658 replies to this topic

[vilkacis]

OH GOD NO.

...thoguh I really wouldn't be surprised if Bioware added gunblades in DA2.

[berelinde]

I like the looks of Lady Hawke. She doesn't look like Morrigan at all, IMO. The facial proportions are much more natural.

So, if the PC is a mage, s/he has to be an apostate? Interesting. Not loving the blood magic forced specialization, but such is life.

I'm indifferent about the Dalish. I never felt any kind of attraction to them in DA:O, so I don't much care what happens to them in the sequel. Finding that they'd been swallowed up by the blight would be ok by me.

[Kulyok]

It's going to be funny, I imagine. "Hey, I'm Bethany, an apostate mage and your sister. What? You're fleeing Lothering? Of course I will go with you! It'd be so much SAFER with an apostate mage around!" Especially since you're meeting a templar not ten minutes into the game!

And they find a templar. (got it from the link) A *married* templar. Like, what, the only married templar on Thedas? Was it written "charity" instead of "chastity" in the holy books, and he was the only one who read it right?

Ye gods. But you know what? I think that Flemeth would need to have a new body, a young body, and it'd be cool if male Hawke could romance *her*. Won't happen, though, because Flemeth's voice in the trailer is still old, so there's no young body in sight. Noooo, they are going to offer male Hawkes this Cassandra Chantry person, who is probably going to be another Leliana. Erk. Another Imoen, another Leliana... one can only hope that the developers would forget themselves and offer another Edwin/Xan as well. A game with a male romanceable mage is already a half-successful game for me, I say. Ahh, Jowan, Jowan...

[Kulyok]

Anyway, I hope there'll be an opportunity to give that Bethany person to the Chantry. Perfectly appropriate for Imoen clones, after all: a Circle is very close to Spellhold, and with the Circle in disarray and Uldred in charge, it's Irenicus all over again.

[Zander]

I like the looks of Lady Hawke. She doesn't look like Morrigan at all, IMO. The facial proportions are much more natural.

So, if the PC is a mage, s/he has to be an apostate? Interesting. Not loving the blood magic forced specialization, but such is life.

I'm indifferent about the Dalish. I never felt any kind of attraction to them in DA:O, so I don't much care what happens to them in the sequel. Finding that they'd been swallowed up by the blight would be ok by me.

An apostate doesn't HAVE to be a blood mage, you know. Anders is an apostate and he isn't a bloodmage. Neither is Morrigan.....

[vilkacis]

blood magic forced specialization

^{[citation needed]}

Last thing I heard, they haven't even showed the PC mage, much less the specialization options.

*stuff*

Can someone explain to me how a character we haven't even heard utter a single word deserves so much hate? Bethany may well turn out to be insufferably annoying, but personally, I'll reserve judgement untill the character is slightly more defined than "mage with a big rack".

[Darziak]

Just to clear some things up on the differences.

Apostate
Maleficar
Blood Mage

[Crazee]

blood magic forced specialization

^{[citation needed]}

Last thing I heard, they haven't even showed the PC mage, much less the specialization options.

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.

Kulyok, I hope Bethany is not Imoen 2.0, also. I loved Imoen, but I want Bethany to be her own character. I think, however, that you might end up disliking her, regardless. I vaguely remember reading that one of the themes of DA2 was going to be family, and I do wonder how far they will let you roleplay, regarding how you treat them.

Edit - Okay, real news. David Gaider has posted that the same accents are going to be used in DA2 (Humans are English, Dwarves and Elves are American, Orlesians are French) ... but get this. The Dalish are going to have ... wait for it ... Welsh accents. Now that's odd. The Welsh accent has to be about the friendliest accent around, but the Dalish are a hard, rough people. Cannot wait to see this, lol.

Edited by Crazee, 10 September 2010 - 04:54 AM.

[Kulyok]

Welsh accent? Like Robert Carlyle? Swoons... oh, wait, that's Scotch. But I really, really hope they won't make the entire game(any DA game) in Orlais - a game full of (fake?) French accents would be unbearable.

*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.*

Bethany may well turn out to be insufferably annoying, but personally, I'll reserve judgement untill the character is slightly more defined than "mage with a big rack".

I love big racks! Well, moderately big racks. Well-shaped, sexy racks are okay, especially if they belong to Morrigan. But I do NOT want my character to have a sister who'd steal her boyfriends, her things and her parents' and friends' attention. And be annoying. And have no choice about it. (I used Death Finger on Imoen in Spellhold, and I'm still fairly convinced that it was a wise thing to do, given the final battle at Ascension. So there).

[vilkacis]

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.

An option is not a forced specialization, is the point here.

*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.*

Frankly, I was too annoyed by, respectively, Joss Weenie's attempts to write drama when he should have stuck to quirky action adventure, and Harry Potter himself, to remember either of those characters - but presumably they at least had lines.

Bioware can do much better.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

[Archmage Silver]

News:
David Gaider Interview @ Examiner
Mike Laidlaw Video Interview @ GameReactor
Gameplay/RPG Systems Questions @ BioWare Social l Answers Only [AMS Note: Read it!]

At least we're talking about the game - that's what BioWare wants us to do during development.

