I'm curious what you guys chose to do in the Night Terrors quest.
As much as I hate it, I feel like I should make the boy tranquil because of his desire to go to the Tevinter Imperium and learn how to control his magic. Before you entered the Fade, the Keeper even mentioned the horrible things Tevinter mages did with that power.
I did that too...
The kid wanted the nightmares to stop and he had a very high chance of becoming an abomination in the future, something really bad with someone with his abilities.
I saw little else I could do.
Ditto.
I made him tranquil. The risk:reward ratio of having this kid around seems lopsided in favor of risk. If Mages are ticking time bombs, he's an espionage grade payload of C4 about to blow.
So you know how to get the signature edition you had to pre-order the game and if you did before a certain date you got more stuff. Well turns out for me that was a lie, as no signature editions were even shipped to my town. So ive had to buy a normal copy and therefore get to miss out of stuff. Should've canceled my pre-order before I even made it.
Was it Best Buy? Because they did that to me, and ea support fixed it.
The only way to change the look of some one is to romance them properly.
FALSE! You can get Armor upgrades from certain shops and chests during quests.
Do the upgrades actually change the appearance, though?
I mean, it's still false because Aveline changes armor from Act 1 to Act 2 if you do her quests in Act 1, so there's that, but still, do they?
No, from what I noticed, Armor upgrades don't seem to change appearances. Then again, I never found most of the armor upgrades for companions. In the end, they didn't seem to need 'em anyway.
It's probably been asked already, but does anyone know of a site that has a list of dragon age savegames that I could download? I beat DA:O when it first came out, but since then I've reinstalled windows and no longer have the save. I'd love to import a similar character for DA2.
Re: Guy not being able to play SP game with banned forum account.
Dude's completely wrong. I tried DA2 on another account and you don't have to log online at all in order to play, it's just for the DLC and such, and even then I wasn't online and was still able to access Black Emporium the whole time.
Hell most of the time I was playing I wans't connected to the servers because the PSN was down for a long time.
I believe its different for the console versions over the pc versions. PC is required to be online, where as console is not.
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Re: Guy not being able to play SP game with banned forum account.
Dude's completely wrong. I tried DA2 on another account and you don't have to log online at all in order to play, it's just for the DLC and such, and even then I wasn't online and was still able to access Black Emporium the whole time.
Hell most of the time I was playing I wans't connected to the servers because the PSN was down for a long time.
I believe its different for the console versions over the pc versions. PC is required to be online, where as console is not.
Ah, that could be the case. Oh well, I think it's funny that it happened.
It's probably been asked already, but does anyone know of a site that has a list of dragon age savegames that I could download? I beat DA:O when it first came out, but since then I've reinstalled windows and no longer have the save. I'd love to import a similar character for DA2.
Gibbed actually put out a preliminary save game generator that will let you create a DAO file with whatever flags you want to import into DA2.
Link is here. Might be something good to put in the OP.
Also, to everyone who is getting that weird A:/ drive error when you start up the game, disabling the floppy drive in your BIOS should do the trick.
Was anyone else surprised to see Orsino turn into a freaking Harvester? I mean, geez, I expected him to get angry, not to have his mind snap and try to go on a mindless killing spree.
I don't think there's a flag for it, but just in general I wonder what happens if the Warden didn't fight her. Are there two Flemeths flying around? Does the one just...absorb the other?
I don't think there's a flag for it, but just in general I wonder what happens if the Warden didn't fight her. Are there two Flemeths flying around? Does the one just...absorb the other?
She kind of eluded to the fact that she was "fragmented" as in she has multiple bodies, which could explain why she's so hard to kill. Whether or not the Warden killed her, she assumed Morrigan would find out Flemeth's little secret and rebel against her. Whether or not she intends to take revenge on Morrigan or not, I have no idea. Flemeth is weird.
Gaming-Freak on
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PSN: GamingFreak1234
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
About Merril:
Is there any way to save Merril from herself? Or is she doomed with stupid?
