As the title says Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator released! With this tool you can create your character and use him/her in upcoming game. So sweet, here is the download link.
http://files.bioware.com/dragonage_cc_dl/DragonAgeOriginsCharacterCreator_en.exe

downloading this right now. Think everquest 2 did something similar when it was released spent hours making my character. Love games that you can make your character look the way you want.

This is why i LOVE Bioware... they are a wonderful company... and they pretty much do what they want because they secretly run EA... its true they are the masters...

Too bad they don't self publish on DD services. Bloody EA and their hate of reasonably priced distribution in Japan and their even greater hate of any DD service that isn't the annoying EA store. >_<

Seems like fun...

Nifty, but I am just not really seeing the point. I guess you might want to spend a while working on your face, but the rest of the character creation process seems rather straightforward.

Yeah, same here. The only point seems to be getting a nice look. I don't think i have the patiente for it, though...
Still, fun i guess...

The point I suppose is to demonstrate that while they may have ditched the D&D license, this will only mean that the character creation is more intuitive.
The constant changes in the D&D char setup meant that I often had no idea what was the best character build for me, or even if that char build was even worth it. A mixture of reading up on it and trial and error helped, but people don't want to do that (and perhaps shouldn't have to?).
I'm not suggesting it should be overly simplistic, but NWN2 often felt overly complicated when trying to get those special classes (which weren't even necessarily worth the effort...).

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...

Ok, what's the deal with the 'joker like' mouth ?
Sometimes, something terrible happens to the character's mouth when talking...

I found it quite disappointing. If I had been considering getting the game, this would have put me off of it.
Only three races, with those three being the most cliche races known to fantasy? Come on. The ability to change your character's appearance were also sorely lacking. No ability to change it's build or height? Seriously? Even Saints Row 2 had a better character creator than this.

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"*

Since i only play spellcasters, that is probably the biggest gripe i had with NWN2...

Assuming you mean the rules, and not the gameplay, I can explain why they changed things between AD&D and 3/3.5e.
In short, character sheets were boring in AD&D. You had languages and proficiencies (I forget if skills existed, but whatever), but that was really it. Progression was pretty linear with few chances to truly min/max (was more about rolling stats and picking when to dual/multi). So all you really had to pay attention were the numbers related to THAC0, and maybe your spellbook (if you were a caster). That annoyed people.
So 3/3.5e introduced/emphasized feats and skills. And they worked wonders. Now, a fighter who uses a Halberd and a fighter who uses a Scimitar and Shield might have drastically different character sheets. And all the feats gave room for some really obscene min/maxing. The problem? Now, you actually had to pay attention to your character sheet, and not just the couple numbers you jotted down for the purpose of THAC0. And that annoyed people. It made people think they had to min/max. Or you had things like PrCs with an obscene number of prereqs (and pisspoor documentation from Wizards).
Just be glad Bioware didn't use 4e. Then, every single character is essentially a 'caster for the purpose of combat :p