Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Ryzer]

I begin to realize that EA, by shutting down prestigious studios, were preventing us from terrible and shameful sequels and poor image of the company.

 

[Yosharian]

EA doesn't have to directly interfere with development in order to have a negative effect, that stuff happens naturally when your boss is a soulless corporate entity

 

[Lagole Gon]

I begin to realize that EA, by shutting down prestigious studios, were preventing us from terrible and shameful sequels and poor image of the company.

Wow, this really makes you think.
It's actually quite possible Mark David Chapman saved us from some serious John Lennon cringe.

BRB, I need to go back in time.

<BZZZT>

- I love you. I love you, Sinéad O'Connor. That is why I have to do it.
<BLAM>
- It is done. Next stop... Edmonton.

 

[Lacrymas]

100% of Dorian's character is "my dad sent me to forced conversion therapy when I was younger".

Yes, but you have to pressure him into saying he's gay when talking to his father. I haven't actually played Inquisition or Andromeda, so I'm not sure whether someone just flat out says they aren't straight in those.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Anders

Didn't really like Anders in Awakening either. Nathaniel Howe was a much better companion character (and Oghren, naturally).

 

[Camel]

Bioware was always in charge of its own marketing.

Well, that explains why it's almost always bad.

 

[NJClaw]

Don't know, man. I've always killed him on sight and, so far, I've been avoiding it just fine.

You've missed out. DA:O has solid cast and Zevran is certainly an important part of it.

Don't know, he always felt off compared to the other companions. The cast of characters is, in my eyes, one of the very few redeeming qualities of this franchise, but Zevran is simply too cringe for my taste. The only character I hate more than Zevran in DA:O is Zevran in DA2.

The only time I gave him a chance, I didn't give him enough attentions and I ended up having to kill him anyway.

 

[Orud]

Zevran is the annoying edgy ego-tripper that's always right, copied straight from the edgiest anime characters out there. If you kill him, you don't miss out on anything.

 

[Volourn]

EA is 100% responsible for Bio. FFS They are Bio. Bio is a division of EA. Everything BIO does, it is EA. Period. Good, bad, or ugly. EA is 100% BIO.

FYI, Zevran is easily a top worst 5 companion of all time.

 

[jackofshadows]

Don't know, he always felt off compared to the other companions.

Off? To me the only "off compared to the other companions" was Wynne because she's actually normal, proper character and all the others are mad ass misfits in one way or another (which makes her sound incredibly boring). As for Zevran himself, my impression was mostly as of cheerful whoremonger and a loyal lapdog. Seems that his behaviour might vary quite a lot. Companions scale and all that shit. But I agree that his presentation is cringe: arrogant look > grey wardens die here! (iirc). Also I've had no idea that he's made it to DA2. Strange, given that I didn't kill him and used imported saves.

 

[Volourn]

EA is BIO. That is a fact not debatable. Everything BIO does is ea does because BIO is controlled, owned and is part of ea. Your so called chad above from ea is bio.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't see how this game is even worth discussing. These people are worse than jesus freaks, it is impossible for them to make any product that is not first and foremost a vehicle for their religion. Nothing else matters. It's not a question of if it will be pozzed but rather only how many CRT-spouting BLM-dwarves and abortion-wizard transelves you'll see per minute of gameplay.

 

[mediocrepoet]

abortion-wizard transelves

I want this to be a character creation option. What sort of spells and load out do you think this has?

 

[Ryzer]

I want this to be a character creation option. What sort of spells and load out do you think this has?

Buy the new Owlcat game and you'll see.

 

[Immortal]

Tevinter is the most interesting part of the dragon age setting and the real problem is that an actual game set in tevinter is likely to squander the region's potential the same way dragon age 2's plot streamlined kirkwall into a city where every mage is a blood wizard madman and every templar is a psychotic madman.

this.

Tevinter was a really interesting concept that they drip dropped just enough lore to pique my interest on through books / dialogues.
If {current_year} Bioware did a game set in that location, I think it would be completely trampled.

 

[copebot]

gays are the straights of fags now

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Fucking men up the ass is now basically the same as fucking women in the pussy. It's an ancient, classical thing, rooted in patriarchal tradition since even before the Greeks. Vanilla shit. We're in the body mutilation sexual age now.