Is there any way to save Merril from herself? Or is she doomed with stupid?
Her final quest is exactly that.
I dunno, I really liked her character arc better than anyone else because she's the only character, with the slight exception of Fenris, who actually changes because of it.
Is there any way to save Merril from herself? Or is she doomed with stupid?
Act 3 spoiler:
Are you sure?
Eventually, when on a quest to find the demon that told her about the mirror, you find out that Keeper Marethari became an abomination to save Merril from suffering the same fate. You have to kill Marethari, and Merril abandons all concern about the damn Eluvian Mirror. It gets worse: There's a chance that the Dalish will get so angry with Merril, that you'll have to kill all of them in self-defense. When you get back to her house, she basically starts bawling ridiculously, and asks Hawke if there was something she could do to make life better since she's no longer among the Dalish.
I do have to wonder. End game spoilers of DA 1 and DA 2.
Both the warden and the champion were touched by flemeth, indeed saved by her in both instances. She also saved king maeric and told Loghain he would betray Maeric. Whatever Flemeth is, I don't think she's strictly evil, Morrigan is afraid of her, but I think thats the nature of Morrigan she doesn't understand flemeth so she fears her.
I would love to continue the champion's storyline, maybe with the warden commander being a party member?
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Go full force mage -- it's unbelievable. If someone's standing next to the little blue marker in the center of Gravitic Ring then they're frozen. For twenty seconds. And you've got a spell (Pull of the Abyss) that can dump everyone in a twenty foot wide ring right on top of said little blue marker. Drop an AoE or two on top of that (I like Tempest) and you're done.
They're fine in and of themselves, but they aren't like, for example, reaver.
Reaver spec pretty much doubles the damage of every other ability you have. There is no mage equivalent - if you want to increase the damage of your chain lightning, none of the other trees are going to help (except maybe a debuff hex). Which is sad times.
A warrior can go vanguard reaver and then stick a few more points in berserker and every level up is increasing the damage and potence of his moves - whereas with the mage specs it's much more of a smorgasbord
You speak the truth. My preference in these sorts of games is to build a 'fire-and-forget' character who is basically death on wheels from his passives alone. My philosophy is "He should still be fuckoff deadly in starter equipment" because I have an inferiority complex.
I'm curious if/how yours differs. I'm not at home but my 2H Hawke dinged 20 before I left town and is roughly as follows:
Build/specialization spoilers.
I respecced Hawk at least seven times in the late game to see what worked best for my play style.
Atts:
35ish str/con and the rest into willpower, heavy armor duh.
Abilities:
Berserker: Everything except for Adrenaline's upgrades because the stam-to-damage ratio is so terrible compared to reaver/vanguard buffs that it just isn't worth the extra points. I never use Adrenaline anyway.
Reaver: All skills, no upgrades to the aura or to the cooldown on Blood Frenzy because it does just fine as it is.
Battlemaster: Full lower path, no upper path.
Warmonger: upgraded Taunt and Bravery
Vanguard: Might aura with upgrade, the "- physical resist" skill, upgraded Cleave and the two passives (deathblow and one other). I didn't touch the bottom-right skill.
2H - all the core abilities, and am using the last couple level ups to max out whirlwind and mighty blow. With this much damage, whirlwind's guaranteed crit makes it a room-clearing ability.
Stamina regen = +20 base, not factoring in equipment. +5% bonus on top of normal kill bonus.
Anders is specced to keep Haste and Heroic Aura up at all times as consistently as possible. Aveline has that Synergy skill (which does stack with Bravery if two different characters are using them.) When everything is going the game actually has to add a second column of buffs above my skill buttons.
Using The Build
Pretty easy to figure out. Berserker, Bravery, Might and the Haste/Synergy are always active. This eats up a big chunk of stamina, but my Hawke is sitting around 199 base so it doesn't matter much, especially with the regen boosts.
