Lead designer Mike Laidlaw steps in to correct the situation

Jul 26, 2010 18:21 GMT  ·  By

A recent report from Comic Con stated that the dialogue tree from Dragon Age 2 has been severely restricted, allowing only three choices. These were signified by three icons, an olive tree branch for the good choice, a Greek mask for the evil one and a clenched fist for the aggressive one. Furthermore, players would be able to choose as some points to let a companion handle a situation in their own way.

This report, originated at IGN, seems to have been quite wrong, according to the lead designer of the game, Mike Laidlaw. In a post on the official forum of Dragon Age 2, he wrote that, “I'm not really sure where the 'there are only three options for dialogue' impression they got came from. Perhaps it was when I showed one half of the dialogue wheel with three options which, you know, leaves another half open for, you know, other options. Also probably worth noting that we're not locked into specific icons per place in the wheel. Oh no. We have much more flexibility than that. We're like gymnasts.”

David Gaider, the lead writer on the title, has also added that “The demo is pretty action-packed and there's only the one conversation-- which, yes, has three options in it. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, however, that's not all we're limited to. The personality options (which the article mis-characterizes, I'm afraid-- they may have been more his impression of the lines he saw rather than our explanation of them) have a bit more complexity as to what they affect. That's probably part of a larger conversation, however, so we'll talk about it at length later. ”

Dragon Age 2 has been under serious scrutiny from the fans after its announcement because of the many changes unveiled by BioWare. Many gamers have voiced their concern that the company may be streamlining the game too much to cater to larger audiences. BioWare has done a lot on the official forums to quell these fears and promised that Dragon Age 2 would be a worthy sequel to the critically acclaimed original. The role playing game will be released in March 2011 on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.