Kind of has an old Hero's Quest vibe going... I'm suddenly more keen.

lookin' good, i'm excited for this.

Wait, so it's only 3 classes now? The hell. And what, only one race? f*** that is gay. Talk about not being an RPG.

Wasn't the first one 3 classes but you can customise warrior to be tank/palladin and mage to be healer/warlock and rogue to be hunter/bard?

I think most people prefer that kind of approach compared to having to pick a cookie cutter class from the get go.

Yeah its exactly like before, you pick your main build (warrior rogue or mage) and then you have specializations as you level up like arcane warrior blood mage etc. This has already been confirmed by a dev. In regards to the race, I really don't know why they didnt have different ones to choose from. Although if thats the sacrifice for a fully voiced male/female character then that's fine with me.

Yeah this one will tell a tighter story about the one guy/gal, similar to sheppard from mass effect. Not sure it's exactly what I want, but will see how it goes. Expect to enjoy it either way.

found a 10 min gameplay walkthrough by mark laidlaw the lead designer. its looking very nice

Not sure it's exactly what I want, but will see how it goes.

Considering how good Mass Effect 2 was, its precisely what I want. Theres no way another game like the first Dragon Age could survive in a post-Mass Effect 2 world.

I liked both, but the voiceless and largely emoteless main characters always felt like it was your own story, rather than driving somebody else through it.

If they perhaps had a whole range of voices, or especially just didn't have the character already named, it might recapture the feeling. Huge effort though.

Yeah, but any conversation at all in Dragon Age, where the camera showed my zombie-like mannequin of a character destroyed any sense of immersion that might have existed anyway, so I don't think Dragon Age succeeded at all in that regard.

I felt much more immersed in Mass Effect, 1 and 2, even though I was playing Shepherd I didn't feel like I was driving someone else, or detached from the story, I felt like I WAS shepherd, and I mean you could play it as any class you want, in any way you want, so you're still making your own story and building the character up in your own way, its not like you're locked into playing a complete pre-defined character the way someone else has planned you to.

I see this approach as the best of both worlds, it lets them build a fully-fleshed out character with a story, a purpose, a voice, etc, but at the same time you're still free to play it however you want and make it your own.

Just my opinion anyway :P

I quite liked Dragon Age when I first played it, even with all its flaws and shortcomings, but I think I was just RPG starved, because I could never summon the motivation to play through it again (or any of the DLC) and after I played ME2 it just looked amateur in comparison.

Yeah, but any conversation at all in Dragon Age, where the camera showed my zombie-like mannequin of a character destroyed any sense of immersion that might have existed anyway, so I don't think Dragon Age succeeded at all in that regard.

yep totally destroyed the immersion for me too.

Didn't make a difference for me... I played through Dragon Age: Origins 3 times and i only played through mass effect 2 once.

Just a heads-up in case, like me, you haven't been paying attention --> this is released next week in Australia on all platforms.. and the PC Demo is already out.

already been leaked on 360 and ps3.


damn PC piracy wins again... wait what?

.

Nerf I know what you mean about Hero's quest. But I don't think it'll be as magical at hero's quest.


I loved dragon age 1 but I'm not convinced with this so I'll wait awhile. Demo wasn't that good imo.

already been leaked on 360 and ps3.

damn PC piracy wins again... wait what?

Except most people couldn't play it if they downloaded it anyway. Even amongst my circle of friends which is mostly tech savvy people I can only think of 1 or 2 people who might be able to load up and play a pirated xbox 360 game (I've got no idea how to do it myself even).

With the PC version its just download and play, any old chump can pirate a PC game.

Over 1 million xbox live accounts have been banned due to piracy and that was 2 years ago, i'm sure the number is much larger now. That's quite a significant number of people pirating on the 360 alone, so you're kidding yourself if you think it's just the odd person here and there.

Nerf I know what you mean about Hero's quest. But I don't think it'll be as magical at hero's quest.
I loved dragon age 1 but I'm not convinced with this so I'll wait awhile. Demo wasn't that good imo.

Yep I had the exact same reaction, was kind of disappointed really.

However Bioware games are always carried on their characters and story, so I suspect that I'll love it eventually. Still not enjoying the forced main character though. Not going to buy it at release, and am only getting it because I enjoyed the first.

edit: Also I have no memory of creating this thread... I saw that video somewhere yesterday and thought it was the first time I'd seen it. Bit worrying in the old brain department.

I had an xbox banned after playing the original dragon age :(

I liked the game so much that I went out & bought it though!!

Thats still only like 5% of the total number of xbox live accounts though according to that article. I'm sure more than 5% of PC gamers have pirated games.

you can now preload the game on steam

Just played it for a few hours.
Alot better then i thought it would be.
Main char is a warrior, he was alright, till i balls'd up and killed him and then switched to a mage and found it f***ing awesome fun.

Story is delivered a s***load better then the first game.

Looks better aswell.

Hrm from the demo I didn't get the impression that the story was handled very well (though the dwarf and the chantry chick were cool, it's just the actual player events that felt uninteresting), as opposed to the DA:O intros (which were kind of slow and steady, giving me a handle on things. Mage and forest elf were a bit weak though).

So it's playable now or was this a special thing?

A "special" thing, yes.

Combat is dumbed down to the max, should be classified as a third person adventure game with RPG elements.

Don't get me wrong, its fun to play, but the oldskool western rpg fans might be disapointed.

So far i havent had to rely on tactics at all. Lost a few battles, but redone them with better success. (only died due to being overwhelmed with enemys)

I'm not sure how the story goes, but i can only assume that i've spent he last 4 hours in the starting area as im yet to progress any further with the main story. Personally ive found it far more enjoyable to play then DAO