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

[Space Satan]

Ah, now we'll have an annoying andromeda-like voice in our heads for all game

 

[Tyranicon]

As expected,

 

[Morgoth]

Details from the Gameinformer issue:

On Name Change:

• "We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions." - Game Director Corinne Bushe
• Focus is on the team rather than Solas as the Dreadwolf and so the name was changed to reflect that
• "Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team" - Creative Director John Epler

On Character Customization:

• 4 races - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves
• Can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is and more
• Hundreds of sliders to customize proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin and more
• Can customize genitalia
• 4 distinct voices (American Male/Female, British Male/Female) along with a pitch shifter for each voice to make them unique to your character

On how Rook becomes the leader:

• Ascends to leadership due to competency rather than destiny (although technically there is some sort of magical reason too that I will not go into)

On Minrathous:

• Huge city painted in magical insignia
• Looks cyberpunk-inspired with neon city lights and brimming with detail
• Dozens of NPCs
• NPCs are all made using the character creation tool in the game outside of specific characters such as your recruitable companions
• Murals of Solas appear on the walls deep within the city and things get more Elven as if you were symbolically going back in time as Minrathous is a city built by mages on the bones of what was originally the home of Elves

On Base of Operations:

• Called "The Lighthouse", this is the Skyhold equivalent of the game
• Where your team bonds, grows and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign
• Responds to your world state and emotion and reflects the chaos and disrepair of Thedas
• Optional conversations here will have a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance for each character that you can speak to
• Library is where your party will often regroup and prepare for the next mission
• Companions will have unique dialogue with you at the base based on current events along with your Rook's background

On Arlathan Forest:

• This is where you meet the Veil Jumpers faction
• BioWare does not shy away from minutes-long cutscenes as it helps you define your Rook's leadership style with your choices and how your team will react to your leadership
  • This is demonstrated within game's dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion's character screen
• Elven ruins, dense greenery, and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules
• Most impressive aspect of GI employee's time seeing the game
• Art style is more in line with high fantasy reminiscent of Fable
• Use of magic is more prevalent in the game in general which will be shown by the locations you visit
• Whimsy of area will starkly contrast to other areas with promise of some grim locations and even grimmer story moments
  • Contrast is important

On Bellara:

• First companion you meet and recruit in-game (Neve automatically joins)
• Like all companions, they are the face of their faction and your window into understanding their world
• Sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts
• Dressed more like an academic than a combat expert
• Specializes in electricity and can use magic to heal you
• Specific magic is more effective on certain enemies, however, you can equip runes that will provide you access to those different magics without necessarily having them as part of your arsenal
• Has a unique ability that interacts with the world, but Rook can acquire these abilities to complete ability specific tasks for instances where Bellara is not in your party

On the Menus:

• Pressing start will show you your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree and a library for lore information
• Can cross compare equipment and equip new gear for Rook and companions
• Build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat
• Customize you and your party's abilities and builds via skill tree
• Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities
• Abilities add moves like "Wall of Fire"
• Each specialization has a unique ultimate ability

On Combat:

• Every swing is done in real-time with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling
• Dash, parry, ability to charge moves and a revamped healing system allows you to use potions at your discretion using the d-pad on controller
• Can combo attacks and "bookmark" combos with a quick dash (can pause a combo's status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward)
• Pause-and-play gameplay mechanic
  • Can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies
  • Letting go off wheel will play out your selections in real time
  • Bushe uses combat wheel primarily for companions while Epler uses it almost exclusively for every ability and combo
• Each character class has a light and heavy attack, using abilities with the same inputs and interact with the combo wheel in the same way
• The difference is in secondary attacks and defense
  • Warriors can throw their shield and can block and parry
  • Rogues can use a bow and have a longer parry window
  • Mages have magical ranged attacks and cannot parry but can throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically which uses up your mana
• Showcased some high-level gameplay
  • 3 stacks of arcane build-up to create an "Arcane Bomb" on an enemy which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack
  • Charges a heavy attack on magical staff then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack

On Performance:

• Demo ran well on PC
• Confirmed Fidelity and Performance modes on PS5 (likely same for Series X)

On Companion Skills:

• Can advance bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and including them in your party for main quests
• Relationship levels you rank up nets you a skill point to spend on them
• Choices you make, what you say to your companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members
• Each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take 3 into combat
  • Strategize different combos and synergies within your party
• Each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete

On Not Being An Open World:

• Not an open world even if some of its explorable areas might feel like one
• Hub-and-spoke design where the needs of the story are served by the level design
• A version of Inquisition's Crossroads, network of telporting Eluvians, returns
  • How players will traverse across Northern Thedas
• Some areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures while others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling
• Arlathan Forest is an example of a smaller area but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and more
• Minimap exists for each location though linear levels will not have a fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of the bigger locations
• Largest number of diverse biomes in series history

 

[9ted6]

As expected,

So the archdemons and darkspawn are still irrelevant in favor of elves.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You can, of course, continue to believe that corporations would gladly be "woke", and practically all of them in unison, even when it's not economically favorable to them from a profit perspective, and/or that politicians in Washington would never/could never steer the mechanisms on the financial market.

