It's Cold; Also, Dragon Age!

It's been raining for most of the day, where I live. Hasn't been the best for outings, so I stayed inside and played Garry's Mod all day. Nothing really eventful, but right now I'm about to play some Dragon Age: Origins!

Quick! Go for the shins!

Dragon Age is one of my favorite RPGs, along with Mass Effect, and The Elder Scrolls games. I find that the way it pulls off morality is great, and it's entirely up to the player how they should react. Instead of giving you a good/bad answer or choice, it simply makes it a grey area; sometimes the ends justify the means... Or sometimes it's just easier to kill someone, rather than saving them with a long ass quest!

It really makes it more about the player's thought process, rather than just clicking whatever dialogue choice sounds nice/evil.
It also pulls off party-based combat amazingly, with the 'tactics' menu, in which you can assign certain abilities to certain events. It certainly makes managing your party easier, but it also makes it easier to avoid grinding to get past a difficult enemy.

I quite often find myself setting up traps, for the Darkspawn on the other side of a door, and setting up my party, so my ranged members aren't in the thick of things right away.

Back on character development, the characters almost feel real, in the way they react, and interact. The dialogue is always great, and the way a conversation can swing from one topic, to another, is very engaging. You have to be careful not to say the wrong thing.
The characters all have interesting origin stories, which you can follow up after a bit of talking, and your own character's origin story influences the story greatly.

The only problem, is there are a few major quests, which tend to drag on (Hah! Get it? Drag-on? Dragon?! Hah... Yeah... Sorry...).
For instance, you run into a 'Sloth Demon', which to anyone who hasn't played the game, is a demon that essentially makes you feel okay with being lazy. They make you fall asleep, and then consume all your energy, until you die. The quest starts out interesting, but it's a road block that only ends up as an annoyance. The quest isn't exactly needed, but it does also help unlock the people in your party's backstories a bit more... Even if it does drag on.

I guess that really justifies the long, boring adventure through The Fade.

I haven't played Dragon Age II, but some of the things I'm hearing about it are discouraging me. Repetitive maps, non-customizable main character (besides class, and gender I believe), and a bad story/ending? I suppose this is where Bioware did it more for the money, than for the playerbase. Though, I did see a lot of people complaining about it taking too long for a sequel.

"I'm so edgy, look at me..."

"It's not even a fad, okay?! This is who I am!"

Okay, I'll stop picking on Hawke, guys... Sorry.

Are we really that impatient? I think the development time of a game should be as long as it needs to be, to make sure that the game is as good as it should be; but at the same time, they need to have a deadline, to make sure the game comes out while they're still motivated.
It's like a double-edged sword (Hawke has the right idea), on one hand, the game might not be as good as it could be if the development time is cut short. On the other, it may be better motivated, and the devs would be less lazy/better workers, if they have a deadline.

But, whatever. Dragon Age time!