I have no more tears.

It's bad by Bioware standards, that's the problem. You would get the same response from people if Bungie or Blizzard put as much effort into a game as Bioware did with that one. People expect certain standards from Bioware and those standards were not met.

If any other developement studio had put out DA2 and crucially not called it DA2 then it would be seen as an ok RPG. Since Bioware put it out and it was a sequel to the very good Origins you have the fan backlash you see today.

no matter what Bioware did though, without making a carbon copy of DA:O everybody would already hate it, gaming is far too fickle like that.

for example most people were ratting on the game before it came close to coming out just because of Hawke's existence. They then steam rolled even to the point I find quite hilarious, all of the hate for the 'day one DLC' that was present, but you look back and you'll find 'Day one DlC' in Mass Effect 2 and... here's the kicker... Dragon Age Origins.

If Bioware had kept the top down view, if they had used some random location generator (coding which would pay for itself for years a tool they can use for other games), if they had allowed full customisation, if they had listened to fans and avoided the confusing conversation wheel.... DLC has not even been mentioned. People hated DA2 because it was a fundamentally boring game with hack & slash action and a batshit insane story that made no bloody sense.

I Support Delixe in this.

Sums up my opinions....well i have quite a bit more radical ones, but all in all DA2, while not horrible in its own right, was an absolutely shit-tastic sequel to DA:O.

The idea of the wheel was to appeal to a wider audience, the kind of people who haven't been playing RPG's since before Baldur's Gate(think of Fighting Fantasy compared to D&D) It was let down by poor writing.

The random generator didn't work because, the games setting used the same sets of dungeons to go back and show how Kirkwall changed over time, it was let down by writing and by too little change.

Full customisation would have alienated the new people that they were trying to attract, and also threw off the balance of the 'Hawke' Character, it was let down by writing.

I agree people hated the game because it sucked, but at the same time most of the DA:O 'fans' hated Dragon Age 2 before they'd even played it, they saw Hawke and said 'it's too much like Mass Effect' (by design) and proceeded to find every last little flaw the game had.

I'm not contesting the quality i'm just saying Dragon Age 2 was doomed because fans want too much, and the designers want wider audiences, the two rarely overlap. You yourself have given the game it's fair shakes, but i've seen so many people who haven't.

This! If some other especially relatively unknown developer created DA2 but being not a sequel to anything I would probably like the game more thinking that wow, "this is this companies first game, the overuse of the same areas and other problems makes sense considering that this new developer much not have much money."

On an somewhat unrelated note, I'm on the epilogue of Witcher one, it is obvious it was a HUGE inspiration for Dragon Age 2. Too bad, Dragon Age 2 did the long term choices and having the game revolve around a single city that much worse and the issues of prejudice being one of the main focuses of the game (being with the prejudice majority or trying to help the minority). I wonder how bad the reviews would have been for the Witcher before the Enhanced Edition if the game was made by Bioware or Betheseda. (Even though I still think Witcher is a better game than Dragon Age 2 but maybe I only think that because it was CDprojeckts red's first game.) Also, at least Witcher didn't' reuse the same map over and over again, city had much more life, and things felt they changed more. But even in the enhanced edition the reuse of character models is a bit jarring especially considering some of them are main characters.... (and getting somewhat sick of the swamp area having to go there again in chapter 3) So who knows... I don't think we always like or dislike things for rational reasons.

DA2 had other problems that have nothing to do with the Witcher though as well. Such as DA2 is obviously built around DLC. Such as how they skip ahead for years when nothing changes that much besides characters talking about events that weren't shown.

On your points:

- The wheel itself is a fine idea with bad execution. Even with the emotional helper icons just like Mass Effect 2 you can never be sure what you pick is exactly what you want to say. It was a major issue with Mass Effect but with the dialog heavy Dragon Age it was worse. Fans said this would happen, Bioware said it wouldn't, the fans were right. Work on the wheel and make it better, simples.

- Kirkwall never changed with time. Over the 10 year period Kirkwall was consistantly unchanged because you see exactly the same locations. It was a stagnant place where just moving people around and adding barricade here and there to block off areas was expected to convey the passage of time. It failed. A random location generator could have used blocks Diablo style to generate new caves and mansion interiors. Every cave in DA2 is that one cave, every mansion is that one mansion and even the Chantry is just the Vicount's palace with some furnature moved around. It was sloppy.

- Fans hated it before it was out? Some did because they were practically screaming at Bioware during developement that they were doing it wrong and Bioware ignored them. Hell Bioware LAUGHED at them while still taking pre-orders. I think you will find based on pre-order figures most Bioware fans were looking forward to DA2 and were hugely supportive. I for one was very vocal in telling fans to sit down, shut up and wait till we play the game to judge it. Guess what? I played it and it sucked, the haters were right.

- The worst problem about DA2, the very worst one and it had nothing to do with the same re-used cave or the fact your companions interact with each other more than you is the story. I'm sorry chapter one was so grindy it was hard to believe I was playing a Bioware game. Chapter two was better with an interesting conflict with the Qunari. Chapter three was total facepalm city. None of the actions in the last chapter made any bloody sense whatsoever. Well they were supposed to as there were clues that Kirkwall was somehow haunted and was driving the population crazy but it was never explained well enough. Merill and the Elves was the perfect example of Bioware going totally nuts. Give the players more combat they won't care about the story that much. I play Bioware games for the story and the multiple paths and choices. DA2 had a shit story and was totally linear. The worst thing I felt about DA2 was Hawke was totally unimportant. He may have been the catalyst but the events in Kirkwall would have happened with or without Hawke and that is astonishing given Hawke was supposed to be the most important man/woman in Thedas.

/rant off

I think I could really like this game more, if only they would give me a damn toolset D:
So many things could be fixed with proper tools...

I don't really recall them talking about any events of significance between the years. Except like a marriage or whatnot.

It did serve to disconnect the otherwise unrelated events. The game basically has two storylines. The main mage/templar conflict interrupted by Qunari. If they had happened simultaneously, they would have had to have a connection. The time skip lets them excuse it as a tumultuous period.

Dragon Age 2 map editor... hahahahahaha

Anything, just to salvage good bits of this game.
But I don't see it happening, which is a shame. I don't think we ever received some good explanation why DA2 toolset wasn't given to the community.