Since your point was so eloquently and intelligently argued, I will respond in kind.
How does a company like Biowhore make the journey from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age: Origins? How can such a thing happen? I see that question asked a lot here and elsewhere. The answer: Why, by being a whore, of course.
For all those who don't understand anything about game development, or who are simply dumb, I will illustrate the Biowhorean journey. Let us begin with a picture of the destination. The Biowhorean game DA:O offers every class a long list of special abilities and powers that each class can then implement in combat, and many of those abilities can be chosen by anyone. Which is precisely what people demand, yeah even here on the Codex -
whine whine "Fighters need more to do than just select attack!'
whine whine. And that is exactly what the Biowhore gave them.
whine whine 'There needs to be lots of character interaction and writing!' And that is exactly what the Biowhore gave, filling out 8 book's worth of writing (which is above average, by the by, but not tops).
whine whine 'When I make a choice on my character sheet, the choice needs to be visible on my character!' And that is exactly what Biowhore gave. No matter what choice of armor, hair, or special combat power, all of it shows up on the screen.
whine whine 'And my character needs lots and lots of choices on his character sheet!'
whine whine. And that is exactly what Biowhore gave, dumping in bunches of armors and hairs and powers, all of them visible in the game.
That is what the Biowhore did, that is all that it did - it gave people (even the people of the Codex) exactly what they demand.
So, where did it all go so terribly wrong? How could there be such a disconnect when the Biowhore does so much work to give people exactly what they demand? How can all that work turn to such shit? Is it the Commutard Sawyarean claim that people are idiots who don't really understand what they want (that part's true), and thus they have to be told what they want.
No. People may not understand what they want, but they can still feel it. I will illustrate with a game type much simpler than an RPG, so that even dumb people can understand: the platformer. When the player's character gets to a pit in a platformer, there is no choice - you jump the pit and move on, or you fail and you don't. The end.*
Now, switch that style to more modern RPG style, and the character would have the skills of Long Jump, High Jump, Climb, and Ice Skating**. And the player would have had 3 points to distribute to those skills as they leveled. In old school tradition, if the player had leveled 3 points into Long Jump, then they would have a chance of succeeding at jumping the pit, and maybe they would also succeed with 3 points in High Jump and a lot of fudging interaction with the environment. But what of those who chose Climb and Ice Skating in this platformer? Answer: Screw them, they're stupid. Ice Skating in a platformer! Pshaw. They can go grind until they get 3 points in Long Jump, and then they can come back and attempt leaping the pit.
Well, no longer is that how things are run, though. That's only how Alde Skulers want it. The Old School RtwP idiots don't like that kind of forced character dynamic. And they have been listend to by the Biowhore. So now, no matter which character direction you choose, a path opens for you. In the modern version of our little problem, there would be stacks of boxes nearby for the character with High Jump do go and catch some long air. There would be a long path for the character with Climb to work their way around along a cliffside. And there would be a nearby ice skating rink for the character with Ice Skating to skate across. All choices would be viable ones. All paths lead to success.
But the clear thing to understand here, is this aspect is also something that all people demand of the Biowhore, even the people of the Codex. They want options, and lots of them, and they want those options to be reflected in the game. They want to be able to succeed along many different character paths. They want their choices to matter.
So, once again, with the Biowhore whoring itself around so flagrantly eager to please, what could possibly have gone wrong? And I'll tell you. It wasn't the Awesome Button. The Awesome Button is - strictly translated - merely a visual representation of the power choices the player made on his character sheet. There's actually nothing troubling there in the fact of it for those who aren't Alde Skul; it's actually exactly what people demand, even the Old School RtwP crowd.
The niggle lies in something related to that, in another aspect of the ultimate whoredom of the Biowhore. With so many choices available to the player, all of which must be possible to succeed with, the question arises of where should the Biowhore pitch the difficulty of their game? There is only one answer for a whore of Bioware's caliber, of course. Codexians would be hugely pleased with the Biowhore if they'd left the difficulty of that jump at needing all 3 points devoted to it. It wouldn't matter what skill you choose, as long as you play-maxed it. With 3 in Ice Skating, you could skate the rink, but with 2 or less, you fall on your ass. Thus, under that style of design, you succeed as long as you have some minimal understanding of the game's underlying system. Not a great understanding. This is, after all, still the Biowhore - the devs who made Baldur's Gate specifically with the intention of it being playable by people who didn't know the d&d system. But still, needing some level of understanding of the underlying concepts involved.
However, pleasing that crowd isn't the ultimate level of whoredom. For the Biowhore, the obvious choice would be to set the game difficulty of getting past that pit at 1 point for every skill. As long as people have put one point in some skill, they will succeed. Thus, people can make the character they want to make, have their choices all reflected in their character, and succeed with their chosen character in a diverse number of ways.
And that's all. The Biowhore was just one notch too skanky for the Codex. If they weren't
quite so skanky, Codex would gladly hold its nose against the SJW stink and happily pound away at that old whore one more time, and praise them to no end, just like they still do to Baldur's Gate, Awesome Button bedamned. The Awesome Button was iconic for a lot of people for how easy the Bowhore games had become. But the Awesome Button itself is merely a visual reflection of the character's powers and choices.
Choices that people demand and happily implement even when the computer isn't programmed with the ability to counter those options. Because options are Awesome, no matter what...
* For all the tards who are even now getting ready to huffily single-finger bang out on their keyboards that you can't compare platformers to RPGs, this one's for you. If it were an Alde Skule RPG, there would be a monster instead of a pit, and your character would just be a bunch of non-choice leveled stats, with the only question on the table being: are your stats high enough to let you kill the monster? If yes, then you proceed, if not, you don't. There now, isn't that all better?
** Because, gay Biowhore