Dragon Age 2 - Patch 1.03 in Certification - Adds Combat Changes - Close to Release

Luke Barret updated the Bioware tech forums with this thread, saying that patch 1.03 is indeed in certification and will be released some time soon.

That said, PC, X360, and possibly PS3 Europe are all trending well for sometime next week. PS3 North America remains uncertain at this point and we've confirmed with TransGaming that, due to some work they still need to complete on the launcher, the Mac version remains highly unlikely for next week.

He also said, in an update, that the patch will fix more than 200 issues with the games and that people playing on the pc no longer will experience that they can't launch the game

Failure to Launch - Some PC users were still encountering some strange edge cases that were fundamentally preventing them from being able to launch the game. Some Windows administrator accounts were receiving errors about insufficient priveleges - it turns out that was due to a corrupted file in the Windows OS so we changed our code to fail more gracefully when it encounters that problem, allowing the game to continue.

There is a whole lot more to the patch 1.03 update, so be sure to check this out yourself.

Luke also talks about, in another update, the changes  made to the combat, here about the

General Improvements - We've slowed the initial pace of enemies at the start of combat, allowing tactical positioning to play a more useful and important role. They also generally gain more health as the game progresses, they're less likely to explode into puddles of blood and gore all the time and their basic attacks are less likely to cause interruptions. Likewise, party members now resume their previous actions once interrupted so you don't have to micromanage them as much and ask them to swig that potion more than once. That said, silence effects and disruptions to stealth have been beefed up a little, making those rarer sorts of interruptions play a more critical role. Enemy commanders are also a little smarter, throwing stun grenades while encouraging their troops to concentrate on a single target. And elemental resistances actually cap out at 95% now, meaning no one can be fully immune to a given damage type.

Combat changes will also be added to Mages, Rogues and Warriors.

And finally a word on when the patch should be released:

Finally, some updates of what to expect next week. Thanks to the Sony Europe team pushing really hard on the patch, it looks like they'll actually be the first across the finish line. They expect the patch to launch sometime on Monday, May 30th. Microsoft has also been hard at work, and they are expecting the X360 Title Update to launch on Tuesday, May 31.

PC, Mac, and Sony North America remain unconfirmed at this time but we'll keep you posted as we learn more.

Hey, that's today, isn't it - at least for the Xbox 360. Stay tuned - as they say.