This reminds me, I have to play Dragon Age II someday soon... (:P)

It definitely looks really cool. I enjoyed the first two and I know I'll enjoy Inquisition a lot.

Now I said this before and I'll say it again:

It doesn't take an oracle to know that various internet forums especially Gamefaqs and perhaps this one as well as many comments sections especially on Youtube will be pouring with claims like "THEY DUMBED IT DOWN FOR THE LESSER GAMERZ!!!!111one" or "THEY BETRAYED US TO THE CONSOLES!!!111eleven1"

Of course if anyone tries to talk to them about calming down and just letting people post their support for it, they'll reply something like "NUU 4 We r da 1337 of gamerz!!!1111one11"

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the gameplay of something like DAO was extremely difficult to translate to a console/gamepad control, I haven't played the console version of DAO but from reading about it and seeing videos, it seems like an almost completely different game, a hack & slash and not the party-based game it was on PC.

So no, I don't think DAI will play anything like DAO, it's not really possibly when the party-based gameplay of DAO is based around the RTS-like mouse control of party members in battle in real-time, DAI will undoubtedly be an action-game where the player can switch who they are controlling with a button (KOTOR-style), as opposed to a party-based RPG where the player controls all party members at the same time, like an RTS.

I don't think there will ever be another multi-platform AAA RPG which isn't an action-game, DAO was last. Here's a good example why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QGS34Lj7qA

I'm with you on most of this, although I have Origin installed on my rig and actually have few complaints with it in regards to running games I own (my complaints stem more from the storefront than anything else). However, having said that, I make it a policy not to buy games at full price if they're tied to a client (be it Origin, Steam, or something else), so even though I'm somewhat of a BioWare fanboy, I'm definitely going to wait until this one is discounted significantly no matter how good it turns out to be.

Tolkien fetish or not, if I like the story and the universe and the lore I'm in. I'll probably buy it, but it's still a long time till then and I'll probably need a new machine as well.

@scampy and some of the others: Of course it's your right to wait and see. Just don't make it worse than what we see. Being sceptical is okay though :)
And I'll just get both games ;) Fortunately, I haven't got enough of both types of fantasies yet :D

You and me both, buddy! I will wait for the DLC getting a discount though, so I could be waiting for quite some time...

Have only played ME and DA:O, the latter only once last year. The former....many,many times. This from a period where ME was the only game I played, meaning I can't afford to do so many playthroughs now that I found GOG :D
So I haven't gotten sick of their tropes yet, but I'm planning to play the BG series. In the near future. Also have KotOR. Sometime xD

Personally I think DA is pretty boring setting. I've tried to play DA1 twice and I unistalled it both times after getting bored with it.

I'll be massively disappointed in DAI if I can't torture my enemies (or friends!) or even be tortured self with a great atmosphere that makes it feel it's real, like Inquisitior but with better execution and a little higher budget. It's a too important aspect gaming that hasn't been done really well in a AAA game to pass up on it.

As for the story I don't care if the main quest is good vs evil, it was that in the first game but I loved how they told the story anyway, that's usually what's important. I also enjoyed the side quests.

And last but not least, as long as I can have a party in combat and it's RTWP I'm fine with the rest.

I think I am honestly finished with "modern" RPG's that have unkillable NPC's, a close-up cinematic camera presentation, and shallow mechanics, well not really finished as I never really began with them, but there's just something inherently soulless about games with absolutely top-notch fidelity graphics and every dialogue line voiced, but button-mash-y combat and linear skill trees. It's like, if you're going to spend that huge amount of resources so the game looks and sounds that good, and then have shallow gameplay.... what is the point? I don't understand how anyone can like this garbage. Maybe it's generational, but it baffles me.

Is it still going to be FPS. If so, I'll pass...I'm done with that genre now that we have the hope of all the glorious overhead 2D RPG games coming. I will wait patiently for Project Eternity, Torment, and Wasteland 2...Well, not that patiently for WL2, bring out the Beta.

