Overwhelmingly unlikely unfortunately. At best we might have it as a possible backstory if we pick the Shadow Dragons background since backstories are supposed to be subsequently refined through dialogue choices depending on background, but even that would have no impact besides a few token unique dialogue lines I bet.
Stop sperging about Magic Empires
Dude, the problem is that you want to play this shit AT ALL. I know you have a problematic obsession with magic but that doesn't mean you should play slop like this.
Blockbuster games are in the grip of a "fidelity death cult", says former Dragon Age producer
It's "a trap that dev teams are kind of laying upon themselves"
Image credit: EA
by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell News Editor
Published on June 26, 2024
Dragon Age: The Veilguard consultant and former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah has published a Youtube video addressing the question: "why do AAA games take so long?" It's a tidy 25 minutes or so, and gets a fair way into the weeds of a variety of topics, from the current enthusiasm for live service "forever games" over 'finite', narrative-led affairs, to the "misleading" announcement of highly-demanded sequels years before they enter full production, in order to pump up a publisher's brand during a dry spell.
One thing I wanted to fish out and drop on your plate is Darrah's discussion of what he terms "the fidelity death cult" - that is, the desire for ever greater levels of lifelike visual detail and "intricacy".
"We are also in a period of something I've called the fidelity death cult," Darrah explains in the vid, around the eight minute mark, "where a lot of games are trying for hyper-realistic art styles, hyper-high fidelity, hyper-customisation, hyper-intricacy. These things, while they don't contribute to a larger size, while they don't help you make a forever game, they still take a lot more time. When you are concerned about the way people's hair moves on their back, that's going to take time that you in the past wouldn't have done. You would have just spray-painted their hairdo on, or given them a hair cap, or something pretty static. Now, you're introducing new avenues of complexity."
He extends the point to encompass player dislike of things in games they consider to have been "recycled", from chunks of recurring environment to animation systems. "Similarly, we currently see from players quite a bit of pushback on the reuse of systems and assets, so even though I might be making a sequel to a game that came out just a couple of years ago, I might feel within the dev team that we can't reuse any of our assets, because we're going to get pushback from the players. And so while I might have been able to reuse some of those animations, or some of those models, or some of those areas, I might feel the need to recreate them to avoid that backlash. So I'm introducing additional time into the development process that otherwise would have allowed the game to come out sooner."
Interestingly, Darrah notes that while the emphasis on giving players endless things to do, access and consume in "forever games" reflects audience research showing that this makes the game more enticing, the "fidelity death cult" and avoidance of asset reuse comes "more from a fear of backlash, as opposed to any more specific research that says that this is necessary". He suggests that prioritising original asset creation and fidelity is "a trap that dev teams are kind of laying upon themselves", pointing to Baldur's Gate 3 as the "perfect example" of a game that has gotten away with downplaying "minor visual fidelity things that at the end of the day, often don't matter that much".
That the creed of ever-quantifiably-higher fidelity sponges up a lot of time and energy without really adding anything to games is a familiar argument, but always worth repeating. To slide into a bit of journalist navel-gazing, I'll add that games that valorise fidelity for its own sake can be boring to write about, albeit partly because enthusiast readerships tend to want us to write about them in a certain way.
The associated traditions of realism and photorealism are, in themselves, complex, exciting and evolving, but within video game culture, those traditions are typically boiled down to numbers and buzzwords - higher polygon counts, more animated objects per scene, more lens flare per NPC tear, with a corresponding need for more potent, dirtier pieces of hardware to run games on. Mind you, if there's a preference for interpreting realism and photorealism this way, that reflects the audience tastes that both "AAA" developers and journalists have cultivated for themselves over the decades, by consenting to the whim of the marketing machine. I've written my share of articles about higher resolutions and posh new species of shader. One thing I'd like to ask Darrah is: how exactly should blockbuster game developers unravel the "fidelity death cult"? How should they persuade more tech-devoted players to get over the sight of some sprayed-on hair?
I want to kill Varric.
If true, it's probably a good thing. Somehow, despite their bungling, they've managed to make a single likable character in DA2, and it'd be a shame to see him in the hands of the modern writers.
Breaking Down Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Classes And Factions
As part of the character creation process for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, players will have to select both a class for their player-controlled Rook and a faction. After customizing much of your Rook's body, including things like a Qunari's horn type and material, for example, with the hundreds of options available in Veilguard, it will be time to pick said class.
There are three classes to choose from: Rogue, Mage, and Warrior. As the names suggest, each features a unique combat system and plays differently as a result. Though you’ll be performing things like light and heavy attacks using the same buttons, what those attacks do varies based on your class. For example, a sword-and-shield Warrior can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas a Mage can use that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks – read more about the combat of Veilguard in Game Informer's exclusive feature here. Plus, as you spec out these classes and unlock their individual specializations, the differences will only grow even more stark.
While these specializations don't matter upfront – you class into them via the skill trees you progress through the game – it's nice to see the potential of each class before you choose it.
- The Rogue has access to three specializations. The Duelist is the fastest of the three, with two blades for rapid strikes; the Saboteur uses tricks and traps; and the Veil Ranger is purely range, sniping enemies from afar with a bow.
- The Mage can utilize necromancy with the Death Caller specialization; Evokers wield fire, ice, and lightning; and the Spellblade uses magic-infused melee attacks.
- The Warrior can become a Reaper, which uses night blades to steal life and risk death to gain unnatural abilities; a Slayer, a simple but strong two-handed weapons expert; or the Champion, a tactical defense fighter.
