Wow - the graphics look rather rubbish. A step back from DA:O? Certainly looks that way. I also fail to see the utility of 'tactics' *if* the game can be played…without tactics (as Darth Laidlaw claims). Part of the reason it can work, of course, is that friendly fire (which is supposedly the way the spells/abilities are *designed* to operate) is conveniently off. Otherwise the 'actiony' bits would likely incapacitate your party when used with the AI. I'd like to see a vid showing friendly fire on with 'action play'…. My take on friendly fire is this: if they think its 'too hard' why design the powers in the game to damage all and sundry? Why not have a small subset of powers be friendly fire, but the majority not? DnD worked well, plenty of non-FF spells and powers e.g. fighter abilities like 'whirlwind attack' did not arbitrarily damage your party members, but were selective. Spells could target multiple enemies etc etc. The FF spells you used with caution, but if your were not crippled if you did..or you could be creative and shield your party before using them etc etc.
In some ways the DA:O rules made non-magic using classes more interesting, but in other respects they are very poorly conceived.
