@tizmond Um, sorry dude, the KOTOR 2 and New Vegas that *I* played were amazing games. Alpha Protocol was rushed out the door by Sega before they even got half-way through QA, so take it up with them if you want.
@Drshotgun I have a fundamental disagreement with Hepler about the direction games should go. Her idea of a game is... well, a movie. Here ideas, if embraces, would cause us to go full circle and completely negate gaming's strength as a storytelling medium; the ability to feel emotions and draw reactions from you that are felt directly rather than by proxy. That being said, the way she was treated is inexcusable. Me personally? I'd prefer to write her an intelligent and well-written tweet or email about why such an idea is ultimately counterproductive to what gaming is, rather than resorting to childish insults and react to her presence the way one might react to Hitler or Josef Fritzl. There is absolutely NO need to resort to barbarism and pull out insults regarding "bestiality, rape, murder, cannibalism, and prostitution". I became a gamer to *cope* with bullying, dammit! And for the record, Hepler wrote a lot of quests and characters for DA:O that were very good, and wrote a lot of characters for DA2 that I also enjoyed (as disappointing as the overall game was). Yes, M.I.T.H. was terrible. Not even the greatest authors are immune to the occasional dreadful work. Star Wars: The Old Republic "Revan" was a god-awful book, but anyone who's played Baldur's Gate 2, KOTOR and Mass Effect knows that Drew Karpyshyn isn't a talentless writer.
Interviews with Mike Laidlaw always leave me feeling a little bit down. Making changes to a genre or franchise is fine, because like they say, it avoids stagnation. Games wouldn't grow or evolve if they just released the same games with different skins over and over. The problem is that his idea (and alot of other developers as well) of moving things forward and evolving seems to be more of a step backwards than a step forward. Dragon Age II has a number of lazy design choices that are matters of universal quality rather than opinion, from the recycled environments to the poor implementation of enemies coming at you in waves, and the arbitrary removal of a number of the first games features. I don't consider Dragon Age II to be a bad game by any stretch, in fact I couldn't put it down until I finished it, but regardless of difference of opinion or just chalking it up to people not liking change, Dragon Age II is a -FUNDAMENTALLY WORSE- game than Origins was, and Laidlaw seems to be in complete and utter denial of this. Makes me sad.
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