Ha! That was actually an inflammatory leading header designed to get your attention. If you’re reading this, it worked! Journalism! Plus, I’ve always wanted to use “console-itis” in a post.
That said, the accusations that Dragon Age 2 is catchin’ the fever aren’t completely false. An interview with Lead Designer Mark Laidlaw printed in French gaming mag Joystick revealed details regarding the new game’s camera options and mod support, namely that the PC version would no longer offer the overhead “strategic view” present in Origins, and that they had no plans to release a toolset for creating user-generated mods, citing that the original toolset was “very powerful but very complicated.”
As might be expected whenever someone talks about a multiplatform game being “different” on one platform or another, the forums blew the hell up as PC gamers voiced their outrage, not least because many of Origins‘ PC fans liked its nods to old-school Baldur’s Gate-like mechanics. Eventually Laidlaw himself took to the forums to exercise some damage control.
Regarding mod support he said:
“The tools we’re using to make Dragon Age 2 are very, very close to the tools you guys have used to make your mods for DA:O. They’re not identical, as we’ve made a few in-house improvements, but they’re almost identical. As such, there isn’t a new toolset to release, per se…While we won’t be releasing a toolset update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing DA2 content in the future.”
And about the camera:
“While we likely won’t pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you’re controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we’re tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins.”
Laidlaw ended on a “please just wait and see” note:
“As you can probably tell from my phrasing, all of this is a bit in-flux right now, so things may change between now and ship, but I wanted to update you guys on the current direction of things.”
So, yeah. Take his advice, fellow PC gamers, and wait on a few more details. As a player who liked to zoom out to, y’know, do stuff, and also used many, many mods, I certainly hope they’re they’re listening.
