They really, really need to get the hell away from GFWL. Please go with steam for DS2. Do it.
Here's some hope for you: On the dark souls 2 website, you see all kinds of logos at the bottom. XBox360, xbox live, from software, bandai games, PSN, ps3, and a PC logo. NO GFWL logo.
Well, Dks 2 is most likely to be based on the travel to Lordran. So perhaps we will see some characters from Dks 1. Like Soilare (but I doubt it).
We can only hope for the games lore to become more epic \o/
I gave it some more thought. Depending on how you played the game, Solaire does have 2 different "endings". However, Oscar on the other hand, simply died. He went Hollow, thus i see no return of him if it is set at a later date then DaS2.