You might as well stop it with this gay charade and be hetero

Intercrual stimulation was the more common way. Pederasty was seen as different from homosexual sex between adult males and more permissible. So, it was much more acceptable to screw a prepubescent boy than it was to screw around with another adult man. Current day "homosexual" identities are totally foreign from how practices existed in the classical world. If you have JSTOR access you can read this chapter on the topic in the context of ancient Greek militaries:
Ogden, Daniel, Catherine Gilliver, A.D. Lee, Stephen Mitchell, Ian Shaw, and Hans van Wees. “HOMOSEXUALITY AND WARFARE IN ANCIENT GREECE.” In Battle in Antiquity, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 107–68. Classical Press of Wales, 2009. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvn9mv.6.

For a modern equivalent the most obvious parallel that most people would be aware of would be in the culture of Afghanistan. Mutilation is also definitely not new -- Alexander had an affair with a eunuch, for example. In Athens, homosexuality was relatively regulated, particularly to prevent people pimping out or raping non-slave boys.

This is perhaps why citing the ways of the Greeks is not really that convenient for the alphabet people in the current context: the Greek version was between an adult man and a prepubescent boy within various social strictures. It also happened in an environment of legal slavery, so what was permissible to do to slaves might not be permissible to do to free boys. There is also a tendency in historical discussions of these issues to focus on aristocrats living in the high life in urban environments rather than to look at the more restricted norms of the overwhelmingly agricultural society in which just reproducing involved lots of effort the heavy attrition of both wives and babies. Another thing that distinguishes Greek culture from Roman culture is that, although Romans get a bad rap as woman-haters, Roman political mythology is surprisingly heavy on heroic female archetypes like Lucretia and Virginia. The Greeks by comparison tended to find little of redeeming aesthetic or moral value in women, tending to see them as expensive chattel animals.

The other bit that tends to be missed by attempts to try to root contemporary florid rainbow sexuality in the ancients is that, overwhelmingly, classical philosophy tends to favor sexual restraint and skepticism towards pleasure-seeking and luxury. In current terms, they were "sex-negative" and profoundly macho, seeing any expression of effeminacy as something lethally shameful. While current practices emphasize egalitarianism, in the classical world they were supposed to reify social hierarchy, and anything that transgressed that was subject to severe social and legal consequences. The Abrahamic trio religions obviously take a much harder line on any gay stuff, and any attempt to muddle that goes sharply against both historic precedent and scripture.

 

[Nano]

Intercrual stimulation was the more common way. Pederasty was seen as different from homosexual sex between adult males and more permissible. So, it was much more acceptable to screw a prepubescent boy than it was to screw around with another adult man. Current day "homosexual" identities are totally foreign from how practices existed in the classical world. If you have JSTOR access you can read this chapter on the topic in the context of ancient Greek militaries:
Ogden, Daniel, Catherine Gilliver, A.D. Lee, Stephen Mitchell, Ian Shaw, and Hans van Wees. “HOMOSEXUALITY AND WARFARE IN ANCIENT GREECE.” In Battle in Antiquity, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 107–68. Classical Press of Wales, 2009. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvn9mv.6.

For a modern equivalent the most obvious parallel that most people would be aware of would be in the culture of Afghanistan. Mutilation is also definitely not new -- Alexander had an affair with a eunuch, for example. In Athens, homosexuality was relatively regulated, particularly to prevent people pimping out or raping non-slave boys.

This is perhaps why citing the ways of the Greeks is not really that convenient for the alphabet people in the current context: the Greek version was between an adult man and a prepubescent boy within various social strictures. It also happened in an environment of legal slavery, so what was permissible to do to slaves might not be permissible to do to free boys. There is also a tendency in historical discussions of these issues to focus on aristocrats living in the high life in urban environments rather than to look at the more restricted norms of the overwhelmingly agricultural society in which just reproducing involved lots of effort the heavy attrition of both wives and babies. Another thing that distinguishes Greek culture from Roman culture is that, although Romans get a bad rap as woman-haters, Roman political mythology is surprisingly heavy on heroic female archetypes like Lucretia and Virginia. The Greeks by comparison tended to find little of redeeming aesthetic or moral value in women, tending to see them as expensive chattel animals.