I know it's a 3 day old post, but I'll answer anyway. I don't think it's generational. Since I grew up on consoles I didn't start playing WRPGs until they started to reliably making their way there, so the first WRPG I played was Mass Effect, or Dragon Age if you don't consider that an RPG (I don't consider ME a good one at least). It was only after that I started playing on PC and went through games like Fallout, etc. and I've gotten sick of this kind of stuff too, so it can't be a generation thing.

I was actually itching to start a thread about this but I just had one bitching about stuff not that long ago. But I think this is even worse in the nebulous "action-adventure" genre then it is in RPGs.

I see all these games getting endless accolades despite having nothing noteworthy to their gameplay. Just this year I saw it happen with Tomb Raider and The Last of Us. One wanted to be a coming of age story for its main charcter and the other wanted to be about interpersonal relationships after the zombie apocalypse. But in both cases instead of creating a set of mechanics that got their themes across, they just relegated all of them to their cutscenes. It's this mentality of: "We want to tell this story, but it clearly can't be done through gameplay, so lets just make a movie about it and interperse it with some generic gameplay that has no connection to anything whatsoever". It's like if you have an idea, but you don't have a game to go along with it, there's no need to strain yourself, just add cover-based shooting.

saw the video.its all about graphics.I really don't understand the fascination with this type of game.its obviously aimed at the console generation.way to go Bioware

They revealed the overhead isometric camera in this video, might wanna mute the volume, too many screaming crazies, which might make you wanna punch a wall, screaming at things that were made in game back in the DOS era...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bbGN7OBngCQ#t=265

Seems like isometric overhead camera setting for all platforms. And enemies don't magically pop out from nowhere all over the place unlike DA2. 2 reasons which already make it better than DA2.

I'm still not convinced to buy the game though, they need to show more of it, I boycotted the new "Simcity" I can easily boycott this if need be and I'm not comfortable with how they leaning towards other games for inspiration.

That port must have been bad if Wikipedia does not acknowledge the PS1 version.

Anyway I actually bought the console version of Dragon Age Origins first and still manage to beat it no problem, but I always wanted the PC version thanks to a really good comparison review of both games from Game Informer:

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_origins/b/pc/archive/2009/10/05/review.aspx

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_origins/b/ps3/archive/2009/11/03/review.aspx

They did the same to Dragon Age II and the PC version is inferior:

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_ii/b/xbox360/archive/2011/03/08/dragon-age-ii-console-review-amid-improvements-bioware-leaves-story-behind.aspx

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_ii/b/pc/archive/2011/03/08/dragon-age-ii-pc-review-a-port-caught-in-the-middle.aspx

And I remember the previews assuring people that Dragon Age II will not be a button mashing hack and slash, or at least will be a hack and slash, just on the console which fits it better, while the PC version still retains Origins Slower, more Strategic, mouse and keyboard party managing combat, but that was a lie.

And I still had it with people saying the combat in Dragon Age: Origins was too slow, how are you people playing Origins?!

I think the issue with DA:O's combat was if you were a certain class you had 2-3 moves before you were out of juice and had to wait to kill monsters before you could use your now 1-2 moves.

At least, that was my experience. I didn't like melee fighter combat at all, it was boring since 90% of the time I was auto attacking. In that respect, I preferred DA2, but I still feel DA2 is an abomination to be called an "rpg" when it's clearly an action game with cinematics.

As far as the comment regarding Tomb Raider, perhaps it was shallow with all the cover based tactics required, but the cutscenes worked, at least for me, because finally after all these years I became emotionally invested in Lara. That's an accomplishment, as I normally don't give two f****s about any game character.

I'll agree to disagree on TR, though, since it's not everyone's cup of tea. I'm easily skipping DA3 until it hits the bargain bin for $5, which should be within 6 months of release.

i'm curious how this will be