Gundato: Please don't confuse making an "optimal" character with making a character. No D&D based CRPG has ever (to my knowledge) required an "optimal" character. They are all generally balanced for any character who doesn't actively shoot his or herself in the foot.
That is just a pet peeve of mine. The D&D system has always been pretty simple to make functional characters. If you want a fighter who uses a sword, you either put proficiency points into the appropriate slots, or you pick feats that benefit sword wielders. It is only when you start min/max'ing that you really get into trouble.
Although, I will admit that some Prestige Classes got a bit confusing, but I think that was more a problem of not having a encyclopedia-esque help system in the game If NWN had a way to click any of the Weapon Master pre-reqs to get a pop-up describing the feat (and the pre-reqs of the feat), it would have been a lot simpler.
And I see basically the same thing happening here. We don't yet know what is required for the prestige class equivalents (Blood Mage and what not), right?
Best case scenario: We get a Mass Effect style approach where you don't have too much input on your character, but you need to consider end-game abilities right from the start.
From everything I have read, it really doesn't look like it is a particularly simpler approach. if anything, I see people complaining about this being "dumbed down". Case in point, people are already complaining that they can't have Half-Elves...
I was indeed referring to the prestige classes, lack of info (unless you end up reading stuff on the internet like I did), and also the rather annoying party system in NWN2 (which gave you two magic users early on, but no cleric until later... that's what I mean by trial and error). It also always placed the PC at the front when you had to speak to enemies before battle, which is a terrible design if your PC is a magic user or similar.
I expect I'll find this a touch difficult to fully explain without writing an essay, but essentially I have nothing against the older system (Baldur's Gate for example), but while I appreciate certain changes in NWN and NWN2, other changes I don't like so much. The majority of this though is probably game design issues than D&D issues, but I have no experience in actual PnP.
Anyway, I finished making one character using the DA:O system, and it is relatively simple, but also slightly restrictive (reminiscent of Mass Effect) as you are stuck with the surname you're given (I'd assume for voice acting reasons), and also you only get noble/commoner choices with certain character types. I imagine they restricted this to allow for more detail in each origin (well, I hope, rather than just laziness!). Although I'd wish for more on that front, it'll make a nice change to not have the same starting point for every type of character.
*apologies for casting "wall of text"*
