The combat in Origins had many failings, beginning with its unbalanced difficulty. "Was the default setting, especially on PC, too hard? Yeah," admits Laidlaw. "'Normal' felt more like 'Hard' to me."

... one of your earliest party members is your sibling (your brother or sister, depending on what class you chose)...

The article is correct. You'll get Bethany if Hawke is a rogue or warrior (regardless of gender), and Carver if Hawke is a mage.

Call to Arms!

February 22, 2011 marks the launch of the Dragon Age II Demo and a Call to Arms for all BioWare fans. We are actively recruiting an army of Champions, and if we get over 1 million demo downloads and logins on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 combined before March 1st, we will unlock two in-game items for the entire community to use in Dragon Age II. Demo download progress will be tracked on this page, so check back often!

To get your download counted, you will need to log into your EA account while playing the demo.

The items that will be unlocked are:

The Far Cliffs of Kirkwall - Written by a Fereldan refugee as she fled the Blight, this book of poems describes her dreams of a new start in Kirkwall, the city across the sea. Readers will surely be enriched by her insights. (Gives money when read.)
Lothering's Lament

Lothering's Lament - Written by a Fereldan refugee as she fled the Blight, this book of poems contains touching reminiscences of all she had to leave behind. Readers will surely benefit from her experience. (Gives XP boost when read.)

Damned free items, why must you taunt me so?

I'll admit that I haven't been very attentive toward every bit of info released in this thread, but is this what's been confirmed for DAII?  If so, then, uh, wow, that is kinda lame :/.

Friendly fire is only on Nightmare. There were discussions on it months ago (including toggles, having it not be toggle-able in certain modes, and even locked difficulty levels) and that was the decision that was reached.

For reference, here are our current goals for difficulty balance:

Casual - Able to be beaten playing a single character sub-optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Normal - Able to be beaten playing a single character optimally, with the rest of the party using default AI tactics.

Hard - Able to be beaten playing the entire party sub-optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics.

Nightmare - Able to be beaten playing the entire party optimally, either controlling directly or using custom AI tactics. Friendly fire active.

Which makes me wonder where the rest of us are to prove them wrong.

Well, trailer Hawke has been confirmed to be using blood magic, I believe, so I think we can guess that's going to be an option, at the very least.

*Goes off to dislike Bethany some more. If anyone else watched Buffy and has been annoyed by Dawn/read Harry Potter and has been annoyed by Ginny, you know how I feel.*

Bioware can do much better.

... at the moment the game feels a tad awkward, on the 360 build at least. The faster tempo and slightly over-the-top animations feel very hack and slash, but naturally your attacks don't feel as immediate as what you'd expect from, say, God of War.

she's dropping not-so-subtle hints about letting Hawke delve into her furry dungeon

furry dungeon

furry dungeon

furry dungeon

...then why bother showing concept art.

Mr Gaider, often, sounds grumpy when giving these "explanations".  Maybe he needs a hug.

Well considering the feedback that has been preeminent since the day Dragon Age II was announced, it'd be a hard sell to say no one else would be.

If we really want to bring a character back, we'll bring them back-- regardless of what may or may not have happened in DAO (particularly in an epilogue). That doesn't mean ignoring the possibilities, but it does mean that sometimes what you think happened/will happen isn't always the case.

If we were to bring back a character that might be dead, chances are we'd provide an explanation.  It'd be a hand-wave, sure, but I doubt we'd ignore the possibility outright. I think there's a limit to how much we'd want to do that, of course-- dead should mean dead, whenever possible.

I think our willingness to bring a possibly-dead character back relates to how often they ended up dead in peoples' games. If they're dead in only a small minority of games, there's a better chance than if it was a very common thing... or if we couldn't come up with a non-lame explanation. Hand-waves only go so far, and like I said it's not something we'd want to over-indulge in, anyhow, considering this isn't a setting where death is trivial.

Your decisions mean nothing. Please punch me in my stupid ugly face.

I seem to recall something about Morrigan's leather pants, but I'm not going to quote that here...

I don't know why everyone's complaining about her boobs, though, especially the ladies. I don't find the size ridiculous or impossible at all. Why must a buxom lass automatically be silicone-enhanced?

I mean seriously...who says that?!

Spoiler

Alright, just finished reading the DA2 article in my GI mag. WARNING! I am going to be posting some of the things that really stand out. (To me anyway) So if you don't want to know, skip my post.

1) We will be able to import our DA:O games into DA2.

2) We will see Flemeth at some point.

3) Pissing off party members won't always be a bad thing. "They won't necessarily leave. They may still join you, but they're going to try to show you up, and that may influence battle in a different way."

4) We're getting the ME2 conversation wheel, but this time instead of having some dialogue be a particular color the center of the wheel will show a symbol to show what kind of reply it is. (The article uses the examples of them being something like aggressive or sarcastic)

5) The way the story unfolds will be very different compared to the past Bioware games. "Dragon Age II has a framed narrative structure, which means that the exploits of Hawke occured in the past, but are being retold in the present." "Narrators with unique insights into the events in question tell the tale of his past adventures."

6) We may get to see some of the DA:O events at the start from a different perspective. "Dragon Age II begins as the events of Origins are still taking place, so you may see some familiar events from a different angle."

7) Because of the game spanning a decade, we get to see the consequences of our actions sooner, rather than in a little text at the end of the game.

8) The PC version's combat system remains mostly the same. "The PC version implements the same strategic approach afforded by a mouse-and-keyboard control scheme." "Rather than try to mimic the PC experience on consoles, Dragon Age II has a battle system more tailored to the strengths of the PS3 and 360."