Dragon-Age posts

Yesterday internet reports claimed that players have discovered that the PC version of BioWare's just released fantasy RPG Dragon Age 2 used SecuROM for its DRM set up, something which BioWare has denied it would put into the game in the past. The claims first game from a site. Reclaim Your Game, that currently is not online.

Now a BioWare rep has posted word on the game's official message boards that Dragon Age 2 still doesn't use SecuROM. He states, "We use a release control product which is made by the same team, but is a completely different product." He adds, "As we've said before it simply does a check of the date against an online server when you run the game. If the street date has passed, it allows you to play and removes itself. We use this and only this, and not the Securom DRM." While the program may leave some files in a PC's temp folder he states that players "... can simply delete them manually - sometimes you just can't remove everything as files may be in use as part of the removal step of the program itself (something is running to do the removal). "

[Via Blue's News]

Looks like both BioWare and Electronic Arts got a black eye over having someone's EA online account banned just because the player made a somewhat caustic remark on BioWare's message board. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the player in question, "Arno", can now go back and play Dragon Age 2 once again.

While the 72 hour ban for "Arno" on the BioWare message board remains, an email from EA to "Arno" admitted, " ... there was an error in the system that accidentally suspended your entire EA account" and which has now been restored. However it still exposes the fact that EA can suspend the rights for anyone to play even a single player game if it has a mind to so.

So you just spent $60 or more to get Dragon Age 2. The fantasy RPG from developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts is a single player only game and requires an EA online account to play. But it seems that if you choose to participate in the game's official message boards you might have to be careful what you say.

That's what a forum poster "Arno" learned after writing a message on the BioWare message boards. According to Rock Paper Shogun, his post which stated, "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?" doesn't sound like a big deal but it apparently was for an EA moderator who decided to ban "Arno" from his entire EA online account for 72 hours. EA's terms of service allows them to do this and it points out that PC gamers who accept these terms before they install games from EA have to deal with these somewhat draconian terms. The lesson? Either be careful what you post on official message boards for EA games or just don't write on these boards at all.

When developer BioWare released the original Dragon Age back in November 2009, graphics cards with DirectX 11 features had just started being released by AMD. With next week's release of the RPG sequel Dragon Age 2, PC gamers with DirectX 11-supported PC gaming rigs will be able to pump up the volume on the game's graphical looks.

In a new entry on the official BioWare blog, team member Andreas Papathanasis writes more about how gaming rigs with DirectX 11 support will be able to, for example, have better lighting features. He states that supported graphics cards will allow for "hundreds of dynamic lights" for spell effects in the game. DirectX 11 tessellation features will "smooth out silhouette terrain edges that can occasionally look sharp on DirectX 9." Finally Dragon Age 2 will use DirectX 11's diffusion depth of field effect to "blur objects very close to the camera, as well as put objects in the distance slightly out of focus."

[Via Blue's News]

The demo for Dragon Age 2 was released last week and fans quickly downloaded the free slice of gameplay for BioWare's upcoming fantasy RPG. BioWare said that if fans downloaded the demo 1 million times by today it would unlock two items in the full game. Well, that threshold was quickly broken so BioWare has a new challange that if succesful will unlock a third in-game item.

It's yet another book of poems with some magic power and while BioWare is not stating exactly what abilities it has it does say that "readers will surely find this book enchanting." To unlock the post fans must go to the Dragon Age Facebook page and share each day's post. If that's done every day until March 5 and page gets 1 million impressions the mystery tome will be unlocked in the full version when Dragon Age 2 is released on March 8.

Download the Dragon Age 2 demo at Big Download

Dragon Age 2 is set to release its demo on the world on February 22 but developer BioWare decided to throw in an extra little incentive for folks to download the demo for its upcoming fantasy RPG. Today BioWare revealed that if it records 1 million downloads and logins for the demo (that number is for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 demos combined) by March 1 it will unlock two more in-game items for everyone to use when the full game is released on March 8.

Both items are books of poems with special abilities if a character reads them. The Far Cliffs of Kirkwall gives out money when read while Lothering's Lament gives the player an XP boost when read.

As promised a tiny portion of the upcoming live action web video series Dragon Age Redemption was shown on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night. It showed a lot of running, some fighting and some dagger throwing by the lead character played by Felicia Day.

Day also chatted with Fallon on the show and told him she had trained for over two months on how to use daggers for her role as an elven assassin. She also proudly showed off her "guns", namely her muscled up arms she had developed while training for the role. The end of the trailer stated that the web video series, based on BioWare's RPG series, would start sometime this summer. Our question: Why run such a web series well after Dragon Age 2's release on March 8? You can check out the trailer after the jump:

Dragon Age fans and fans of geek favorite actor Felicia Day are joined together in celebration this morning. USA Today reports that a live action online video series based on BioWare's fantasy RPG, titled Dragon Age: Redemption; will be released later this year. Day not only stars in the series (as a elven assassin named Tallis who is out to capture a "renegade magician") she wrote the script as well.

The six part video series has already been filmed but there's no specific date for its release. The game Dragon Age 2 is due out on March 8. Meanwhile Day is now working on season 5 of her original web series The Guild about the real life troubles and adventures of a group of MMO players.

Update: EA has announced that the first trailer for Dragon Age Redemption will be shown during Wednesday night's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon talk show

Dragon Age 2, the first of three planned games from developer BioWare, has now officially been completed. The BioWare Twitter page announced today that the fantasy-RPG sequel has "gone gold" meaning that the game is now being replicated and is being packaged up for prepping to ship to stores. That includes the previously unannounced Mac version of the game. The game itself is due for release on March 8.

In related news you can check out a recorded live demo of the game narrated by BioWare's lead designer Mike Laidlaw over at the Livestream web site. Also the BioWare online store has marked down all Dragon Age apparel 30 percent for this weekend if you use the promo code "hawke" at checkout.

Gallery: Dragon Age 2 Screenshots

You may remember that several days ago we posted up word that BioWare was going to give GameStop employees a chance to download and play the PC demo of Dragon Age 2 before the demo for the upcoming fantasy RPG was released to the general public. Now it looks like those plans have been cancelled.

The web page that was set up for GameStop employees to download the demo has been replaced with a brief note saying that the demo won't be made available until the publicly released demo for the game is released on February 22. The note cites "security reasons" for this about face. It's possible that publisher Electronic Arts was afraid that the demo would find its way out in the open before its planned release to everyone else.

[Via Joystiq]