges when making a version for the other platform. Apparently this is the largest reason why there is usually a lag between the release of video games on the original platform and the release of the same game for the other platform. The creators have to decide if it is worth it to go through the trouble to update/change the game play mechanics required to release in the secondary format. This is why it is a huge deal that Bioware is releasing Dragon Age II across all platforms at the same time. There was a lot of work that went into making sure the game play experience was workable across consoles and PCs alike.

The Force Unleashed is a good example of how this complicated process can sometimes go wrong. To use the Force in the game on the PC version, you need to use a combination of keyboard keys and mouse buttons/movements. Most of the moves in the game require a specific series of buttons/keys be pressed in a specific sequence with just the right timing. I think overall the designers did a good job of making this work with a mouse and a keyboard, as opposed to with a singular game controller. But there is one spot where this seems to have failed spectacularly, and that is where I got stuck. Pulling down a star destroyer with the Force is a multi-step process that requires you to be very quick and and to be constantly moving your mouse in addition to pressing buttons and keys. This is rather a challenge when you think about how much room the average computer mouse has to maneuver in. You can only push it up so far before you have to pick it up and move it down to the bottom of your desk and start pushing up again. Unfortunately, this kind of screws up what you are trying to do in the game. Apparently, it is even worse if you have a trackball mouse, which, of course, I have.

So, basically, I have the worst possible computer set up of the PC version of the game, which is at a disadvantage already because this specific move (which is required to move forward in the game) really wasn't designed with a mouse in mind, and wasn't ported very well from console to PC. I spent a goodly amount of time on help-sites and walkthroughs and forums, and tried the tricks and tips they all suggested, but I still could not get that star destroyer out of the sky after multiple attempts. I tried using a different mouse, one without the trackball, but then I ran into the space issue. At this point, I am pretty sure it boils down to two things: I did not level up my character's Force abilities in the best configuration to get past this part quickly, and I am not quick enough to take down the waves of TIE Fighters in between attempts to pull the thing down (allowing it to move out of the required position, which means I waste time repositioning it when I could be pulling it down). To me, this says I just need to start over again and be more conscious of how I level up the next time around. I am going to do that, yes. But not right now. I don't think my hand will forgive me if I were to try.

My warrior elf from Dragon Age: Origins

For now, I am just going to put The Force Unleashed back onto the shelf and move on to the next thing. The next thing being all of the downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware recently(ish) released an "ultimate" edition of the game that included the original game, the expansion pack, and all of the downloadable content. This edition actually cost less than it would cost to purchase all of the DLC separately, and then my husband found it on sale, so he went ahead and bought it a little while ago.

Monday afternoon I decided to break it out, eager to play Witch Hunt, a follow-up adventure to the original game. After about an hour and a half spent wrestling with the game--which was telling me that all of the DLC was installed on my computer but unauthorized (It seems that there was some sort of glitch in the install script of the downloadable digital versions, which included ours since we bought it through Steam. Thankfully the Bioware message boards were quite helpful and once I finally gave them a gander I was able to find a quick and easy fix to get the DLC working. I am actually quite proud of myself for this, truth be told)--I was finally able to fire it up and dive back into Ferelden.

I love this game. It is so incredible. I think my favorite thing about the genre of fantasy is that it is designed to capture the imagination, to take you away to a completely different world where anything is possible. If you had told me even two or three years ago that I would be as enamored with a video game franchise as I am with, say, Stargate, I would have laughed you right out of the building.  But oh my goodness I am. I am not completely sure what turned me on to wanting to play this game, but once I found out about it, oh I wanted in. Before I ever got a copy of the game I found out IDW was doing a tie-in series of comics set in that world and went ahead and subscribed. By the time I finished the first one, I was absolutely determined to get the game as soon as freaking possible. (I had to wait a little while longer, but since I knew I had a birthday coming up, that made it a little bit easier to be patient.)

As soon as I finished playing the game, I hopped online to see if I could find anything about the sequel. I wasn't entirely sure I was correct that one was in development, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that one was, and was in fact due out in March. I preordered it that very night. I have eagerly been following the news about Dragon Age II, drinking in everything I can, bouncing up and down in anticipation. And it is so close now. So close. That is, in fact, why I decided to go ahead and play the DLC now, since it won't be the length of a full game and it will whet my appetite for what is to come in just a few weeks.

So, I started playing Dragon Age again on Monday. If you keep an ear to the geeky grapevine, you might have noticed yesterday when it exploded with the news that Felicia Day, who I adore, announced that she has been working with Bioware to create a six-episode web series set in the Dragon Age world, taking place, in fact, during the events of the new game. Holy frikkin' cow! I spent much of yesterday bouncing in excitement over this news. Felicia Day. And Dragon Age. Together!

There are all sorts of stories about the news. You can read a story about the series here. There's a celebrity gamer profile on Felicia Day here. Felicia blogs about her own thoughts on the project here. Oh, and Bioware now has a blurb about it on the official Dragon Age II site here. Felicia will also be on Jimmy Fallon's talk show tonight with a sneak preview of the new series, score!

In addition to ramping up my excitement for the new game, as well as getting me all giddy about the web series, yesterday's Dragon Age-related news had another little jewel of information for me. There is an official prequel book to the first game. Actually there are two of them. The reviews on Amazon suggest they (both written by the same author, who was one of the story developers on the game) are actually pretty spectacular. Gonna have to pick those up PDQ in order to sate my thirst for all things Dragon Age.

So, um, yeah. If the purpose of epic fantasy is to capture the audience's imagination, I can only say well done, Bioware, well done.