Okay, so I enjoyed DaO enough to buy DaO:A, and for the most part, I was pleased with the experience.

Something, though, caught my eye near the "end" of the game (expansion), that just... I dunno what the developers were thinking when they did this, but it is pretty annoying no matter how you slice the pie.

I'm going to do my best to describe what I mean, without giving away spoilers, however this would be difficult to do. If you haven't gone through the expansion, but plan to, just be warned that there could be minor spoilers in this.

That being said, Awakening follows a similar style to Origins -- after the initial quests over which you have no real control (they are pretty linear), they give you three main "Branches".

Each "Branch" has several side-quests (and recruit-able characters), said characters have their own side-quests, and also, some of the Job Boards have quests that take place in each area, and each area itself has side-quests and such.

The problem of this is, as soon as you get the third "Branch" done, the game forces you into the next "Segment" of the game, and it is done in such a way, that you are given no time to complete some of the side-quests, as some major NPCs become unavailable.

The problem is, you don't know that ahead of time, and one could easily have several quests not done in their quest-log, and said quests will now be broken as they weren't given the opportunity to finish them.

Some of these side-quests have major effect on the game's Epilogue, as well, even.

After playing through the game's storyline, I can't think of any scenario in which one could get all the quests done, without having to do something illogical (like leaving an area before finishing your "main task" within it), and that's only if you do a certain area Last (but yet in-game wise, it looks like they wanted you to do it _first_!).

I think they should have added a Fourth Branch (that is only available after the first three are done), that was lacking side-quests, to allow people to properly finish up everything from the first 3 branches before dragging you into that "unavoidable world-changing event" that renders those side-quests impossible to turn in. Or, at the very least, give you some _time_ and make it so that the "unavoidable world-changing event" is started by an avoidable NPC or something.

I got cheated out of several items and quest completions because of this, and now I'm going to have to start another character in Origins, play clear through until the end, set up the Landsmeet again the way I want it to go, and THEN try again in Awakening... blargh. If only I had _known_......