Originally Posted by wolfing
I play RPGs mainly for the tactical gameplay, the rules, etc.

See, I'm different. I appreciate tactical gameplay but if that's the main draw, why not play strategy games? I've never really understood the "gameplay is a separate entity argument" - for me, it's all part of the whole. Story is gameplay for me, because a good RPG lets me participate in a way that other media doesn't.

On the MM1 vs DA discussion, whilst DA certainly isn't a perfect game, MM1 is far too bare-bones for me these days. Modern games do a lot of things wrong and bring their own baggage but (some of them) have also improved considerably on what was often one-dimensional kill-the-foozle dungeon-crawling.