For the penultimate step of the character creator, at least during the demo BioWare shows me, players select a faction. The Grey Wardens return, joined by other returning favorites and new additions like the Antivan Crows, the Mourn Watch, the Shadow Dragons, the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune, which is what I chose in my demo for the current Game Informer cover story, and the Veil Jumpers.
Each faction has unique casual wear, which is worn in specific cutscenes when the character isn't donning armor, and three unique traits. The Lords of Fortune, for example, gain additional reputation with this particular faction, have increased damage versus mercenaries, and perform takedowns on enemies with slightly less effort. Veilguard game director Corinne Busche says this faction selection, which ties into your character's backstory, determines who your Rook was before, how they met Varric, why they travel with Varric instead of their faction, and more.
"The message of The Veilguard is you're not saving the world on your own – you need your companions, but you also need these factions, these other groups in the world," creative director John Epler tells me. "You help them, they help you now."
He says BioWare wanted to avoid the trope of needing to gather 200 random resources or objects before helping you save the world. Instead, the team aimed to create factions that want to help you but have realistic challenges and problems in front of them so that narratively, it makes sense why you help them in return for their help when the time comes.
"Gameplay-wise – each of our classes has a specialization, and each of them is tied to a faction," Epler continues. "But beyond that, each faction has a [companion] as well as [people we're calling agents, ancillarily] who exist as the faces of these factions. We didn't want to just say, 'Here's the Grey Wardens, go deal with them.' We wanted characters within that faction who are sympathetic, who you can see and become the face of the faction, so that even if there are moments where the faction as a whole may be on the outs with you, these characters are still with you; they've still got your back."
If you want to make changes to your character's physical appearance, you can do that with the Mirror of Transformation, found in the main Veilguard hub, The Lighthouse. However, class, lineage, and identity are locked in and cannot be changed after you select them in the game's character creator.
Blockbuster games are in the grip of a "fidelity death cult", says former Dragon Age producer
It's "a trap that dev teams are kind of laying upon themselves"
by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell News Editor
Published on June 26, 2024
Dragon Age: The Veilguard consultant and former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah has published a Youtube video addressing the question: "why do AAA games take so long?" It's a tidy 25 minutes or so, and gets a fair way into the weeds of a variety of topics, from the current enthusiasm for live service "forever games" over 'finite', narrative-led affairs, to the "misleading" announcement of highly-demanded sequels years before they enter full production, in order to pump up a publisher's brand during a dry spell.
One thing I wanted to fish out and drop on your plate is Darrah's discussion of what he terms "the fidelity death cult" - that is, the desire for ever greater levels of lifelike visual detail and "intricacy".
"We are also in a period of something I've called the fidelity death cult," Darrah explains in the vid, around the eight minute mark, "where a lot of games are trying for hyper-realistic art styles, hyper-high fidelity, hyper-customisation, hyper-intricacy. These things, while they don't contribute to a larger size, while they don't help you make a forever game, they still take a lot more time. When you are concerned about the way people's hair moves on their back, that's going to take time that you in the past wouldn't have done. You would have just spray-painted their hairdo on, or given them a hair cap, or something pretty static. Now, you're introducing new avenues of complexity."
He extends the point to encompass player dislike of things in games they consider to have been "recycled", from chunks of recurring environment to animation systems. "Similarly, we currently see from players quite a bit of pushback on the reuse of systems and assets, so even though I might be making a sequel to a game that came out just a couple of years ago, I might feel within the dev team that we can't reuse any of our assets, because we're going to get pushback from the players. And so while I might have been able to reuse some of those animations, or some of those models, or some of those areas, I might feel the need to recreate them to avoid that backlash. So I'm introducing additional time into the development process that otherwise would have allowed the game to come out sooner."
Interestingly, Darrah notes that while the emphasis on giving players endless things to do, access and consume in "forever games" reflects audience research showing that this makes the game more enticing, the "fidelity death cult" and avoidance of asset reuse comes "more from a fear of backlash, as opposed to any more specific research that says that this is necessary". He suggests that prioritising original asset creation and fidelity is "a trap that dev teams are kind of laying upon themselves", pointing to Baldur's Gate 3 as the "perfect example" of a game that has gotten away with downplaying "minor visual fidelity things that at the end of the day, often don't matter that much".
That the creed of ever-quantifiably-higher fidelity sponges up a lot of time and energy without really adding anything to games is a familiar argument, but always worth repeating. To slide into a bit of journalist navel-gazing, I'll add that games that valorise fidelity for its own sake can be boring to write about, albeit partly because enthusiast readerships tend to want us to write about them in a certain way.
The associated traditions of realism and photorealism are, in themselves, complex, exciting and evolving, but within video game culture, those traditions are typically boiled down to numbers and buzzwords - higher polygon counts, more animated objects per scene, more lens flare per NPC tear, with a corresponding need for more potent, dirtier pieces of hardware to run games on. Mind you, if there's a preference for interpreting realism and photorealism this way, that reflects the audience tastes that both "AAA" developers and journalists have cultivated for themselves over the decades, by consenting to the whim of the marketing machine. I've written my share of articles about higher resolutions and posh new species of shader. One thing I'd like to ask Darrah is: how exactly should blockbuster game developers unravel the "fidelity death cult"? How should they persuade more tech-devoted players to get over the sight of some sprayed-on hair?
Devs have been bitching about the graphics fidelity arms race now for over two decades, and yet they're still committed to it. Morons.
You can thank Jennifer Hepler for the DA:O dwarves, she wrote Orzammar. The dwarven origins were the best.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/jennifer-hepler
Nah, me3 was enough to not bother with Andromeda, dropping da2 after few hours was enough to not bother with DAI. Did you play Fallout 76 after F3/F4 lol? Not a learning animal.
Complete bullshit