This is spot on the money, pardon the pun. There's a lot of states and public unions like teachers unions in the United States, and I'm guessing other Western nations that use Blackrock for their pensions. It's exactly how Blackrock got as large as it has. 22,000,000 people in the United States work directly for some sort of government agency, be they local, state or Federal and there's quite a few of them that get to retire after 20 years of work meaning each one of those people need to have a pension that can give them 40+ years of salary upon that retirement. You're talking about trillions of dollars there.

Being managed pensions, Blackrock can decide what companies get all those trillions of dollars for investment. You can't put all of that in those woke companies because you have to anticipate some of them are going to implode their stocks, like Disney did. But even with the implosion Disney did, their stock is still close to $100 per share but they've also had their stock devalued. Not to mention they've posted quite a few losses. So, you invest in some stable companies in order to make sure the pensions don't go bust and grow at a steady rate, but you still have billions to put where you want. That's the carrot, and companies have been willing to bend over backwards in order get some of those billions.

And the icing on the cake is that places that have the largest amount of government workers are often Democrat/Communist areas, and they're the ones who decide that Blackrock will handle their pension.

 

[moon knight]

As expected,

So...Solas becomes Johnny Silverhand?

 

[frajaq]

As expected,

omg I can become a schizo just like in Cybercum 2077 its fucking kino

 

[AfterVirtue]

As expected,

So the archdemons and darkspawn are still irrelevant in favor of elves.

Yes, it is natural, archdaemons and darkspawn are characters in a quite decent game called Dragon Age: Origins, that unfortunately hasn't got any sequel whatsoever. Why would you want to connect those character with this series?

 

[Child of Malkav]

So...Solas becomes Johnny Silverhand?

Wake the fuck up Rook! We got knife ears to burn.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

continue to believe that corporations would gladly be "woke"

Blackrock

It's convenient to ignore that Black Cock, sorry, Black Rock - is not the "biggest" entity out there.

Amazon's net worth was $1,911.28 billion

And Amazon is known to be so woke. They produce The Boys Season 4. (Let's ignore the working condition in their storages, Union busting etc. Communist doesn't care about that.)

It's fun and tempting to put a tin foiled hat and affirming each other biases (read: sucking each other's cock) with anecdotal evidence spoon fed by your favorite propagandist.

But I'd rather be in real world.


That being said,

So you're a target audience. It's too bad all women will be ugly.

The Asian chick is cute tbh

This looks fine.

 

[Hace El Oso]

This looks fine.

But elves in Dragon Age are all Caucasians (with Welsh accents, I believe), why is this elf an Oriental?

 

[Nano]

But elves in Dragon Age are all Caucasians (with Welsh accents, I believe), why is this elf an Oriental?

Did Zevran look Caucasian to you?

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

But elves in Dragon Age are all Caucasians

The Elves are either Dalish or City Elf which many of them are Andrastian.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Did Zevran look Caucasian to you?

Yes, standard-issue Antonio Banderas imitation, same thing as every elf but suntanned and with a ‘funny’ accent. Does he look like he’s from Hong Kong on Earth to you?

The Elves are either Dalish or City Elf which many of them are Andrastian.

Is that a Dragon Age Orient, ‘Andrastian’? I didn’t see any in Origins.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Is that a Dragon Age Orient, ‘Andrastian’?

https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Andrastianism

Bruh.

go back to cumcave from whence you came. There are plenty others culture war, chud-affirming threads out there.

If you're going to discuss and critique Dragon Age, at least understand the basic lore.

 

[Nano]

Yes, standard-issue Antonio Banderas imitation, same thing as every elf but suntanned and with a ‘funny’ accent. Does he look like he’s from Hong Kong on Earth to you?

He's in Ferelden for the whole game, any sun tan would realistically be gone.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Yes, standard-issue Antonio Banderas imitation, same thing as every elf but suntanned and with a ‘funny’ accent. Does he look like he’s from Hong Kong on Earth to you?

