Jerykk wrote on Feb 2, 2011, 15:16:
List of dumbed down things in DA2:
1) You no longer get to choose your race.
True. You won't get the chance to occasionally get disparaged for being a filthy elf or a filthy dwarf. I will miss that, but it was pretty minor. And the racial differences in stats and abilities amounted to nothing in DA:O.
2) You no longer get to choose your origin.
Are you sure about that? In Mass Effect you could choose your background (though it was rarely brought up in game). It's true you won't have a background intro quest, but that was really unique to DA:O, not something one expects from RPGs in general.
3) Combat is being designed to play in real-time, negating the need for tactics or strategy.
I'm not sure where you got this, but unlimited pausing and queuing abilities is confirmed. Normal difficulty may be tuned for real-time play, but if you like to pause and micromanage just crank up the difficulty. It's a bit like saying RTS games don't need tactics and strategy unless paused every few seconds.
4) Dialogue tree has been replaced with dialogue wheel, complete with paraphrased dialogue options and icons showing the tone of each response. This removes the need for reading comprehension or even basic literacy, as players can just refer to the icons when picking a response.
Paraphrasing is necessary when the dialogue is spoken (otherwise the redundancy would be unbelievably irritating). I think the Mass Effect series worked fairly well in telling you what the character is thinking rather than what they are about to say. But I agree that they might have made a mistake with the icons in response to player complaints. We'll see.
5) Apparently the party banter (one of the best parts of DAO) is gone and replaced with a limited, context-sensitive system ala ME2.
Sauce? All I found is an interview with the lead writer mentioning Hawke will occasionally participate in party banter. Implying there will be banter. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9355418