Bioware and RPG experts?
BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...HA!
I can believe that they make good stories and write pretty fine dialogue but seriously, RPG?
Mass effect was a failed attempt at doing something RPG-ish, they failed so hard that they had changed the sequel to a shooter instead of RPG.
Can I put this forth as 'proof' for the addendum in OP's statement, that Bioware anti-fanboys are about as rabid?
Or shall we put all this typecasting aside and keep it with the general statement:
Normal person + Anonimity + Audience = Total Fuckwad
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/
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THIS.
It goes back to the dawn of MMO's. I remember playing on the one PvP server that Asheron's Call had.
"Okay, new character. And I'm materializing....WHACK. And I'm dead. And now I'm respawning...WHACK and I'm dead again. Okay, this isn't fun. This is 6th grade gym class all over again."
Considering you lost one piece of equipment and took a Vitae penalty each time you died, I was pretty much naked and helplessly crippled within about five minutes. That was about all I needed to know that PvP was not for me.
Now, I really enjoyed the PvP battlegrounds in WoW, because it was an entirely different paradigm: you were going in knowing that you were going to be fighting, you had friends nearby, and the enemy couldn't show up en masse and assrape you repeatedly. It was more like a competitive sport than a gang beatdown.
PvP combat in the outside world just irritated me, because it was usuallly a lvl 60 night elf rogue who had nothing better to do than lay in wait in areas far below his level and one-shot people 30-40 levels below him, then literally dance on their corpse.
I think this is why the trend has been for newer MMOs to try and restrict PvP to arena/battleground areas, and/or high-level areas only so that newer players aren't completely put off the game early on by douchebags who max their character out in the first two weeks after launch and then act as playground bullies for the hell of it. Video games were invented as a way to get AWAY from that sort of person in RL.