The other bit that tends to be missed by attempts to try to root contemporary florid rainbow sexuality in the ancients is that, overwhelmingly, classical philosophy tends to favor sexual restraint and skepticism towards pleasure-seeking and luxury. In current terms, they were "sex-negative" and profoundly macho, seeing any expression of effeminacy as something lethally shameful. While current practices emphasize egalitarianism, in the classical world they were supposed to reify social hierarchy, and anything that transgressed that was subject to severe social and legal consequences. The Abrahamic trio religions obviously take a much harder line on any gay stuff, and any attempt to muddle that goes sharply against both historic precedent and scripture.

I'm not sure what your point is. That the Greeks were based?

Because if it is, I'm in full agreement.

 

[whydoibother]

Did they release video footage, or screenshots, or even concept art, or is this a Bethesda Starfield type announcement?

 

[RepHope]

I liked Dorian's character in DAI.

I hated Zevran & DA2 Anders. Liked Dorian.

dorian is probably the best written character in inquisition. he's a patriot who wants to change his country for the better. but he's still a nobleman. so while he's against blood sacrifice and the classism / racism and everything else associated with it - seeing it as an obsolete crutch that keeps tevinter from unlocking it's population's full potential - he's not a absolute progressive. he's not only ok with slavery, he actually thinks it's kinder to enslave debtors than to hold families as a servant class. and his belief doesn't exist in isolation either. there's a minor character in iron bull's second in command whose backstory is that they were tailors in tevinter and had been so for generations. one day a local slave-owner decided to score some political points and had his slaves make clothes and hand them out for free. the result was that the professional artisans went bankrupt and had to sell themselves as slaves.

tevinter is the most interesting part of the dragon age setting and the real problem is that an actual game set in tevinter is likely to squander the region's potential the same way dragon age 2's plot streamlined kirkwall into a city where every mage is a blood wizard madman and every templar is a psychotic madman.

Crazy how a fucking one off conversation about life in Tevinter did a better job of making the mage debate gray than the entirety of DA2. Why the fuck didn’t they do more shit like that instead of Nazi Templars and Satanic Mages?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

abortion-wizard transelves

I want this to be a character creation option. What sort of spells and load out do you think this has?

level 1: Morning After Missile
level 2: Bleach douche-ray
level 3: Coat hanger blast
level 4: Bigby's stomach kick
level 5: Summon: back alley ogre doctor
level 6: Teleport Other: fetus (to planned parenthood, rewards GP)
level 7: Ultrasound Phantasmal killer
level 8: Summon: Margaret Atwood, Greater Swamp Hag
level 9: Power word: Eugenics

 

[Ismaul]

gays are the straights of fags now

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Fucking men up the ass is now basically the same as fucking women in the pussy. It's an ancient, classical thing, rooted in patriarchal tradition since even before the Greeks. Vanilla shit. We're in the body mutilation sexual age now.

You might as well stop it with this gay charade and be hetero

Intercrual stimulation was the more common way. Pederasty was seen as different from homosexual sex between adult males and more permissible. So, it was much more acceptable to screw a prepubescent boy than it was to screw around with another adult man. Current day "homosexual" identities are totally foreign from how practices existed in the classical world. If you have JSTOR access you can read this chapter on the topic in the context of ancient Greek militaries:
Ogden, Daniel, Catherine Gilliver, A.D. Lee, Stephen Mitchell, Ian Shaw, and Hans van Wees. “HOMOSEXUALITY AND WARFARE IN ANCIENT GREECE.” In Battle in Antiquity, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 107–68. Classical Press of Wales, 2009. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvn9mv.6.

For a modern equivalent the most obvious parallel that most people would be aware of would be in the culture of Afghanistan. Mutilation is also definitely not new -- Alexander had an affair with a eunuch, for example. In Athens, homosexuality was relatively regulated, particularly to prevent people pimping out or raping non-slave boys.

