Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, collected by NWVault (http://nwvault.ign.com). Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>

Should visible Aura's be eliminated? (http://forums.bioware.com//viewpost.html?topic=388448&post=3213268&forum=84&highlight=)
Visual representation of things that affect the player is necessary for user friendlyness.

How they look like changes from game to game and can be discussed, but if these "auras" have some effect on the player, the player needs a visual clue for this.

Example: A forcefield ability like in city of heroes that makes all friendly people take no damage while they are inside. If there was no visual clue where this thing is, people would have to play guessgames (not very funny) and would have trouble figuring out just why their character is taking no damage at a certain point (and no, status icons are not enough for that).

The visual effect tells the player "what" is happening "from where" it is originating and "which" are is affected.

An different kind are passive abilities such as "detect magic" or "find traps" or "detect backstabbing thief". They don't need to be visible.

Finally there are buffs, and again, they are debateable. If a spell grants i.e. great dexterity, and it would be pretty apparent to everyone around when someone is affected - since new movement animations for every buff isn't really an option, a VFX is a way to represent this.

<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Tim Smith, Tools Programmer</font>

Demo (http://forums.bioware.com//viewpost.html?topic=388565&post=3213244&forum=84&highlight=)
That demo isn't available to the general public.