He's in Ferelden for the whole game, any sun tan would realistically be gone.

He's Dragon-Italian or Dragon-Spanish. He’s swarthy because he’s the rascal, of course. Not quite the same leap as randomly Oriental, no? I don't care if he were, but I don't recall any tales of the Walled City of Antiva.

https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Andrastianism

Bruh.

go back to cumcave from whence you came. There are plenty others culture war, chud-affirming threads out there.

If you're going to discuss and critique Dragon Age, at least understand the basic lore.

That's the joke. Why are you talking about religion when I'm wondering why there's an Oriental elf when there were none in the first game? Is there a Dragon Age Orient? Are there elves there? They should set a game there, nice change of scenery.

Really, I’m just passing by, having a glance at the characters and ragging on the 2024 television-game for having immature, lazy inconsistency. I should have kept it to one post, enjoy the game.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

That's the joke

You're not joking.

You're looking for other chud to suck, my dude. It's chud-affirming shit.

 

[Tyranicon]

This is the most pointless argument. Anybody who's seen any fantasy media in the past few years will know there's no attempt to explain why there's all these diverse-looking elves, humans and dwarves running around.

Have you guys not mocked Rings of Power? It's good fun.

They don't even have the decency to sort of imply there's some eastern "dragon lands" or some shit. That's too much work. No, in these donut steel OC settings, they just exist. Because diversity means you don't have to put effort into your worldbuilding.

It's pointless. Just shame it as corporate slop and move on. Nobody* expects this to be good.

*with good taste

Her name is Bellara for fuck's sake.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Yeh pretty sure it's as transparent as: 'We would like the now wealthy gaming market of Asia to buy our product' and has next to zero in-universe reason. They COULD have done some world building to justify it I suppose, but I doubt they went to that much trouble.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

diversity

There are plenty of diverse identity in Thedas, you just care too much about Asian-coded character, because you're neck deep on culture war.

 

[ropetight]

This is the most pointless argument. Anybody who's seen any fantasy media in the past few years will know there's no attempt to explain why there's all these diverse-looking elves, humans and dwarves running around.

Have you guys not mocked Rings of Power? It's good fun.

They don't even have the decency to sort of imply there's some eastern "dragon lands" or some shit. That's too much work. No, in these donut steel OC settings, they just exist. Because diversity means you don't have to put effort into your worldbuilding.

It's pointless. Just shame it as corporate slop and move on. Nobody* expects this to be good.

*with good taste

Her name is Bellara for fuck's sake.

It is also compatible with the current retconning of the history where all the races have been present in significant numbers in the west since dawn of the time (Blacks and Arabs in the UK and Nordic countries, Chinese in the North America).
For cucks this is a valid worldbuilding, since we are naturally all getting along just fine in the real life.

 

[Tyranicon]

diversity

There are plenty of diverse identity in Thedas, you just care too much about Asian-coded character, because you're neck deep on culture war.

Not according to the lore. Humans aren't even native to the continent of Thedas, and when they arrived, it was as a monolithic prototribe.

From the wikia:

The first human tribe, the Neromenians, divided into various tribes to become the progenitors of many nations in Thedas. This tribe settled the entire coast along the Nocen Sea and subdivided into separate kingdoms: Qarinus, Tevinter, Neromenian, and Barindur. The former three ultimately united to form the Tevinter Imperium while the latter disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

It is very unlikely to have resulted in much diversity, but now we are really are deep into the weeds of shit that the actual writers, who get paid, didn't care about.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

the lore

The lore also says there are literally unaccountable number of revisions to the chant of light - and chant of light is part of the main historical reference to the game.

As for these abstract ancient historical lore, it's easy to explain, whether it's magic or just another result of mutation etc. The fair critique would be: "It's not clearly explained" - and to that I say, it doesn't need to be. Most people playing Dragon Age doesn't looking for the joos or blacks on video games.

They want to know about Chantry v Mage v Templar conflict. City Elf vs Dalish vs Chantry. The Blight, Darkspawn. The truth about Andraste. Not something that is culture war coded.

The misinterpretation and reinterpretation of history is pretty much Dragon Age topic. It doesn't have reliable narrator except for maybe Ferdinand Genitivi. It's an account of somebody who see the world through their own lens - and these are the lore that directly interact with the event, not just from the lore book like "The World of Thedas", which is pretty much an abstract.

 

[Storyfag]

As expected,

This is my prediction: they will plagiarise Earthdawn/Shadowrun and have the mere act of using blood magic weaken the veil further, thus make it no-no for the failguards.