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

[malx]

I see the day of reckoning will soon be upon us, this is shaping up very nicely, the game sounds even worse then I ever imagined.

 

[Turisas]

Muzyka and Zeschuk should get together and play this game, to witness what they ultimately unleashed upon the world.

 

[whydoibother]

TLOU2 is the most cliche story I have ever seen and gaming journos were creaming themselves over it. There is literally a point in the game were you are forced to kill a dog that is attacking you and then they change the playable character to the dog's owner and show he was a good pup and you are evil for killing him.

That doesn't sound like the most cliche story at all. Actually sounds like doing the exact thing most plots avoid. Also having you kill the last story's main character.

 

[Pink Eye]

Someone is playing early: https://www.twitch.tv/headus70

 

[sebas]

Morrigan

 

[kapisi]

Someone is playing early: https://www.twitch.tv/headus70

What is this, German? I can't fucking speak German!

 

[Pink Eye]

I can't fucking speak German!

Me either. It's okay. We don't need english to watch gameplay.

 

[whydoibother]

gameplay

Any moment now....

 

[Louis_Cypher]

 

[Artyoan]

Place your bets boys, I am expecting a metascore around 85-88

I'll go with 82 as the metascore. Player reviews will be mixed on steam after a week.

I'd guess the critical points will be a monotonous/weak combat system, disappointing story/characters, and questionable art style.

The claim will be that it sold with expectations for a while until they quietly admit that it underperformed in a few months.

 

[Lodis]

3/5 from The Guardian but the article got removed for breaching embargo

 

[Pink Eye]

 

[Elttharion]

3/5 from The Guardian but the article got removed for breaching embargo

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard review – a good RPG, but an underwhelming Dragon Age game" 3/5

edit: some top level paragraph pulls from the article based on the discussions areas in the comments for the other review posted

COMBAT Combat is now entirely real-time. You can still order your companions to use their skills via a ring menu similar to Mass Effect’s, which I sometimes had to do because my companions wouldn’t do useful things such as healing Rook or slowing down time without my say-so. But for the most part, they act autonomously. All I have to do is attack and dodge, pressing the same three buttons over and over again, throwing in the occasional combat skill or finishing move as my companions yell at me to watch out for imminent ranged attacks or explosions. It’s serviceable, but we’ve seen it before in countless other games, and there’s not much room for strategy. Boss battles are quite challenging, however. Dodging is vital, and you won’t get ahead by blindly slashing at your enemies.

DIALOGUE No matter which dialogue option you pick, a lot of it inevitably ends in some sort of joke, and sometimes even mildly embarrassing pop culture references and idioms. (I never want to hear a character say a griffon is “feeling his oats”, please. Please.) Veilguard isn’t the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque jokefest fans feared it might be after its first trailer, but Rook is written less like a person with opinions and more like someone who makes witty observations.

DECISIONS Big decisions that affect the story are few and far between, and the game will tell you exactly what they lead to before you pick. Decisions do, for the most part, carry real consequence, which is nice, but it would have been nicer if the game didn’t tell you that several times before you commit. These choices get rarer as time goes on, almost as if time to implement them ran out later in development.

 

[Aarwolf]

3/5 from The Guardian but the article got removed for breaching embargo

"There is lots to do in this huge and beautiful fantasy world, but inconsistent writing and muted combat dull its blade."

"It's a perfectly enjoyable RPG, then, but an underwhelming Dragon Age game"

 

[Elttharion]

TLOU2 is the most cliche story I have ever seen and gaming journos were creaming themselves over it. There is literally a point in the game were you are forced to kill a dog that is attacking you and then they change the playable character to the dog's owner and show he was a good pup and you are evil for killing him.

That doesn't sound like the most cliche story at all. Actually sounds like doing the exact thing most plots avoid. Also having you kill the last story's main character.

There is a reason why most plots avoid this kind of cheap psychological manipulation and its mostly because it was so overused it became a trope in itself. I agree killing Joel was balsy but the game soon degenerates into a cycle of revenge bad and revenge/violence bad story.

 

[Swen]

Lol The Guardian review already inducing panic attacks on retardera.

 

[Pink Eye]

Kek. Even they think it's going to be meh:

 

[sebas]

Someone is playing early: https://www.twitch.tv/headus70

What is this, German? I can't fucking speak German!

