1921

This bugged me at first as well, but I risked a trip to the official boards and found the explanation. It’s not really clear how long it’s been since they left Lothering - it could have been days when the story picks up. And while they are heading north to start, and then south, they are basically trying to get to the coast, which is to the east. So its not unrealistic to think they are traversing through areas behind the darkspawn horde.

1922

Playing as a Mage made me hate the camera.

There were plenty of instances where I couldn’t get a spell to go where I wanted it to because of the camera being tied too closely to my character, and the way AOE spell targeting works means that you have to click on a space of unoccupied ground to get the spell to fire. It would be nice if targeting an individual enemy with an AOE spell would simply center the AOE on them.

I do not think that fatigue or mana will matter at all in this game if the demo is any indication.

1923

I think they have said that overall difficulty is reduced a bit. So if you did Hardcore in DAO then I expect Nightmare would be of similar difficulty.

1924

I guess this is one area the console wins! I was able to move the spell target area with a thumb stick. The camera followed it around until you found the position you wanted. It was quite easy to do.

1925

I totally agree.

Is the most un-demo demo I have played on my life.

1926

I’m surprised that they didn’t just exempt warriors from friendly fire. Needing to manage your fireballs so as not to crisp your friends is traditional; accidentally chopping your rogue in half with auto-attacks is not.

1927

I wish that I had been given the opportunity to accidentally chop Leliana in half in DAO.

1928

You can just leave her in Lothering and let her die that way. Not as viscerally exciting, but an option.

1929

PC Gamer’s review has apparently hit the streets and there are scans around if you are so inclined. Rich McCormick gave it a 94% and loved the combat and characters, though he said the story was “not gaming’s best story” but liked the way the world reacted to choices as you went along and liked the way the game is structured.

One negative - SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

The world isn’t very big - almost all of the game takes place in the city of Kirkwall as it evolves over time with only a few expeditions outside. So now we know how they were able to make this so quickly - limited need for art assets.

1930

Well, played through it as a warrior and I’m warming to the combat a bit more. Quite a bit more. It’s certainly more spastic than the combat in Origins, and watching a plate armor-wearing fighter close the last 5’ or so in a mad dash is removing realism from my fantasy RPG. The camera is probably my biggest complaint at this point, followed by the dialogue quality. Also wish the 3D model for the dwarf was better, especially since he’s narrating the entire game.

1931

The game does still suffer from the character models exhibiting clipping (or non-clipping) issues. The woman (one of the few without MASSIVE CLEAVAGE by the way) interogating the dwarf shows signs of those issues as she moves.

1932

I haven’t played the demo so I don’t know the context, but there is a reason provided in the first Dragon Age that Flemeth might get younger. In fact, it would make for a pretty interesting story point if it were true.

Chris Woods

1933

There is, yes. I’ll avoid going into detail to avoid massive spoilers. But since the timeline in that section of the demo overlaps that of the original game, it still makes no sense.

1934

I just consider it part of her various personas and how she wants to present herself.

1935

The explanation that is most popular on the official boards is that since Flemeth is a shape shifter she has the ability to look however she wants. So she looked like an old woman to the Warden for a reason but looks younger to Hawke for some other reason.

It’s also implied in DAO that Flemeth has other options then the main one for dealing with her situation, though again, the timeframe of the DA2 demo sequence makes it unlikely that she would have resorted to them yet.

1936

That was my point; the Hawke event, let’s call it that, occurs after the fall of Lothering and before Morrigan asks the Warden to kill Flemeth.
At the end of Witch Hunt (the DLC) Morrigan states Flemeth is not a mage nor an abomination and clearly not human so all options are open though it seems a bit silly she would transform into a slightly younger form and roam near Lothering then return to wilds and shapeshift back to old lady form before the warden kills her…

1937

Well if you do try and kill her for Morrigan she doesn’t actually stay an old lady, does she? And even if you succeed, it’s strongly implied that you didn’t actually kill her. So from that standpoint anything is possible.

Or it could simply be that they decided to sexy her up much like they did for most of the other female characters in DA2. Except for the inquisition woman, apparently (though I guess she could have something jammed under that armor.)

1938

Hmm, subpar (esp. for Bioware!) writing and plot, subpar eye candy graphics - with the exception of MASSIVE CLEAVAGE and lots of blood spatters. As a female the temptation to poke some with a pin to see if the went POP and then resulted in the character zooming around the room powered by the deflating balloons was on my wish list. That is about the only way I could be amused by it. :)

Better hyperactive real-time combat for fighters, but the mage was not powerful just ZOMG heal in demo, a passive role well-suited to a NPC support char.

OK then, a game made perhaps for my son perhaps but not for me. Will check reviews and in bargain bins after at least a year like some others. While I liked the original, I didn’t get the expansion based or most of the packs. So, I guess I’ve not been the target audience for a while. /shrug

1939

The demo pretty much verified everything I thought of the game from the marketing materials. There are no Dragon Age in Dragon Age 2.

It is not the new art direction, in fact, I welcome it as the one in the first game is absolutely horrid. It is not the over the top combat animations, I always thought Western RPG takes realism too far in supposedly fantasy worlds. It is not the amateur and “minimalistic” UI, it is ugly and clumsy but with time and hotkeys I can get over that. What is missing in Dragon Age 2 is the coherence of the first game. It is almost as if the designers are simply following a spec sheet and just be done with it.

Take the new approach of encounter design for example. BioWare decided that in order for a player to feel heroic, there should be a bunch of cannon fodders padding the key mobs. And I understand that, as it is pretty awesome see a lot of things exploding. To fulfill that requirement, every encounter in the game is designed in such way that weaker mobs are continuously flowing into the field as the fight goes on. However, almost as if the designers have not tested the encounters themselves, this approach breaks numerous other parts of the game. Awkward mob entries due to level designs built without the new approach in mind. Restricting camera angles that do not support the large area it now needs to cover. The combination of these flaws nullifies the use of tactical positioning, making one of the game’s core mechanics and its related abilities irrelevant.

Another example that is more apparent is the level design. A lot of people say that the new level designs are very bland and lack in details. I was thinking the same, until I saw them in game. The problem here is that the new camera and control scheme are actively stopping the player from seeing the level properly. By default and player habit, the camera is usually elevated and pointing toward ground at ~45 degree. Yet, the details of the environment can only be noticed from the eye level horizontal view. Combined with slightly off clickboxes, players have two choices left to interact with the game: 1) Playable but graphically bland. 2) Beautiful but tedious.

I am not even going to go into DLC, game-balancing issues and all that jazz, as these problems exist in Dragon Age too. Let’s just say I found some easy exploitations(imaginary scenario or not) 15min into the game. Do they not sell calculators in Canada?

1940

And I think she’s the most attractive woman in the demo. No, she doesn’t have basket balls strapped to her chest, but I dont exactly find that attractive in real life.