1. See enemy. 2. Pop Cleave (+100% damage), pop Barrage (+50% attack speed on top of Haste), pop blood frenzy (+200% base, up to 400% when frenzy is active) if/when my health is low. 3.Kill the nearest mook to activate the reaver skill that boosts attack speed another 30%, then use Taunt. 4.Whirlwind, then mash A, using skills as necessary. Bolster/Second Wind if I run out of stamina but to be honest I rarely drop below 50% (of whatever is not used up by sustains) in a normal fight. Larger battles/boss fights are different, obviously, but basically achieve the same result. 5.Within about 10 seconds of starting step 1, my button mashing accidentally loots a mook which lets me know the fight is done 6.Repeat.
I first hit dudes for over 1000 damage sometime around level 8, though that was just incredible luck. On average Hawke is hitting 250-500 a hit, AoE because it's 2H, and he's close to if not exceeding double his normal attack speed because of the buffs/haste. Melee enemies get burned down fast but the real treat is clearing out their entire mage/rogue support lines in seconds.
Amazingly, Aveline still holds aggro like a champ. Hawke does so much damage I respecced her out of strength and just boosted con and willpower so the cost of her sustains is basically meaningless. She's still got more stamina than she can spend before the cooldowns reset.
tl;dr - This isn't a game about maxing trees, it's a game about cherry-picking and good lord are the cherries tasty in Kirkwall. Hawke can near, but probably not exceed, 800-1000dps to everything around him. If he crits, it just gets worse for anyone who isn't Hawke. Hawke is a goddamn lawnmower.
In case people haven't been (ab)using Runes this time around, they scale with the quality of your equipment. One element resistance rune grants ~70% if it's in an endgame chest piece. By the way, does anyone know where the fire resistance rune is? I have the others.
Question about point allocation for mages - should I be putting any points into Dexterity for critical chance? I've been pumping most everything into magic and willpower and an occasional point into my health. Never touched dexterity in origins, I'm just wondering if the crit chance is worthwhile
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects? I guess both games being smaller in scale compared to saving the universe helps out, but damn dragons age has more moral quandries that are really not cut and dry.
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Man, I gotta say the negative reactions in comments/metacritic users are kind of maddening.
I mean jeez. It's basically the same game, with a different camera. And the talent trees aren't so boring.
no dude, it's the death of role playing games. and pc games
Bioware singlehandedly destroyed both the genre and the platform
Hehe..
Honestly, at this point it almost seems the stronger the negative reaction, the better the game is. Seems like there is always this huge crowd ready to bitch about the latest AAA title.
I do have to wonder. End game spoilers of DA 1 and DA 2.
Both the warden and the champion were touched by flemeth, indeed saved by her in both instances. She also saved king maeric and told Loghain he would betray Maeric. Whatever Flemeth is, I don't think she's strictly evil, Morrigan is afraid of her, but I think thats the nature of Morrigan she doesn't understand flemeth so she fears her.
I would love to continue the champion's storyline, maybe with the warden commander being a party member?
I really doubt the Warden will ever be a party member, just because of the huge number of different people he or she could be.
As for Flemeth, I love how on the mountain she was all "My daughter is so mistrustful...but then, how else could she be, that is how I made her!" and then Hawke is like "You sound like you don't know if she's your daughter or your enemy." and Flemeth is just "Neither does she."
Question about point allocation for mages - should I be putting any points into Dexterity for critical chance? I've been pumping most everything into magic and willpower and an occasional point into my health. Never touched dexterity in origins, I'm just wondering if the crit chance is worthwhile
Its more rewarding to just pump magic/willpower. Maybe a tiny bit of constitution for survivability, but the crit chance is meaningless unless you heavily invest. A more worthwhile thing would be trying to synergize cross class combos, people with primal can do some absurd damage to staggered targets.
Man, I gotta say the negative reactions in comments/metacritic users are kind of maddening.
I mean jeez. It's basically the same game, with a different camera. And the talent trees aren't so boring.
no dude, it's the death of role playing games. and pc games
Bioware singlehandedly destroyed both the genre and the platform
Hehe..