Escaping from Lothering - in this instance it would be logical for siblings to join forces to ensure their escape. And since I'll be playing as a mage (yes, again), it makes sense to have two apostates in the party for security - live together, die alone.

It was always implied that templars can't get married or have relationships. However, someone at BioWare mentioned during a live stream that they actually can get married, but usually don't due to their duties. So it's not really encouraged, but not forbidden either. That's what's canon today anyhow.

Yeah, Flemeth is still old. As for the romance options, they haven't confirmed anything yet. We've hardly seen the full cast of companions either, so I'd give a BioWare a chance here. Characters are still something they excel at.


As for the Blood Mage specialization, it's not forced on anyone who chooses to play as a mage. Indeed, there are no forced specializations at all. It'll be available, but you can choose to leave it alone. The trailer has been confirmed to be just an abstract piece, and not representative of the actual game mechanics.

As for the accents, this is what Dave had to say. It's probably worth taking a moment to read it:

There are indeed many English accents. For voiceover purposes we use what is called RP (Received Pronunciation) unless we are going for a specific sound like cockney or West Country. RP's the easiest because this is what most British actors are trained to use, though most of them can switch between several dialects at will.

For American accents, the midwest accent is used as a standard simply because it's viewed by North Americans as being "accent-less"-- there's no regional association as it is in the American South, New England and other places. It's the American equivalent of RP.

Going for other accents can be difficult, primarily because we only get these differences in English recording (they don't get Polish VO actors doing Orlesian characters to speak with a French accent in the Polish localization, for instance) and thus if we want authentic accents we have to go to non-native speakers. This can sometimes affect the acting (as often happens when someone needs to focus on an accent they don't do naturally), and has limited value with North American audiences as many people seem to think accents sound "fake" even when they're completely authentic. Why, I don't know. Personally I would have gone for a different accent with the dwarves (initially we wanted German) but it didn't work for the reasons I describe, not to mention that mainland European voiceover actors are a bit less numerous and thus much more expensive to use.

But there you have it in a nutshell.

Antivans still use Spanish accents.

We ensure the accents are authentic by having people do the voice acting who actually possess those accents. Then they can focus on the acting and not the accent.

The vast majority of the accents in DAO are authentic. If someone assumes they are not, that's probably because they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

[Archmage Silver]

I asked Peter Thomas from BioWare some questions I had on my mind:

AMS: +X% {cold/electricity/fire/nature/spirit} damage item attribute - if it's still in, what's the cap like now? You probably can't give a specific number (if there's one yet), but is it more, about the same, or less than in Awakening?

PT: I can't comment on specific item properties in the game. The property that this is affecting currently can have a maximum bonus of around -100% damage to +1000% damage of that type, which is an entirely arbitrary range right now.

AMS: Are there player character abilities to overcome enemy spell resistance?

PT: I can't comment on specific abilities right now. However, it is planned that the Spirit damage type helps with this.

AMS: +X% to healing effects received item attribute - in or out? Also, will it actually work this time? Heh... sorry about that jab, but it's still broken in Origins/Awakening 1.04. Unless you use Nukenin's +Healing Received Fix on PC, obviously.

PT: I can't comment on our patching efficiency or the specifics of what item properties are in the game.

AMS: Has spellpower been overhauled, and if yes, in which way?

PT: Spellpower has been removed from the game. The damage a Mage does is based on his currently equipped staff and his Magic attribute.

[Vicen]

I cant comment on what he said right now...Haha just kidding but at least he gave us some info...No more spellpower eh? Not sure if thats a good or bad thing heh...

[Archmage Silver]

@ Vicen

It's... simpler.

News:
Seeking Tranquility @ Grey Wardens
Class Roles and Restrictions @ Grey Wardens

[Archmage Silver]

News:
Preview @ PC Gamer
PAX USTREAM @ Grey Wardens [Recommended]

[vilkacis]

Dragon Age 2 Gameplay from the GameCity in Vienna, 2010.

Posted on Gametrailers, yesterday.

It's almost scary how accurate my predictions seem to be turning out.

Edited by vilkacis, 28 September 2010 - 02:30 PM.
Link updated. Apparently they moved it. Don't ask me why.

[Darziak]

I feel like it's heading to Dragon age -1.

[Solar's Harper]

Well at the very least it doesn't look as clunky for console gamers as its predecessor, but... I do believe this is a perfect opportunity for a complete "bzuh?" look to come across now.

So far, apart from that one minor change, it almost looks like a clone with even higher obsession with blood effects, not to mention what appears to be their version of gibbing with a sword, what next tanks cut in half by a katanna? Don't even get me started on how cheesy the whole cutscene, and after scene looked.

And also is it just me, or do these Darkspawn look somewhat less intimidating than their predecessors?

Plenty of time ahead though, we'll see. Right now it certainly doesn't qualify for a 9 for "best intro" though, we've had enough badass hack and slashes to throw a stick at for many, many years.


There is hope for people on consoles at least, that combat will be a little more streamlined than before. If the AI has improved dramatically from the first game, this'll also be helpful... although if that video was the sum of amongst hardest engagements (doubtful), then obviously barely anyone will need to micromanage, despite there being what - 15 odd enemies?

(Also, is it just me, or does that minimap look somewhat similar to the dragon age logo at the end?)

Edited by Solar's Harper, 29 September 2010 - 05:07 AM.