Gamespot interviewed the lead designer, check it out here. 
 
 I agree with what the guy says about the combat, just crank the difficulty up and the experience should be pretty close to Origins except that it's faster. He goes into talking more about the creative process of putting the story together which I think is DA 2's weakest point. I still have yet to finish the game but I still don't find myself being compelled at all to the events that are happening around Hawke and Kirkwall, I find the whole thing to be kinda disjointed with the time gaps in the story. They didn't do a great job of making it feel like any time has passed.

He then proceeded to give the game a 10/10.

Reading that earlier did help give a better perspective on your party members keeping to their own armour, but what they really should of done is allowed them to equip armour, and just give the option to ''hide'' their equipped armour similar to the hide helmet option, letting them keep their default attire.

He fed a lot of lines there. I got a kick of his explanation behind not being able to equip armor on companions. So not being able to change the armor gives the characters personality? The personality of someone who never does laundry? Didn't you just finish explaining the subtleties of the characters, and yet if they're out of uniform we won't recognize they have a personality? Oh guy. This is damage control. Honest post-mortems come when you're working for a different company, or they never come.

I played on Nightmare my first playthrough, wasn't terribly difficult but i did pause alot and had to think bout what i wanted to do.  Games nowadays it seems like hard is the new normal difficulty.

If you're playing on a console, there's no way to make the combat similar to Origins. 
 
Since, ya know, they completely neglected to implement the auto-attack that they promised. 
 
/bitter

Man any thread about DA2 becomes instant troll bait. 
 
That being said, it was an interesting read that pretty much lined up with my opinions about the game. I can't wait to get my hands on some DLC.

People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets. 

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

" @Akrid said:

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

I know, right? People just need to move on with party customisation! What deranged, old nostalgia struck bastard would ever want to be able to tweak their party members to their own liking??? Might as well let them stay stuck to their own weapons while they're at it. Pesky stat tracking via items and such is so last gen. "

That was an interesting read, thank you.

" @Abyssfull said:

" @Akrid said:

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

I know, right? People just need to move on with party customisation! What deranged, old nostalgia struck bastard would ever want to be able to tweak their party members to their own liking??? Might as well let them stay stuck to their own weapons while they're at it. Pesky stat tracking via items and such is so last gen. "

Don't be an ass. The point he's making is that the iconic look of a party member is more interesting than the generic fantasy plate armour you wound up sticking on every warrior in Origins. Hell, if you played on PC like I did, for the first month or so you just stuck everyone in Juggernaut armour for the stat bonuses, fiction be damned. I mean, it was so interesting to see Leliana raining arrows while all shiny and silver, while shiny silver Sten was cutting enemies down with sunder arms. Oh, and let's not forget that shiny silver Morrigan would use Storm of the Century for clean up. And, yeah, shiny silver Warden was just kind of "there".   There's nothing wrong with crafting a specific look for a character. It helps them stand out in a crowd and they don't feel interchangeable or bolted on to your character's story because they were given enough attention to even have a look in the first place. I'd say maybe three out of your nine possible companions had a distinguished look, and one of them was the fucking dog. "

" @Abyssfull said:

" @Akrid said:

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

I know, right? People just need to move on with party customisation! What deranged, old nostalgia struck bastard would ever want to be able to tweak their party members to their own liking??? Might as well let them stay stuck to their own weapons while they're at it. Pesky stat tracking via items and such is so last gen. "

Don't be an ass. The point he's making is that the iconic look of a party member is more interesting than the generic fantasy plate armour you wound up sticking on every warrior in Origins. Hell, if you played on PC like I did, for the first month or so you just stuck everyone in Juggernaut armour for the stat bonuses, fiction be damned. I mean, it was so interesting to see Leliana raining arrows while all shiny and silver, while shiny silver Sten was cutting enemies down with sunder arms. Oh, and let's not forget that shiny silver Morrigan would use Storm of the Century for clean up. And, yeah, shiny silver Warden was just kind of "there".   There's nothing wrong with crafting a specific look for a character. It helps them stand out in a crowd and they don't feel interchangeable or bolted on to your character's story because they were given enough attention to even have a look in the first place. I'd say maybe three out of your nine possible companions had a distinguished look, and one of them was the fucking dog. "

Oh dear. They're really freaking out about DA2's reception, aren't they?

