Mr. Gaider,
I was truly disappointed by Ander's change of face in the sequel. In Awakenings, he was a hilarious and lovable. Sarcastic and witty... a confessed cat-lover.
In the sequel he is a terrorist, armed with clichéd pickup lines.
The Justice/Vengeance story "explained" his ridiculous personality change, but did not excuse his poor writing. Like many fans around the forum I was angry and disappointed by the game, its conclusion, and the changed Anders. (Further reading - This article provides some insight into the inner workings of a DA fangirl's mind. )
Moving on, I believe the quote below describes exactly how I and others felt about the romances in DA2.
Viyu wrote...
yoshibb wrote...
Funny I felt I knew Alistair more in 6 months than I did 7 years with Fenris. I liked the companion quests but I think I like just talking about random things at the campsite more.
I did too. Do you want to know why? Because it gave the characters dimension, it made them feel like they had something more on their mind than the blight 24/7. Pretty much all party banter in DA2 is politically charged pro-mage v.s. pro-chantry campaign. The characters seem incredibly 1 dimensional and one track minded, with the exception of Isabella and Varric. Because that's ALL they can seem to talk about. <_<
If anything had be taken from Origins, I wish it had been camp. Or at least some form of open-ended discussions. I felt so cut off from the rest of my party.
As a complete outsider to the development of the game, I will not begin to assume why Jennifer Hepler was assigned with writing most of Anders in DA2. Can you tell us why didn't write most of Anders, as you did in Awakening? I will say that I would have put more faith in you to make Anders' story believable. You are responsible for much of Origin's material - most of Alistair and Zevran's hilarious, downright outrageously clever dialogue, and plenty more. I'm not trying to downplay the talents of the other writers on the team. Any game of this size is a combined effort. But I think Anders in DA2 is missing some of your attention.
(I'm sorry this letter went all over the place.) Well, all I can do is cross my fingers, and hope for a better DA3.
And wait for the anti-fangirl trolls to swarm this thread.