The whole 'PersonX' Approves +5 thing became a bit of a personal meme with me and my wife. I once gave her a Christmas card I made based on that idea with pictures of various things she liked, along with approval score adjustments, and then inside I photo-shopped a picture of a DAO Ogre into a photo of our two dogs that makes it look like they're attacking the ogre, and a big disapproval score adjustment.
So, I'm pretty fond of the DAO system myself and was sad to see it AWOL in DA2.But, I also get why others liked a more 'personal' gifting experience with conversations etc as was the case in DA2's rather forgettable (IMO) approach. To be fair, DAO did have some particular gifts that did trigger a short conversation etc. I'm thinking of Morrigan's mirror etc. But I did think the illusion of a friendship/rivalry alternative relationship-type system in DA2 was a small step forward from the obvious approval-disapproval axis in DAO.
I'm hoping that whatever the devs come up with in DAI is as memorable as DAO's system, but recognizes a bit more of the complexities in human relationships. In this sense, DAO's system was an obvious one-dimensional axis. DA2 gives an illusion of more than one type of relationship by renaming the axis to indicate a different kind of relationship at the ends of that same scale. I think it would be great if DAI or future games can venture into a multi-dimensional relationship status system.
Where you could say, have an axis for approval or disapproval on actions taken/outcomes achieved in relation to the overall plot. A separate axis whereby actions and attitudes chosen in dialogue by the player tend to fall along something like a D&D alignment system, or a ME paragon-renegade scale. Where friendship/rivalry/romance is an outcome of the player's euclidean distance from the NPC's optimal preference within that n-dimensional matrix. Thus, a player who strives for neutrality could be rewarded for maintaining that stance by neutral NPC's who would be less fond of extremist positions on one side or the other.
For me, the ultimate goal would be to have NPC's who could love the person of the PC, and vice versa, while ending up on opposite sides of a conflict. Or to end up working closely with people that they despise personally because they share a set of core values or goals and objectives. And hopefully to have some happier situations too.
I think of some of the greatest books I've read and the one that stands out to me was the 'Lions of Al Rassan' where there are two incredible men who become incredibly close friends, but are ultimately separated by a religious conflict and end up commanding opposite sides of the inevitable war. The tragedy and waste of that whole messed up situation still resonates with me years later. I would dearly love to see videogames be able to pull off those kinds of experiences.
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