Half-baked ideas again. DA2 suffered from having no real definition. It was a standard swords and sorcery mix with an interesting but over-drawn story. The characters were not especially interesting because they had to appeal to too-wide an audience. I actually struggle to remember any characters and the majority of choices are based on what sort of combatant you are rather than what your character would actually do e.g. choosing brother over sister amounted to whether you were a fighter or a mage rather than a moral or preferential decision. (e.g. I played a mage, and would have chosen the sister...) The companions are turning into a hallmark of boring RPG tropes for bioware now. It appears to be the more they can throw into a game the more interesting they think it makes it. Most people do not replay a game a bazillion times to see what all the characters are like, they tend to stick to the player class they are used to. Fighty types choose fighters, magey types choose mages, roguey types choose rogues. and based on that first decision you are crippling your choices further down the line. I have a fighter, which means in order to beat this game I have to have a mage, and a healer. So if you abhor the mage's personality you have to suffer their banality throughout because otherwise the game's mechanics do not allow your crippled party to progress. I'd rather they spend more time developing fewer deep and meaningful follower companions that you can shape to suit your playstyle (or even better, help shape your playstyle in a more interesting direction) than rail-roading your choices. Particularly when they arbitrarily decide to remove an integral part of your group for nonsense "story reasons" The castle thing sounds like someone played Neverwinter Nights 2. Hopefully that'll be a viable mechanic and not a) a time sink and b) poorly developed back-of-box fodder. And Flemeth was really -NOT- that interesting that it's worth shouting about. I don't think she had any real relevance to the stories at all. 1. Improve the gameplay. Enhance the thought to encounters (variety in enemies) 2. Improve the story and characters (wider implications, tighter individual focus, stronger, fewer characters) 3. Visual variety (Sand coloured houses in a sand coloured land) 4. Enhance the mythology (through more than tomes of text. Bring the world to life) 5. Add new elements to the franchise that are developed. Castle, fine, make it part of the experience, developed to suit the player's choices, not a NWN2 castle where you just boost stats to fight off an invader. Bah, rant over.

only human characters, again...already starting in the deep red.

I'm excited for this game, despite that I was disappointed with two. It seems pretty clear that they're making it a much less linear experience, so they're fixing the biggest mistake they made with DA2.

Personally, since I found DA2 and DAO excellent in their own ways, I'm looking forward to this. Only worries on my part concern that of EA's statement of every game having an online component, but hopefully that'll manifest in an online service or a good and sensible multiplayer like Mass Effect 3's. I do want to know whether it's true that Hawke and the Warden will have roles in this game. I hope they do-I've grown attached to both, and I'd like to see them either kick ass together or kick ass separately but in the same game. And dammit, more of my loveable sister Bethany. To me, Bioware, you haven't lost your shine. Not quite yet.

They fucked up big time with 2. I remember actually wanting it to end, I got so tired of it. I just needed to see what happened. But it was like the whole game was irrelevant to anything. My favorite part honestly had to be seeing Alistair. And when he left I lost any hope I had left.

I hope for the best, but expect the worse. To be fair, people keep dogging on ME3 like it was horrible, but it really wasn't. Most of the game was fantastic, it was the last 20 minutes of it that was horrible.

So BioWare still hasn't learned from Dragon Age 2. Fans of Dragon Age want another Dragon Age Origins.. not another DA2. The world was incredibly small in DA2 and the game was extremely short. No MUltiple Races at character creation as well.. Just another Dragon Effect game. No Thanks BioWare, your company has turned to garbage.

"rocky fan reception" doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm really hoping DA3 is good, but Bioware's last few games have kicked those hopes down a few notches already.

My first reaction to this news is yaaaay moar stuff! But then reality kicks in. DA2 wasn't that big, ME3 got screwed and TOR suffers from bugs and no communications. If this game were Bioware's only creation I would Pre-order it immediately. However this is EAware so I'll have to wait for reviews and await any game breakers. I hope this bastard child of EAware spits in my face for having low expectations. But only time will tell.