Honestly, at this point it almost seems the stronger the negative reaction, the better the game is. Seems like there is always this huge crowd ready to bitch about the latest AAA title.
I think the lesson here is the more involved you let your dev team be with your community, the more demanding and entitled the community will become. Sad sad sad.
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects?
nope! and I'm shocked if people do. I like me some dragon age but it's pretty generic high fantasy. I always felt more shit was going down in ME1 and 2
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects?
nope! and I'm shocked if people do. I like me some dragon age but it's pretty generic high fantasy. I always felt more shit was going down in ME1 and 2
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
I don't think it's quite generic. They did a good job of mixing things up - particularly when it comes to Elves. Though some things are pretty standard fantasy fare.
I do like ME's universe a bit better though. Perhaps because it's somewhat radical. Like, it's one of the few scifi universes that doesn't put humans in charge of pretty much everything (and in fact, everyone kind of hates humans because, let's face it, humans are dicks). I think that's interesting. They also have some decent alien races that are not copy/paste from Star Trek or Star Wars, so that's always good too.
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects?
nope! and I'm shocked if people do. I like me some dragon age but it's pretty generic high fantasy. I always felt more shit was going down in ME1 and 2
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
I do, but mostly because I like that Dragon Age has clashing cultures, Mass Effect really only has the Batarians and they're unequivcoly evil. The Qunari are radically opposed to everyone, but they're not some ridiculous mustache twirling victims for instance.
I guess for me I've always had a soft spot for Fantasy over science fiction. I like both as a genre, but Dragons age scratches more of my itches. Also I like a lot more characters in DA than I ever did in ME.
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I think the DA setting is, on its surface, more 'generic' than the Mass Effect setting. It's once you get past the 'oh look, elves and dwarves AGAIN' that it starts to show some of its more interesting aspects. I personally found the writing in DA2 to be some of my favourite BioWare writing to date as a whole, and I honestly wasn't a huge fan of much of the DA:O writing (not because it was poorly done, but because it didn't really pull me in).
I'm a biased source, of course, but I think both franchises have some pretty interesting aspects to them.
vsove on
WATCH THIS SPACE.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects?
nope! and I'm shocked if people do. I like me some dragon age but it's pretty generic high fantasy. I always felt more shit was going down in ME1 and 2
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
I do, but mostly because I like that Dragon Age has clashing cultures, Mass Effect really only has the Batarians and they're unequivcoly evil. The Qunari are radically opposed to everyone, but they're not some ridiculous mustache twirling victims for instance.
ME has a ton of clashing cultures. Most of the races kind of hate each other. But they are sort of forced to get along. But like, Humans hate Turians because Turians are dicks and tried to kill them. Krogan hate pretty much everyone, but especially Salarians because, well, Salarians were dicks and tried to sterlize them. Turians hate everyone because, again, they are dicks. And Asari think they are better than everyone :P It's a wonderfully screwed up universe.
I'm usually the 'sci-fi over fantasy' guy too. Though I am still hoping for a modern setting someday. I love contemporary fiction, and I would be all over that.
Anyone else like the dragons age universe more than mass effects?
nope! and I'm shocked if people do. I like me some dragon age but it's pretty generic high fantasy. I always felt more shit was going down in ME1 and 2
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
I do, but mostly because I like that Dragon Age has clashing cultures, Mass Effect really only has the Batarians and they're unequivcoly evil. The Qunari are radically opposed to everyone, but they're not some ridiculous mustache twirling victims for instance.
Overall, I'm a bigger fan of Mass Effect, although I have a great deal of enjoyment and giddiness for both. What interests me most about the Dragon Age series is the bigger plot we've been given hints about. Witch Hunt didn't offer many details, but served to heighten the interest in Morrigan and Flemeth's plans. I also hope that in that future game, depending on your decisions in the previous ones, we may get to see more Hawke and the Warden.
Edit: Oh good, we're on page 100, and now I can put up a new thread and go to sleep already. Be sure to post there instead of here when it's up.