" @KingWilly said:

" @Abyssfull said:

" @Akrid said:

" People really need to learn to let go of dressing your whole party up in games like these. Having 30 sets of armor that all the characters in the entire game wear is worse than having 20 for your personal character and everyone else having more specific sets.  "

I know, right? People just need to move on with party customisation! What deranged, old nostalgia struck bastard would ever want to be able to tweak their party members to their own liking??? Might as well let them stay stuck to their own weapons while they're at it. Pesky stat tracking via items and such is so last gen. "

Don't be an ass. The point he's making is that the iconic look of a party member is more interesting than the generic fantasy plate armour you wound up sticking on every warrior in Origins. Hell, if you played on PC like I did, for the first month or so you just stuck everyone in Juggernaut armour for the stat bonuses, fiction be damned. I mean, it was so interesting to see Leliana raining arrows while all shiny and silver, while shiny silver Sten was cutting enemies down with sunder arms. Oh, and let's not forget that shiny silver Morrigan would use Storm of the Century for clean up. And, yeah, shiny silver Warden was just kind of "there".   There's nothing wrong with crafting a specific look for a character. It helps them stand out in a crowd and they don't feel interchangeable or bolted on to your character's story because they were given enough attention to even have a look in the first place. I'd say maybe three out of your nine possible companions had a distinguished look, and one of them was the fucking dog. "

If the problem is the "generic fantasy plate armor", maybe the solution is to design more interesting armor instead of removing features and acting like its an improvement. Also, there's the argument to be made that it could custom fit PCs in unique ways. So, if you're like the lead designer here and think Morrigan showing her tits off is integral to the "character", design the various armors to fit her in a way that she continues showing her tits off. There are solutions to this problem, but they don't gel with a dev committed to cutting corners. Cus you know. Good games take work. "

" Oh dear. They're really freaking out about DA2's reception, aren't they? "

I dont understand why you couldnt equip armor on your NPC buddies and instead of a visual update, its just a stat change, so Isabela keeps her giant cleavage but progresses throughout the story. 
 
ITS NOT THAT HARD, DEVS....

" If the problem is the "generic fantasy plate armor", maybe the solution is to design more interesting armor instead of removing features and acting like its an improvement. Also, there's the argument to be made that it could custom fit PCs in unique ways. So, if you're like the lead designer here and think Morrigan showing her tits off is integral to the "character", design the various armors to fit her in a way that she continues showing her tits off. There are solutions to this problem, but they don't gel with a dev committed to cutting corners. Cus you know. Good games take work. "

" @ryanwho said: 

" If the problem is the "generic fantasy plate armor", maybe the solution is to design more interesting armor instead of removing features and acting like its an improvement. Also, there's the argument to be made that it could custom fit PCs in unique ways. So, if you're like the lead designer here and think Morrigan showing her tits off is integral to the "character", design the various armors to fit her in a way that she continues showing her tits off. There are solutions to this problem, but they don't gel with a dev committed to cutting corners. Cus you know. Good games take work. "

I'm not saying I wouldn't dig custom armor, but do you understand how much added work that is? That time would be much better spent on just about every other avenue.
 
