Dragon Age II Previews

There are a couple of new Dragon Age II previews inhabiting the Internet this weekend, including a few welcome details about the rogue over on GameInformer:
The demo started with a fight between the rogue (shown for the first time at PAX) and about 20 hurlocks. The rogue is appropriately agile, and she can flip over her adversaries. She's armed with a pair of short swords.

The rogue can also use a special teleportation attack, which is similar to how Nightcrawler materializes. The rogue can also cloak, toss stun grenades, and rush with both blades when close up.

And then there's a more generic piece on Hooked Gamers:
Perhaps one of the most surprising features of the sequel is the new dialogue wheel system. Familiar from 'that other' Bioware title, this wheel will have up to 5 choice options which are marked by symbols to illustrate the tone of the responses (aggressive, peaceful, romantic etc.), that takes into account your past decisions. This means that even though you will always have access to all dialogue options from benevolent to malevolent, your past decisions affect the way these lines of dialogue are voiced. For example, if you have acted politely and honourably in the past, any polite and honourable dialogue options that you choose will sound sincere. However, if you have been a bad boy or girl, your attempts at politeness will sound more insincere.

On one hand, I welcome this further enhancement of the character development in Dragon Age II, as it certainly forces you to consider the long-term effects of all your decisions and your attitude in general. On the other hand, I feel that it should be possible for the player to change their direction in the character development as the story progresses; a gruff and unkind character could be shaped into someone more sociable, given the right circumstances. It remains to be seen, if such shifts in the character's personality will be allowed.