This is perhaps why citing the ways of the Greeks is not really that convenient for the alphabet people in the current context: the Greek version was between an adult man and a prepubescent boy within various social strictures. It also happened in an environment of legal slavery, so what was permissible to do to slaves might not be permissible to do to free boys. There is also a tendency in historical discussions of these issues to focus on aristocrats living in the high life in urban environments rather than to look at the more restricted norms of the overwhelmingly agricultural society in which just reproducing involved lots of effort the heavy attrition of both wives and babies. Another thing that distinguishes Greek culture from Roman culture is that, although Romans get a bad rap as woman-haters, Roman political mythology is surprisingly heavy on heroic female archetypes like Lucretia and Virginia. The Greeks by comparison tended to find little of redeeming aesthetic or moral value in women, tending to see them as expensive chattel animals.

The other bit that tends to be missed by attempts to try to root contemporary florid rainbow sexuality in the ancients is that, overwhelmingly, classical philosophy tends to favor sexual restraint and skepticism towards pleasure-seeking and luxury. In current terms, they were "sex-negative" and profoundly macho, seeing any expression of effeminacy as something lethally shameful. While current practices emphasize egalitarianism, in the classical world they were supposed to reify social hierarchy, and anything that transgressed that was subject to severe social and legal consequences. The Abrahamic trio religions obviously take a much harder line on any gay stuff, and any attempt to muddle that goes sharply against both historic precedent and scripture.

You seem very knowledgeable about the homosexual / pederastic behaviors of Antiquity.

I was just making a joke, but you do have a point. Even Socrates, who was greatly aroused by the boy Alcibiades (who in turn lusted after Socrates), reportedly never touched him and viewed such relationships negatively.

It's also true that most Greek philosophical doctrines of life were about restraint, derived from Socrates' own. But one could say, if that is so, were those philosophies in reaction to the mores of the time, that allowed men to pursue and indulge in their desires?

 

[vortex]

Guys and laddies, let us leave social/sexual/class aspect of DA4 writing alone. Let us talk about lore, cities, places, stories, gods we are going to visit.

 

[Lacrymas]

Plato was probably just salty some guy rejected him and should private his Twitter account asap.

 

[Sarathiour]

I hope someone here is willing to take one for the time and deliver us a codex playthrough, I could use a good laugh.

 

[Drop Duck]

When you play the games in quick succession, the LGBT stuff is problematic for reasons other than "urrr no liberals" than some retards codexers make it to be.

I think DAO had some lesbian/gay/bi romances, I am not too sure about that, but I did not feel at all bothered by them. It felt like some knowing gay people, and you know, whatever bros, I don't have to have sex with you. They behaved like "normal" gay people.

Now, you still don't need to fuck the gay people in DAI and Mass Effect Andromeda, but something has changed in the way those romances were designed. A switch happened at some point : it is pretty clear in the design, in the character archetypes that some head honchos at Bioware saw the Bioware Social Forums, the fanfics, the Deviantarts, the super awkward part of the fanbase and decided that "hey, our gay romances should appeal to that crowd, those are the ones making the buzz about our game.".

As a result, just being in the same room than those people feels awkward. They are designed as sexual porn stars and talk like porn story characters. And you have to talk to them. Repeatedly. You have to stare at Iron Bull's nipples. All the time.

Mass Effect 1,2,3 handled it kinda okay, although it was a bit clumsy at point. I remembered when I reached Andromeda I was thinking a bit "what the hell?" ? That feeling was gone when I switched to DAO, started creeping in again with DA2 and is now at itchi.io charity bundle level with DAI.

It gives you the feeling of progressing slowly into something that has been designated for one special kind of people ; not the gay ones, not the liberals you guys seem to hate, but that awkward fringe fraction of the fanbase which seem to have their hand on the fate of the game.

What is it with nazis here pretending to be normal people? Look at de Gaulle here pretending to not be a fascist by saying that his bigotry isn't the same as the usual one. The mass effect games he found okay since they only appealed to men.

Spoiler

Then Bioware shows the nipple of a muscular man and an openly homosexual man from the balkans in Dragon Age 4 and this guy spazzes out. The above is okay but if they make an elven woman that appeal to lesbians then that's not true liberalism anymore? I beg to differ, Bioware kept being the good kind of freedom loving capitalist woke and never went no-fun communist woke. It just turns out that their audience consists of the LGBTQ+ crowd and women more than it does of the kind of audience that wants the tits and booty of Mass Effect.

Only a commie/nazi have a problem with the market responding to demand or claim that there's something wrong with women and homosexuals for liking different things than cis superstraight men.