Dragon Age 2 - Interviews @ DA Wiki

Ausir managed to catch up with Mike Laidlaw and Fernando Melo for two separate interviews on Dragon Age 2. Laidlaw explains they are moving away from linear skill chains, which is good news:

Can you tell us more about the changes to the character development system?
Sure. The one that we showcased today was that we moved away from the idea of ability chains. You had to pick ability 1 to get ability 2, and so on, and so forth. We changed it into a tree, so there are multiple paths. You can build your character without feeling that you have to pick abilities you don’t really want. Beyond that, you can also do upgrades. If you are particularly fond of, say, fireball, you can actually enhance it, to make it more powerful, more effective. You can make a character that is very specialized or one that is a more broad-ranged generalist. Each of these is a valid style of playing.

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The conversation with Fernando Melo focuses on his area of DLC, with news of more DA:O stuff to come but here's a snip on the dialogue:

Can you tell us more about the changes in Dragon Age 2 that were influenced by the Mass Effect series?
Well, probably the closest one will be the conversation wheel. I think it was something that we saw was very successful in Mass Effect, it was a great mechanic to use, we wanted to use that. One of the things that we saw is that it’s not always obvious, not only in Mass Effect, but in other games that use similar conversation systems, even in Dragon Age: Origins at times, what the tone, intent of the line is based on just the text of the option. So we introduced the icons that tell you what tone you should expect from the line. The player will also play an integral part in shaping Hawke, the hero of Dragon Age 2. If you’re constantly picking a sarcastic response, diplomatic response, aggressive response, over the course of the game, when you meet a character and make an introduction even before you actually have any choices in dialogue or if you’re in the middle of combat and he’s doing his combat call-outs, all of this will start to reflect the character you’re making Hawke to be. It’s a very clever system and I think people will feel, along with the player voice, that these are going to add a lot of character to Hawke.
I think the way we make games hasn’t changed. We’re trying to evolve Dragon Age a little bit, not radically change it. There’s a lot of misconceptions in terms of the changes we’re introducing. You’ve had a chance to see the game now, and you realized that the changes are quite subtle. The players who played Origins are going to feel at home. The BioWare style of gameplay is very much present.

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More information.

Actually, they're on the Dragon Age Wiki, not The Vault.

Good changes, imo.

I have no complaints about these changes.. well, besides the fact that most voiced player characters in RPGs have a tendency to come off a bit more douche-like than my imagination would otherwise confer (I'm looking at you Michael Thorton and Shepard).

Adding depth to the skill systems, enhancing the graphics and expanding the narrative range, whilst simultaneously aiming for reactivity and housing that narrative range in a unique delivery system (ala the dialog between Varric and Cassandra) is worth the loss of the origins and race selection.

I decried those elements at first, and cringed at the notion of it being tuned more towards an action market, but it seems those initial fears were unfounded. It's blatantly unrealistic to expect them to develop all those variables into a cohesive package which can transverse 10 years of narrative development AND offer reactive choice (unless you're prone to buggy games that take a decade to program). At least we still have gender (and the classes seem to have been given a nice tweak as well -- I'm eager to hear more about the changes to rogues).

My only fear is that the 360 version will suffer the brunt of the changes to the combat interface. So far nothing concretely atrocious has been stated but, having given up PC gaming in 2002 due to the ever increasing monetary demand to upgrade, I enjoyed DA:O on the console (and had few complaints about the presentation, besides the lack of a issuing movement commands and zero tactical overhead view). I played Baldur's Gate, Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate II and the Throne of Bhaal all on PC and what my DA:2 experience to be as close as possible to the tactical depth afforded by at least DA:0.

These do sound like sound changes to the skill system. I am particularly fond of upgrading early stuffs (the fireball example) that I use. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull off the balancing.

I'm more skeptical about the dialog wheel.

Ausir said:

Actually, they're on the Dragon Age Wiki, not The Vault.

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Bloody hell - I can't keep track of all your sites!

Diablo (and its clones) had skill trees which seem pretty much what he describes, so hardly an new concept. Perhaps this will improve the skill system - one aspect that I really disliked about DA:O. I found the skill selection was somewhat arbitrary and you were pretty much forced down certain "optimal" paths otherwise you simply didn't deal out as much damage, certainly as a mage. Also, they amount of silly AoE abilities - Isaacs missile storm, pretty please - , small set of skills (again as a mage,compared to 100's of spells in DnD etc) etc Fortunately the Origin story and certain game play aspects made up for that.

booboo said:

Diablo (and its clones) had skill trees which seem pretty much what he describes, so hardly an new concept.

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Interesting, because I had exactly the same thought.

Although it seems to me now that I shouldn't be so hesistant with writing down what I think anymore.

Because this happened a few times over the course of the last week tht I had a thought, hesitated to write it down, and not much later someone writes down almost exactly the same thought ...

I guess I'm not that much alien than I had alwayws been thinking ...

Anarchosyn said:

My only fear is that the 360 version will suffer the brunt of the changes to the combat interface. So far nothing concretely atrocious has been stated but, having given up PC gaming in 2002 due to the ever increasing monetary demand to upgrade, I enjoyed DA:O on the console (and had few complaints about the presentation, besides the lack of a issuing movement commands and zero tactical overhead view).

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Hey Anarcho, nice to see you over here.

That aspect of DA:O really bothered me, the lack of individual party movement control. Seems rather basic, for such a game. Even Kotor had better movement controls (I think).

Have they confirmed that DA2 will fix this? I can't remember hearing anything definite.