Posts
Ditto.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Are you seriously calling bullshit on a guy who tested the game?
No, from what I noticed, Armor upgrades don't seem to change appearances. Then again, I never found most of the armor upgrades for companions. In the end, they didn't seem to need 'em anyway.
I'm calling bullshit because I BEAT the game, and completed Isabela's romance. I KNOW it's false.
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I believe its different for the console versions over the pc versions. PC is required to be online, where as console is not.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Ah, that could be the case. Oh well, I think it's funny that it happened.
Gibbed actually put out a preliminary save game generator that will let you create a DAO file with whatever flags you want to import into DA2.
Link is here. Might be something good to put in the OP.
Also, to everyone who is getting that weird A:/ drive error when you start up the game, disabling the floppy drive in your BIOS should do the trick.
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
She has a bad case of the dumb. It's inoperable.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
I dunno, I really liked her character arc better than anyone else because she's the only character, with the slight exception of Fenris, who actually changes because of it.
Act 3 spoiler:
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Both the warden and the champion were touched by flemeth, indeed saved by her in both instances. She also saved king maeric and told Loghain he would betray Maeric. Whatever Flemeth is, I don't think she's strictly evil, Morrigan is afraid of her, but I think thats the nature of Morrigan she doesn't understand flemeth so she fears her.
I would love to continue the champion's storyline, maybe with the warden commander being a party member?
pleasepaypreacher.net
I mean jeez. It's basically the same game, with a different camera. And the talent trees aren't so boring.
You speak the truth. My preference in these sorts of games is to build a 'fire-and-forget' character who is basically death on wheels from his passives alone. My philosophy is "He should still be fuckoff deadly in starter equipment" because I have an inferiority complex.
I'm curious if/how yours differs. I'm not at home but my 2H Hawke dinged 20 before I left town and is roughly as follows:
Build/specialization spoilers.
Atts:
35ish str/con and the rest into willpower, heavy armor duh.
Abilities:
Berserker: Everything except for Adrenaline's upgrades because the stam-to-damage ratio is so terrible compared to reaver/vanguard buffs that it just isn't worth the extra points. I never use Adrenaline anyway.
Reaver: All skills, no upgrades to the aura or to the cooldown on Blood Frenzy because it does just fine as it is.
Battlemaster: Full lower path, no upper path.
Warmonger: upgraded Taunt and Bravery
Vanguard: Might aura with upgrade, the "- physical resist" skill, upgraded Cleave and the two passives (deathblow and one other). I didn't touch the bottom-right skill.
2H - all the core abilities, and am using the last couple level ups to max out whirlwind and mighty blow. With this much damage, whirlwind's guaranteed crit makes it a room-clearing ability.
Stamina regen = +20 base, not factoring in equipment. +5% bonus on top of normal kill bonus.
Anders is specced to keep Haste and Heroic Aura up at all times as consistently as possible. Aveline has that Synergy skill (which does stack with Bravery if two different characters are using them.) When everything is going the game actually has to add a second column of buffs above my skill buttons.
Using The Build
Pretty easy to figure out. Berserker, Bravery, Might and the Haste/Synergy are always active. This eats up a big chunk of stamina, but my Hawke is sitting around 199 base so it doesn't matter much, especially with the regen boosts.
1. See enemy.
2. Pop Cleave (+100% damage), pop Barrage (+50% attack speed on top of Haste), pop blood frenzy (+200% base, up to 400% when frenzy is active) if/when my health is low.
3.Kill the nearest mook to activate the reaver skill that boosts attack speed another 30%, then use Taunt.
4.Whirlwind, then mash A, using skills as necessary. Bolster/Second Wind if I run out of stamina but to be honest I rarely drop below 50% (of whatever is not used up by sustains) in a normal fight. Larger battles/boss fights are different, obviously, but basically achieve the same result.
5.Within about 10 seconds of starting step 1, my button mashing accidentally loots a mook which lets me know the fight is done
6.Repeat.
