Dragon Age 2 - Preview @ IGN, Annouced for March 2011, Trailer Included, New DA2 We

There's a fresh preview for Dragon Age 2 at IGN - courtesy of this thread at Obsidian's forums. I know most people have been worried about the combat, so here's a quote from IGN's preview (about the combat).

In Origins, group members needed to be manually programmed to take potions when they had low health or told to perform spells at certain times, but your squad is now smart enough to figure those things out on their own. You can still specifically program the, but gamers won't be forced to worry about what their AI allies are doing all the time. If anything, the AI might be too intelligent, as I often ran toward enemies only to have them burned to a crisp by my mage Bethany before I got there. Still, it's nice to have battle partners that are an asset instead of a burden.

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In other news, Dragon Age 2 has been announced for March 2011, and this trailer has been released, courtesey of Shack News. The trailer are being discussed in this thread at the Bioware forums. And Bioware has also made a website for Dragon Age 2 - where you can learn more about Kirkwall and see a new monster called 'The Strider'.
More information.

but your squad is now smart enough to figure those things out on their own.

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Squad => "Fantasy Commando" ?

Would be an interesting idea, by the way.
(Having "Republic Commando" in mind which I'm playing [to 3/4 through it]).

The cinematic looks very good, but i rather see in game-footage to get real feeling of the game.

If anything, the AI might be too intelligent, as I often ran toward enemies only to have them burned to a crisp by my mage Bethany before I got there.

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I remember Dungeon Siege (was it I or II?) making you feel redundant since your party could operate completely without your intervention… that does not necessarily constitute "good" AI or make for a fun, tactical game. Why have a party at all then? If you punt a party-based RPG (a la BG) then the player should have to intervene to ensure victory, at least in non-trivial fights. Otherwise you have a PC + "companions". ugh.
I wonder how well their new AI operates with regards to area affect damage spells/powers? That was one of my major beefs with DA:O - the excessive amount of (your own) party-damaging abilities. "Oh, well I have awesome ability X - that I had to wait 20 frigging levels to get - but I can't use it, or I'll risk killing my party…". Unless, of course, you managed to get it in first…which for many scripted encounters simply didn't happen, with you being plunged into the thick of combat.
Of course, it is early days yet, but given all the talk of "streamlining" I can't help but be concerned.

I don't think this quote deserves it's own newsbit so I'll just add it to this thread...

Anyway, BioWare is quoted on Gamespot as saying, "When you press a button, something awesome happens."

Design philosophies like this always make me /facepalm.

I think they mean the Escape key

or ctl-alt-del… but that's 3

I love this paragraph

If you were concerned that Dragon Age was being fed through the Mass Effect sausage grinder, you shouldn't be. Yes, they've adopted the conversation wheel and cinematic, fully-voiced speeches, but that's no cause for alarm – after all if you developed an awesome tool and storytelling technique you'd want to use it in more than one game too.

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Thank God for awesomeness!

Will there be an RPG in-between the lengthy dialog sessions?

These are the days of awesome games arriving almost daily!

THAT'S JUST AWESOME!

Awesome is the new dark and gritty. Either that or dark and gritty is awesome.

I do consider the DA:O system to be a Final Fantasy XII Gambit System ripoff, because that's where I saw this kind of system first.

I enjoyed the ability to script my companions on my own. I thought it was a bad idea to make it into a skill to gain more tactics slots however. I never needed anything beyond 2 tactics on my main character, but buying 4 on secondary characters was the first thing I always did, because that was the key to be able to use my NPC's at their full potential. My mages were amazing buffers/healers, much more effective than me. I set them to paralyze NPC mages and put Hero Defense/Glyph of Warding on my tank and the game became a breeze after that.

That said, I used to program my own scripts back in Baldur's Gate. This was really fun. There were some really really advanced scripts out there though that could handle almost every spell in the game.

Thrasher said:

Thank God for awesomeness!

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"… conversation wheel …
… after all if you developed an awesome tool and storytelling technique you'd want to use it in more than one game too."

And if you developed an awful tool you'd want to shove it down the throat of your players too.

I have been able to swallow every design change for DA2, and I can see the reason to not have origins considering the manpower it takes to build something like that, but the conversation wheel is one of the worst creations I have seen.

Planescape Torment was the peak of dialogue systems, and it have gone downhill ever since, the Mass Effect dialogue system almost completely remove the point of having dialogue in the games in the first place. I was happy to see the return of a decent dialogue system in Dragon Age: Origins and it was disappointing to see it raped in DA2.

I could actually prefer a silent main character, since it feels like my mind is the one talking. I am the one doing the decisions and making the statements I select. Hearing someone else doing them removes this feel and suddenly I play someone else, I do not roleplay my character, I am no longer me.

But even if they spoke the lines, the dialogue wheel also removes the subtle differences in a dialogue, streamlining what really need to be context based. You cannot streamline speech, since you need to be able to approach every situation, first grasping the situation, then apply your characters philosophy upon that situation. And no, "I always intimidate" or "I always persuade" or "I always use violence" is not context based. Granted, the paragon/renegade system added a lot to make Mass Effect into an awful game when it came to making decisions, since you only had two ways to play the game, where as me and my friends could spend hours upon hours speaking to eachother about how we resolved situations in Fallout and the uniqueness of our unique way to play that game.

Because RPGs have always been fighting-heavy and combat-oriented, there have never been developers thinking of more ... delicate ways to do a conversation.

It's as if they thought that all playes were equally combat-loving AND dumb - and not empathic or subtle in terms of conversations at all. Something like ... "if he loves to 'speak' with his fists & weapons, hen he most likely will not have any nerve or sense for subtle conversation as well" ...

That's actually kind of sexism, imho.

Awful=Awesome is the school of bad taste. John Waters would cry in joy.