Dragon Age 2 - Merrill the Mage, GameStop Demo Cancelled and More

Here's a small handful of Dragon Age 2 tidbits. BioWare has kicked up a preview of Merrill the Dalish mage:

Merrill is a Dalish mage. She will join your party and aid you in your journey in Dragon Age 2, helping with her powerful nature based magics. However, Merrill's clan is in danger and she must find help for her people. Whatever the cost.
You can see her concept art and learn more about Merrill here.

Next, BioWare has cancelled the GameStop demo for "security reasons" - actually they says its "delayed" until the public release, which seems the same as "cancelled" to me from a GameStop employee perspective.
Lastly, Alrik sends in a German interview with PC Games Hardware.de on the improved lighting, tessellation and DX11 in DA2. Grab a Google translation here.

More information.

Misquoting the camp's shopkeeper's helper…

Tessellation?

Tessellation! Tesselllation!!!!

"security reasons"

great, DHS has convinced them that terrorists are going to steal the demo shipment, sell them on the black sex slave market, and then use the proceeds to hijack planes while Cheney has Norad stand down just long enough to allow the planes to hit the tow…wait, this isn't the meeting at the docks?

Originally Posted by Melvil
"security reasons"

great, DHS has convinced them that terrorists are going to steal the demo shipment, sell them on the black sex slave market, and then use the proceeds to hijack planes while Cheney has Norad stand down just long enough to allow the planes to hit the tow…wait, this isn't the meeting at the docks?

Lol… yeah a strange explanation.

There just worried an employee or hacker would steal there demo that's all. When they announced the gamestop demo early I knew it would. But whatever moving on don't really care.

"Steal" a demo…what a strange thought.

A leaked DA2 demo would certainly be very much like a terrorist attack

Sounds strange. Does it matter if a demo is released a few days early because of a hacker/pirate/whatever? The only security reason I could think of is that the demo actually contains the source code of DA2, but with limitations that could be removed with the right know-how.

Edit: Just looked through the list of announced companions. They seem rather.. boring? I don't really see a potential Wrex/Shale/Moridin character, but I may be wrong.

Next, BioWare has cancelled the GameStop demo for "security reasons"

LOL, how I like to be right….. see what I wrote in the thread about the demo… couldn't have been more spot-on…….

Originally Posted by Dhruin
"Steal" a demo…what a strange thought.

Strange thought isn't. Its what happens when only a select few get early access.

Call me a graphics whore but I am excited for DX11 features. Alien Vs. Predator (2010) looks really great with all the DX11 features cranked up.

I don't like the fact that xp users will be not upported because they can't have Dorektx 11.

Which is to me another proof that Direktx has just become nothing but another marketing tool for MS … albeit an expensive one …

The DirectX 11 features will be an option, not a necessity.

It makes perfect sense that DirectX 11 is vista/ 7 only… they made some changes to the underlying architecture, to improve performance and be more modern and such a things. To stick to an XP version would keep graphics evolution back IMHO.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Which is to me another proof that Direktx has just become nothing but another marketing tool for MS … albeit an expensive one …

Has just become ? I thought that was the case since the joke that was DX10

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
It makes perfect sense that DirectX 11 is vista/ 7 only… they made some changes to the underlying architecture, to improve performance and be more modern and such a things. To stick to an XP version would keep graphics evolution back IMHO.

Maybe. But all of this marketing & hype makes me feel like I'm being excluded - which can be a strong selling factor for some people …

At least it will actually have the DX11 features, unlike some other game we all played a few months back that was marketed heavily on it's DX11 features that still don't exist.

Cancelling the demo could mean two things: one its purely political. Gamestop's inability to keep its minimum wage teenage employees quiet and happily thrilled with the sample of the game before anyone else could put the company in a corner.

This is the only punishment that is possible when a business partner let's things slip out of their hands. IMO probably a bad move because they front line won't know to recommend it so readily. This leads to the other possiblity then; its either bad or broken.

Several companies have made the mistake of releasing a bad demo in the past. I think Arcanum is the prime example. That game was a 10x better than the demo displayed, in particular the graphics.

It could also be borked outright. How many demos have put put out that needed patching? Blaming the retailer could be a way of saving face while they fix it.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Maybe. But all of this marketing & hype makes me feel like I'm being excluded - which can be a strong selling factor for some people …

You're a PC gamer using a 10 year old OS, of course you are being excluded. Time to upgrade.

I just don't want to.

Why should I ? Modern games still have Win xp as the main target and run fine.

Drakensang was developed to let it even run on Windows 98 ! - Although I don't know a single person who told in the forums that it really worked …