I first hit dudes for over 1000 damage sometime around level 8, though that was just incredible luck. On average Hawke is hitting 250-500 a hit, AoE because it's 2H, and he's close to if not exceeding double his normal attack speed because of the buffs/haste. Melee enemies get burned down fast but the real treat is clearing out their entire mage/rogue support lines in seconds.
Amazingly, Aveline still holds aggro like a champ. Hawke does so much damage I respecced her out of strength and just boosted con and willpower so the cost of her sustains is basically meaningless. She's still got more stamina than she can spend before the cooldowns reset.
tl;dr - This isn't a game about maxing trees, it's a game about cherry-picking and good lord are the cherries tasty in Kirkwall. Hawke can near, but probably not exceed, 800-1000dps to everything around him. If he crits, it just gets worse for anyone who isn't Hawke. Hawke is a goddamn lawnmower.
In case people haven't been (ab)using Runes this time around, they scale with the quality of your equipment. One element resistance rune grants ~70% if it's in an endgame chest piece. By the way, does anyone know where the fire resistance rune is? I have the others.
The credits.
no dude, it's the death of role playing games. and pc games
Bioware singlehandedly destroyed both the genre and the platform
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
pleasepaypreacher.net
Hehe..
Honestly, at this point it almost seems the stronger the negative reaction, the better the game is. Seems like there is always this huge crowd ready to bitch about the latest AAA title.
As for Flemeth, I love how on the mountain she was all "My daughter is so mistrustful...but then, how else could she be, that is how I made her!" and then Hawke is like "You sound like you don't know if she's your daughter or your enemy." and Flemeth is just "Neither does she."
In conclusion,
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Its more rewarding to just pump magic/willpower. Maybe a tiny bit of constitution for survivability, but the crit chance is meaningless unless you heavily invest. A more worthwhile thing would be trying to synergize cross class combos, people with primal can do some absurd damage to staggered targets.
I think the lesson here is the more involved you let your dev team be with your community, the more demanding and entitled the community will become. Sad sad sad.
I loved DAO and I love this game too.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006524737
(this is just based on Origins and Awakening though as I'm only halfway through Act 1 in 2)
pleasepaypreacher.net
I don't think it's quite generic. They did a good job of mixing things up - particularly when it comes to Elves. Though some things are pretty standard fantasy fare.
I do like ME's universe a bit better though. Perhaps because it's somewhat radical. Like, it's one of the few scifi universes that doesn't put humans in charge of pretty much everything (and in fact, everyone kind of hates humans because, let's face it, humans are dicks). I think that's interesting. They also have some decent alien races that are not copy/paste from Star Trek or Star Wars, so that's always good too.
I do, but mostly because I like that Dragon Age has clashing cultures, Mass Effect really only has the Batarians and they're unequivcoly evil. The Qunari are radically opposed to everyone, but they're not some ridiculous mustache twirling victims for instance.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
pleasepaypreacher.net
I'm a biased source, of course, but I think both franchises have some pretty interesting aspects to them.
ME has a ton of clashing cultures. Most of the races kind of hate each other. But they are sort of forced to get along. But like, Humans hate Turians because Turians are dicks and tried to kill them. Krogan hate pretty much everyone, but especially Salarians because, well, Salarians were dicks and tried to sterlize them. Turians hate everyone because, again, they are dicks. And Asari think they are better than everyone :P It's a wonderfully screwed up universe.
Plus, Elcor are just awesome.
Overall, I'm a bigger fan of Mass Effect, although I have a great deal of enjoyment and giddiness for both. What interests me most about the Dragon Age series is the bigger plot we've been given hints about. Witch Hunt didn't offer many details, but served to heighten the interest in Morrigan and Flemeth's plans. I also hope that in that future game, depending on your decisions in the previous ones, we may get to see more Hawke and the Warden.
Edit: Oh good, we're on page 100, and now I can put up a new thread and go to sleep already. Be sure to post there instead of here when it's up.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=138614