 Is it cutting corners? I suppose so. But nobody has done something like that, and until someone does and raises the bar for everyone once again such trivialities are simply not worth the time. And Bioware armor design is absolutely stellar, but it doesn't matter. It becomes instantly generic when you see more than one character wearing it, even worse two right beside each other as you often get. Of course, generic armor is suitable for, say, the city guard, but your companions are supposed to be unique and beautiful snowflakes. "

" @Akrid said:

" @ryanwho said: 

" If the problem is the "generic fantasy plate armor", maybe the solution is to design more interesting armor instead of removing features and acting like its an improvement. Also, there's the argument to be made that it could custom fit PCs in unique ways. So, if you're like the lead designer here and think Morrigan showing her tits off is integral to the "character", design the various armors to fit her in a way that she continues showing her tits off. There are solutions to this problem, but they don't gel with a dev committed to cutting corners. Cus you know. Good games take work. "

I'm not saying I wouldn't dig custom armor, but do you understand how much added work that is? That time would be much better spent on just about every other avenue.
 
 Is it cutting corners? I suppose so. But nobody has done something like that, and until someone does and raises the bar for everyone once again such trivialities are simply not worth the time. And Bioware armor design is absolutely stellar, but it doesn't matter. It becomes instantly generic when you see more than one character wearing it, even worse two right beside each other as you often get. Of course, generic armor is suitable for, say, the city guard, but your companions are supposed to be unique and beautiful snowflakes. "

I work in 3d and you could create the appearance of a refit armor just by adjusting how the UV contours to the geography of the character model. It wouldn't require 10 new textures per armor or anything crazy like that. Additionally, various NPCs could also take advantage of these new layouts, so it wouldn't be wasted. It would create a consistent look for your character and create more diversity with the NPC models. What Im talking about right now, creating unique texture layouts and UVs using pre-existing assets, its basically the most common kind of mod. So you can't really pretend its super difficult. It is, however, time consuming. But again. Good games take work. And I kind of don't know how "but that would be hard" factors into how I feel about a game. I payed 60 for it. I payed more than I did for Starcraft 2, which took much longer to make and had more work put into it. Who deserves my money more? The person who made the better game, which is 9/10 times the person who put more work into it. Occam's razor. Work harder/smarter, better product. "

I love how people in this thread want to cut Bioware slack for cutting corners over things like armor when there are only like three interior designs shared among every dungeon and building in the game.  Or is the excuse that all of the dungeons around Kirkwall were designed using a tract housing approach?
 
My feeling on this is that Bioware wanted Dragon Age II to be for the original game what Mass Effect 2 was for the original Mass Effect.  Ultra slimmed down and streamlined to appeal to a larger audience.  The problem being that while the original Mass Effect had some significant flaws (Mako, cookie-cutter planets, etc.), making the changes more welcome, a lot of people dug Dragon Age: Origins for what it is; a sort of throwback to the Baldur's Gate days with all of the extra trappings that made the game what it is.  I'm willing to bet that the dev team thought that Dragon Age II would be celebrated as Mass Effect II was.  They didn't count on a very vocal fanbase that felt betrayed by the changes, and now they're trying to convince everyone that no, it wasn't a huge mistake to rip the origins, party customization, diverse dungeon layouts and everything else for the sake of thinking they could pull ME2 gold out of the DAO fanbase's collective ass.

" @Hailinel: The thing that I don't get though, is that DA: O sold quite well for them. I don't see why they thought it would great to "streamline" a lot of stuff for the sake of mass appeal. The one thing that they did well is the combat, I like the faster style. It's just that mostly everything else has a lack of polish feel to it such as the environments, party customization, and story structure. Hey, 3 years has passed......the people and areas still look the fucking same.  "

Good interview. He made some good points and some... not-so-good points.

