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[DiatribeEQ]

In games such as both ME & DA, there's the potential for many possible outcomes.  All things mixing up into a mish-mash of wierdness.  But it's a wierdness we like.  It's what defines our experiences in the games & what helps drive us to keep coming back for yet another "Okay, this is my last play through, I swear." 

In regards to games such as Mass Effect, some people play Mass Effect to be the Pricks of the Universe (i.e. the Pure Renegade fans).  Other folks are the Good Two-Shoes of the Galaxy & the law is the law (i.e. Pure Paragons).  While the rest are the Han Solo's of their respective reality & we aren't as pure one way or the other (66-75% Paragon-25-33% Renegade, or vice versa).  Your actions don't have the kind of  dire affect on your party members.  Just talk to them enough, at the right times & they'll come around.  Renegade, Paragon, or a mixture of both.  But hey, we like it.

When we look at Dragon Age, unless we cheat our butts off, our actions in the game have consequences.  Sure, you can be the ****** of the Universe, but don't expect your team members to stick around after long enough of it.  Yes, you can throw enough gifts at them to counter balance the negativity you're generating, but you also do that at the cost of giving those gifts to other party members (thus killing off potential quests).  The consequences of our actions speak loudly:  Play nice, or else.  Wherein there's more flexibility in how you can handle yourself in Mass Effect, your party members in Dragon Age have several subtle changes in how they react to you & your actions, unlike Mass Effect, all due to how you behaved & treated them.  It might be a bit more restrictive, but we're suckers for "Yet another play through....." regardless.

With this in mind, what can the DA team learn from the ME team?  It's simple:  When we got Mass Effect 2, we learned that depending on what all you did in the game, your Shepard, very well might "die" in the game.  But the developers knew that we're very attached to our characters.  We have grown.....fond....of them over the years.  In no time flat, the same fondness was carried over to many of the new team members we aquired in the game.  A simple glance at the ME2 forums & you'll see multiple posts confirming rabid fans of such characters (seriously, the Tali love is quite disturbing...but I guess it's not as bad as having the same kind of love for Grunt.  That'd be creepy to be romanticizing him the same way).  So, with all this in mind, the ME Team gave us the option:

1) Jump through hoops.  Do what's needed & Shepard & his team will live.

or

2) Random amounts of death all around, culminating in the death of Shepard.

Now, there's plenty of possible endings to be had, as some people get a wierd satisfaction in watching various party members die, & the ending is appropriate for their actions, but there is the one ending that makes you go "Oh yeah, now that's what I'm talkin' about!  Bring on ME3, we're gonna kick some Reaper butt."

With Dragon Age, while there are several possible "endings" to the game, they're ultimately just very slight variations of the same ending:  Someone's going to die.  No one's really going to get that heroic/happy ending.  What's going to happen is inevitable, no matter what you chose.  Sure, you can do the ritual with Morrigan and you live.  Many of us had chosen the various romance options in the game, but outside of bland references that were extremely limited, there wasn't any real happiness to it.  If you romanced Morrigan & swore to track her down:  You get squat.  If you romanced Lelianna, you supposedly traveled around with her "for awhile."  Alistair?  You're his Queen, right?  Nothing.  Zevran?  Nada.  We appreciate the Dragon Age team & their willingness to give us multple endings, based on our decisions in the game, but it ultimately felt as if they had ONE ending they wanted & that ending was:  

Your sacrifice.

Everything else was just them throwing us a bone, kind of a "Hooray, you lived.  Talk to your former party members for a couple minutes, then enjoy 2 minutes of reading the power point 'Ending', then watching 48 minutes of credits."  Many of us felt robbed of proper endings in the game, even if they were generic in nature, we felt that we should've gotten a more "proper" ending, based on our actions in the game they'd touted as the big feature in the game.

But, they'd listen to their fan base & all their various complaints on the forums.  They'd take into consideration all the suggestions about these issues we had & "correct" them with Awakenings, right?  Nope.  Not only was it more of the same, but it seemed worse.  The amount of things that were either cut out or simply not even put into the game (for those of us who had imported living or dead wardens) was simply appauling.  Simply addressing DA:O's glaring "Ooops, we didn't think they'd react like that...." problems by giving us proper endings would've accomplished several things.  Fixes would include:

Romanced Lelianna in DA:O, the ending would describe how the Warden returned to his love was in Thedas and either put in a generic "And they lived many happy years together, raising a small family together.  There, one ending fixed.

Romanced Morrigan in DA:O, the ending would describe how the Warden resumed his pursuit of the ever elusive Witch of the Wild, fullfilling his promise to try to find her.  There, another ending fixed.

Romanced Alistair in DA:O, the ending would simply say that the Warden returned to her King & they ruled together for many years afterwards.  Yet another ending fixed.

Romanced Zevran in DA:O, the ending would describe how the Warden reunited her with Antivan love & they had many adventures together, for many years.  Again, another ending fixed.

Yes, you could expand on the endings I offered up (as they're just simple fixes), but at least they'd give the players a far better ending than what everyone got in game.  Why did I put in endings, based on various romances?  It's simple:  The vast majority of us did them & enjoyed the flavor that they added to the game's atmosphere.  Also,  doing these "fixes" would've done a couple things for the developers:

1) Gives people the happy endings they worked their butts off for in the game.
2) Gives the developers the ability to say "The End" with this cast & crew we've been playing with, thus letting them easily do whatever they want with DA2.
3) Gives the developers the ability to have some basis to have these save games imported into DA2 to have it, (even in some minor way) affect the origins of the new characters in that game.

What does this have to do with what the Dragon Aget team can learn?  Easy:  When making a game, you can have the "Easy" ending, the one in which anyone can get, simply for beating the game.  Such was the case with Mass Effect 2.  Yes, you can beat the game & play however you liked.  But at the very least, varying amounts of your team will die, possibly even your Shepard.  But did you do what I mentioned earlier (Jumping through hoops, doing your loyalty missions, upgrades, sending the right people on the right missions), then you get the "Best" ending the game could offer:  Everyone living.  A bright (yet troubled) future to have people to look forward to in ME3.  With DA2, it's one thing if they want to have an "Easy" ending, such as was the case in DA:O (i.e. the Ultimate Sacrifice), but if ME2 is any indicator, we do not mind doing what it takes to achieve the type of endings we're craving.

Give us more options.  Don't tell us of all this goodness, then silently say "Well, it doesn't really matter what you did in game....."  Believe more in the players & our determination, you'd be surprised.