I think a big part of this is that "old school" CRPGs were simply trying to recreate tabletop gaming as closely as possible. They were simulated sessions of dice rolling and chart-checking with a little story telling mixed in. But they had a Bible or ultimate rule book to always fall back on - the Dungeon Master's Guide, Players' Handbook, etc. Those were the rules. Period.
I realize now that I should have known better, but this is actually what I was hoping for when I heard about "Bioware's new IP, Dragon Age" way back when. That they would take the time and sort things out, rule-wise, and then build upon that framework to create a setting that didn't seem as if it's sole purpose was to move the plotline-of-the-moment forward. I didn't expect that they would create a rule system anywhere near as complex as DnD — something that's undergone a few decades' worth of revisions and house rules), but I was hoping for something that would underscore the sense of an interactive world.
For me, that's what that Big Book of Rules and the Compendium of monsters do: they create the groundwork of the setting. Being the sort of player that's looking more for a compelling setting/world than a compelling character or even a compelling plotline (after all, I'm going to be (virtually) inhabiting this setting every single second I'm playing the game; how long does a plot-point take to expose by comparison?), I found Origins and especially Awakening to be disappointing in this regard. Too much still seemed to be based on the whim of the storyteller; when death, for instance, is handled in such an arbitrary fashion as it in in your more recent Bioware game, I never know how to react: whatever emotionality the event might have had is blunted or even removed (in the event that I simply don't believe or recognize that they character is, in fact, dead.)
I've known for years now that "Bioware doesn't do world building" — and to a very large extent, those monster guides and rule books define worlds — but was a bit of a revelation for me when I realized that, after playing Awakening and after hearing about the direction that they were continuing with DA2, what I liked the most about the Baldur's Gate series wasn't the plotline, but the
world. The Forgotten Realms. The fact that, when I saw a high level warrior in front of me, I more or less knew what he was capable of and could adjust my tactics accordingly, simply because I knew what High Level Warriors could do in that framework. There was a consistency between my characters and the enemies I was facing that simply doesn't exist to nearly the same extent in Bioware games. EVeryone and their uncle, it seems, has something "special" these days… no reason for it in the lore, either, it's just for "game play purposes".
In that sense, at least, my first impression of Bioware as a company that could use the gaming medium (not just write stories and cram them into a game, or direct a movie and cram it into a game, but actually create a setting for players and stories alike) may have been misdirected. What I liked about Baldur's Gate the most may very well have been due mostly to the fact that they were working with a licensed product and weren't allowed to take all of the liberties they might have liked, and not down to Bioware at all.
Bummer of a revelation, that, but it does explain my current dissatisfaction with Bio's storytelling of late. Don't get me wrong, they can write some great characters and come up with some interesting scenarios, but for me, they just seem like disjointed set-pieces amongst the strings of filler combat that make up the balance of the game play. Gives their games a sort of duality that I don't like: Dialogue screens are for Story, everything else is Gameplay… and ne'er the twain shall meet.
( a good game but nothing more) a legendary status. Quite a normal move as die hard fanboys are unable to admit that DA3 is a subpar game. To keep verisimilitude of credibility, they have to up DA:O.