They started working and planning on DA2 before Origins was released, and they didn't expect it to be any kind of success, let alone as popular as it was.  They started designing Dragon Age II with no idea what the response to any aspects of Origins would be.  Basically, they predicted what people would like about the game incorrectly. "  

" @Wrighteous86 said: 

They started working and planning on DA2 before Origins was released, and they didn't expect it to be any kind of success, let alone as popular as it was.  They started designing Dragon Age II with no idea what the response to any aspects of Origins would be.  Basically, they predicted what people would like about the game incorrectly. "  

Why would they bet against what they had just made though?  It's like saying we just made Dragon Age: Origins, we know it isn't that great, so we'll be sure to change as much as we can in the sequel just to be safe. "

" He fed a lot of lines there. I got a kick of his explanation behind not being able to equip armor on companions. So not being able to change the armor gives the characters personality? The personality of someone who never does laundry? Didn't you just finish explaining the subtleties of the characters, and yet if they're out of uniform we won't recognize they have a personality? Oh guy. This is damage control. Honest post-mortems come when you're working for a different company, or they never come. "

Origins was in development for 5 years.  Near the end, I'm sure they had invested so much in it that they just wanted to release it.  PC/console gaming had changed a lot in those 5 years.  They thought the market had changed too much in 5 years to properly appreciate Origins.  They were wrong.  "

I'm not a fan of the Runes being locked in and unable to be removed on items. I found this out the hard way. Lucky its only early in the game, and runes appear to be cheap I guess.

" I'm not a fan of the Runes being locked in and unable to be removed on items. I found this out the hard way. Lucky its only early in the game, and runes appear to be cheap I guess. "

" @Afroman269 said:

" @Hailinel: The thing that I don't get though, is that DA: O sold quite well for them. I don't see why they thought it would great to "streamline" a lot of stuff for the sake of mass appeal. The one thing that they did well is the combat, I like the faster style. It's just that mostly everything else has a lack of polish feel to it such as the environments, party customization, and story structure. Hey, 3 years has passed......the people and areas still look the fucking same.  "

They started working and planning on DA2 before Origins was released, and they didn't expect it to be any kind of success, let alone as popular as it was.  They started designing Dragon Age II with no idea what the response to any aspects of Origins would be.  Basically, they predicted what people would like about the game incorrectly. "

What I read of the interview was really boring, and I'm kind of tired of hearing Mike Laidlaw talk about this game. 

 
 It's one that's more sustainable because we brought the world to a place that's inherently more interesting than "Yay, we beat the Blight. Good for us!"    

" What I read of the interview was really boring, and I'm kind of tired of hearing Mike Laidlaw talk about this game.  "

Laidlaw seems like a nice guy, but I just don't see what there is to discuss about DA2's reception. It seems very clear to me. According to Steam, DA2's metascore is nine points lower than Origins, which is the only number EA's going to be looking at, for better or worse. I can't imagine word of mouth is what they want it to be, either. Frankly, Bioware's failed to control the message since the beginning. The conversation has always been "look they changed everything RPGs are dead," and they weren't able to quell that voice even up to the game's release. We'll see when sales numbers come out, I guess. Bioware will probably still come out ahead, especially considering DA2's truncated dev cycle, but I wonder about the health of the Dragon Age brand going forward.
 
In the meantime, since DA2 has been given the dubious honor of scoring generally lower than its predecessor, I think we should start guessing what design changes Bioware will backpedal on for DA3.

" He then proceeded to give the game a 10/10. "

" @ryanwho said: 

" If the problem is the "generic fantasy plate armor", maybe the solution is to design more interesting armor instead of removing features and acting like its an improvement. Also, there's the argument to be made that it could custom fit PCs in unique ways. So, if you're like the lead designer here and think Morrigan showing her tits off is integral to the "character", design the various armors to fit her in a way that she continues showing her tits off. There are solutions to this problem, but they don't gel with a dev committed to cutting corners. Cus you know. Good games take work. "

I'm not saying I wouldn't dig custom armor, but do you understand how much added work that is? That time would be much better spent on just about every other avenue.
 
 Is it cutting corners? I suppose so. But nobody has done something like that, and until someone does and raises the bar for everyone once again such trivialities are simply not worth the time. And Bioware armor design is absolutely stellar, but it doesn't matter. It becomes instantly generic when you see more than one character wearing it, even worse two right beside each other as you often get. Of course, generic armor is suitable for, say, the city guard, but your companions are supposed to be unique and beautiful snowflakes. "

Hullabaloo