Something that made me chuckle in DA:O last night: In Denerim city, there's an armorer named Wade, who got in trouble for (and nearly lost his business because of) not fulfilling his orders in a timely fashion, with one egregious case of taking over three years. Heh, it made me wonder if some of the developers are in the historical community. Armorers taking too long? Nah, never happens! lol
Curious about the DA2 differences, I've been looking at some reviews and videos of gameplay. Interesting:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/31/the-controversial-unbalanced-narrative-of-dragon-age-2/It looks like it could still be fun, but it clearly has a completely different emphasis. And that makes me wonder which way they'll go for DA3.
In DA2, I see what the reviewer was saying about getting what he wanted-- a story that's smaller in scope and geography. Sometimes stories are more meaningful and more character driven in a tighter scope. But then, that's also what made Mass Effect (the trilogy) so good, was that they had a hugely epic scope, but made you really feel it. You can have a story that is "ho, hum, save the world, save everyone, again, *yawn*", or it can be OMGWTF-epic, and a lot of it depends on the writing, the music, and how all of the parts come together. A story can be good at any scale if it's well executed.
