I've no doubt that they were inspired by it (and I'm pretty sure the whole personal instead of epic story was inspired by Planescape Torment as well) but the execution of it left too much to be desired. For me they just didn't deliver on that front. Perhaps I'm tying exploration and atmosphere a little too closely, but overall I found Kirkwall to be lifeless. So the comparison grates a little.

Edit: Also Planescape is my favourite game of all times, so there might be a bit of bias involved. ;)

It is mine as well. It might be that I didn't really like the original DA and didn't expect much of the second part.

*high five*

Well, at the end of the day, the important thing is that you are enjoying yourself.

Exactly.

Glad you're enjoying it, Fenixp. I personally was very disappointed, and I'm an admitted BioWare fanboy. I thought there were a lot of potentially great elements in the game but they just didn't come together for me. I hope that, at the end of the game, you still feel the same about it as you do now. Anyway, enjoy.

I liked it, I think people judged it for what it wasn't, not for what it was.

I really think that's a shame. Bioware could have seen that coming however, they have changed the direction from the original quite a bit.

i know it was good in its own right but it's still under the shadow of the pc verison of dragon age origins this review perfectly describes imo

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_ii/b/pc/archive/2011/03/08/dragon-age-ii-pc-review-a-port-caught-in-the-middle.aspx

They were probably told to make it more "user friendly", either way it was pretty good imo .

how is dragon age origins not user-friendly go play older rpgs and then look at origins, origins is as user-friendly as rpgs can get what happened is they are pandering to console gamers at the expense of PC that made the game

Yep. And the best thing about this? DA II sold less than DAO, the allegedly hardcore predecessor. >_>

Well... Actually, I found DA: O to be needlessly complex. BG games were far simpler to play, but (especially the second part) has had it's tactical depth. You know, you don't need half a million abilities for a good tactical game.
On all platforms added together?

bullshit my brother says that baldur's gate is the most unaccessible hardest game to th point impossiblity to beat especially since he sais the main quest is LOOOOOOOOOOONG

(I have not played it)

Your brother clearly can't read then.

Yes. Elmofongo already posted the sales numbers for the two consoles during the first ten weeks. The console sales make up the bulk of DA II's sales.

If vgchartz is to be believed, DAO is beyond 4 mio. sold retail units at this point, whereas DA II had trouble reaching 2 mio. DA II started out stronger but the fall after that was sudden and pretty steap. This kind of thing must surely have raised some eyebrows over at BW and EA. DA II had been DESIGNED to outsell its predecessor.

Kind of a shame, actually. I would really like to see DAIII keeping the good bits from the both parts, including a reasonable story that's not about saving the kingdom. If numbers talk like that, however, they'll probably try to make something similar to DA: O by everything. Oh well, too soon to be guessing that I suppose