Dragon Age II

[AndreaDraco]

Sorry, Tawm. Guess he never made it across the pond

[Tawmis]

Under the Spoiler Tags you'll find the name of the reccuring characters, one per line.

Alistair (no screenshots of him)
Zevran (and he looks bad in the new art style)
Leliana (and she look pretty bad in the new art style)
Nathaniel (no screenshots of him)

Are you sure about Nathaniel? It's not Andersinstead?

[AndreaDraco]

Are you sure about Nathaniel? It's not Andersinstead?

Yes, I'm sure. Anders will obviously return and be a party member, but Nathaniel will have a cameo as a Grey Warden headed to the Deep Roads or something like that.

[AndreaDraco]

Spoilers about the romantic relationships of the game.

Apparently the game was leaked on Xbox and Playstation and it appears that every romanceable companion - Isabela, Merrill, Fenris, Anders and the DLC companion Sebastial - is bisexual, in the sense that he/she firstly respond to whatever gender Hawke is. Sebastian is the first romanceable companion to offer a completely chaste relationship, judging from a snippet of the official guide that will be realeased by Prima.

[Maiandra]

I tried the mods to unlock the character creator in the demo, but it only partially worked. I was able to customise my character, but after I left that screen, the game crashed. It did that twice, so I'm not going to try a third time. Since it was only the demo and I wouldn't have been able to keep my character anyway, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was mildly annoying, since I wanted to see how she looked in the game itself.

Some of the new hair styles for females are a definite improvement. Sadly, they still have all the bad hairstyles from DA:O and a number of the new ones look like they're from the 1970s. Plus, the ears are so ugly looking (at least in the character creator) that I wouldn't want to pick any that let them show, so that limits my options as well. Anyway, overall I think the characters will look a little better than in DA:O. At least the females have some better hair options and they don't run like a guy anymore.

[AndreaDraco]

I was able to customise my character, but after I left that screen, the game crashed. It did that twice, so I'm not going to try a third time.

Maia, disable V-sync from the Option menu. I had the same problem. After I disabled it I never had a single crash.

Also, I don't know if you guys know but the game has been leaked a couple of days ago, surprisingly enough only on XboX and PS3. Of course many already downloaded it and the official forums were flooded with spoilers. I want repeat them here, of course, but I just want to say one thing: Dragon Age: Origins was a pretty grim game, full of challenging moral choices, but it seems that they have really upped this aspect of the game: by the look of it, DA2 will be an incredibly dark game, where there's no real good or bad, but only shades of grey. I'm happy about it but many users who already played the game complained about the sheer difficulty of some of the choices.

[Tawmis]

DA2 will be an incredibly dark game, where there's no real good or bad, but only shades of grey.

Oh. Good. Sounds like Mass Effect 2.

[AndreaDraco]

The High-Resolution Texture Pack for Dragon Age 2 is now available.

This will add the option to enable higher detail replacements for most textures in game. A big difference will be noticed on level art especially.

Requirements:
Using high-resolution textures requires a graphics card with at least 1024MB video memory.
Most of the benefits from the Hi-resolution textures will only be seen if you are able to run the game in DirectX 11.

To manually download your new content on the PC:

1. Download the installer from the link below and run it.
2. Run Dragon Age II.
3. Open the Options menu.
4. Select Video options.
5. Check the "Hi-resolution textures" checkbox.

Note: In order to enable the "Very High" setting you will need a video card that supports DX11 and the latest drivers.

You can download the pack from here.

I'm really excited about them!

[Tawmis]

I believe you need Windows 7 for DX11, so that rules me out.

Also don't have a video card with 1024 memory on it. So that rules me out as well.

[DeadPoolX]

I believe you need Windows 7 for DX11, so that rules me out.

Also don't have a video card with 1024 memory on it. So that rules me out as well.

Maia and I are in the same boat, too.

[AndreaDraco]

I'll let you know how substantial is the difference!

[DeadPoolX]

I'll let you know how substantial is the difference!

Please don't. I'd rather not know what details I'm missing by having DX9 instead of DX10/11.

[AndreaDraco]

Don't worry. I highly doubt it will be very substantial. The note I quoted only mentions ambient textures, so I don't think it will be very different.

[DeadPoolX]

Don't worry. I highly doubt it will be very substantial. The note I quoted only mentions ambient textures, so I don't think it will be very different.

Even so, I'd appreciate it if you didn't "fill us in."

[AndreaDraco]

Even so, I'd appreciate it if you didn't "fill us in."

It's not that I want to rub it in your faces, far from me, believe me, but when I post my comments on the game I'll certainly talk about how the graphics look. I'll try and remain vague, though, if that pleases you.