2. Total Customization
Developers for DA3 haven't been all that open about the details of the game, but they have made it clear that they want players to feel like customization was important to the development process. To that effect, they are going to great lengths to create a slew of armors, weapons, and anything elses that the player can outfit themselves or their party with.
How does this change things? BioWare RPGs have long included the ability to gear your followers as you see fit. They've also long included out of date graphical engines and more recently, crappy combat based on hitting "x" to murder everything. Dragon Age 2: Another Game caught a substantial amount of flak for the simplicity of the gameplay and gear system. Players lost a lot of the control over their party, because they lost the ability to choose specific items for specific characters. Now, this balanced out in the combat, because what NPCs were doing wasn't really all that important in the mob mentality public orgies that Dragon Age 2: Tales of Nothing Happening somehow thought looked like combat. Instead, the player blasted everything in sight, while his or her companions dulled the enemies' swords with their skulls. Honestly, it worked better than it sounds. Reintroducing gear for followers means reintroducing complex combat, and maybe even a return to the advanced turn based systems used by previous D&D titles like Neverwinter Nights or Baldurs Gate.
Get the Klenex, cuz here it comes... So far, none of this sounds all that impressive. Well, that's because you're not seeing the big picture. I know, because I know how you think, because I read your blog, because my computer is too slow to stream porn. Anyway, the reintroduction of geared party members/reintroduction of complex combat means a lot to the gaming world for a few reasons. First, for the first time in ever, we may be able to have follower/party characters that look awesome (thank you, again, Frostbite 2), have human controlled or AI controlled combat, have truly interesting stories, and can be outfitted with gear that allows you to customize their appearance and combat role.We've had all of those things before, but separately. The characters in New Vegas, for example, look really cool, but have about zero personality and zero interesting things to say. The characters in Dragon Age: Origins, by contrast, all wore one of like 3 different armor sets, but were interesting to talk to and learn about. Second, given that BioWare has been really pushing the fact that they want to combine elements of DA:Origins and DA2: Blaaaaaaaaaaa, we might be looking at an entirely new way of handling the combat system. Clearly, the hyper-involved system used in Origins and titles like Neverwinter Nights 2 is just too clumsy for console players. But, the smash and um....smash combat of Dragon Age 2: Never Ending Nothing caused a lot of critical feedback from the PC gaming community. BioWare is hopefully looking for something new, and if BioWare's record is to be believed, it will be something worth playing.