He's changing to English and restarting the game now.

 

[Old Hans]

New enemies appear out of nowhere, attacking you in waves. You may think you're going up against three darkspawn, but nah, have fun grinding down these six waves of teleporting cunts that'll never kill you but take ten minutes to finish off.

again? At least dragon age 2 had the excuse of being slapped together in 12 months

 

[Aarwolf]

Another fragment of Guardian's review:

"The central story is the least interesting thing about Veilguard, both in its narrative and gameplay. Many quests have you endlessly slotting crystals into receptacles to open doors or vanquish blight-boils, pulsing, fleshy growths that keep you from travelling to a place to fight a monster. This isn't out of the ordinary for Dragon Age, but coupled with dissatisfying cameos and by-the-numbers gameplay, it left me feeling disappointed.

The companions save the day. The quality of writing does vary wildly, but it's fun to get to know your new team. Necromancer Emmrich genuinely cares about the dead, wielding his magic like a conductor, and Qunari dragon hunter Taash struggles with questions of identity and gender. Romantic options don't immediately go in hard on awkward flirting and instead often just constitute the nicest thing you might say to someone who's struggling – though the game does have a habit of ruining the fun by jumping in to say, Careful! You're being romantic! Are you sure you want to commit to a romance? The bigger annoyance here is how they behave when you take them on a mission together, when they will make small talk like two colleagues meeting at an office party. "Sooo, Taash, you hunt dragons? I hunt monsters." It's a far cry from Dragon Age: Inquisition's banter."

 

[Lacrymas]

The game is not even out yet but the drama is already delivering.

 

[Pink Eye]

Many quests have you endlessly slotting crystals into receptacles to open doors or vanquish blight-boils, pulsing, fleshy growths that keep you from travelling to a place to fight a monster.

This isn't out of the ordinary for Dragon Age.

What fucking Dragon Age did this asshole play?

 

[Bulo]

FUCK YOUR MOTHER

 

[Old Hans]

Many quests have you endlessly slotting crystals into receptacles to open doors or vanquish blight-boils, pulsing, fleshy growths that keep you from travelling to a place to fight a monster.

This isn't out of the ordinary for Dragon Age.

What fucking Dragon Age did this asshole play?

I know I cant recall a single time in a dragon age game where I needed to open doors with crystals. That sounds like something youd do in a crappy south korean MMO free to play game

 

[Semiurge]

Surely that isn't real? Surely the writing can't be that retarded and vacuous and "for modern audiences?"

It's real sadly. These characters sound like they just walked out of a Starbucks in California rather than being in a fantasy setting hunting a dragon.

https://files.catbox.moe/vmkcvc.mp4

This...
This dialogue feels like a lame low effort parody of tumbrcore writing.
The fact it's real is oddly disturbing.

Yeah, it's hella disturbing. It's like the whole point of these fucking things (some form of suspended disbelief, immersion or escapism) is lost.

You are not being transported to some other place and time with its own logic, but in an extension of your normal "wokeista" life with fancy dress.

Judging by the whole visual style and tone, you're transported to a colorful, ultra-educational saturday morning cartoon.

I've had the unfortunate task of reviewing this game and just finished. I know you're all making fun of this turd, but it's worse than you think. First off, regarding all the woke shit - there's a lot. Believe you me, there is a fucking lot. I mean, the central personal development of Taash is that she is a woman who wants to be a man (so the opposite of what Cael guessed last page), which is probably also why they designed her to look like one. In the spoilers below is a pic from a fairly early conversation (in case there are actually self-harming people among you intending to play this and don't want to be spoiled) where Taash is talking about how she wants to dress like a man, that she hates dresses, that no one wants to be a woman and so on and Neve trying to cheer her up. To be fair, there is actually an option to not sympathize and essentially tell Taash to get her shit together in this convo, though it's inconsequential.

Anyway, point is, it's woke as fuck. Now, that's all well and good but it gets a lot worse because regardless of political and ideological agendas, if we're looking at this game from a purely mechanical perspective it still reeks. I can't give you an example of a single mechanic I enjoyed. The "crafting" is laughable, itemization is horrible, character builds and progression are meaningless and the combat is the worst offender. It's beyond simplistic with every class and sub-class feeling largely the same. The enemies all feel the same too and the only difficulty the game provides stems from enemies having an absurd amount of health making a lot of fights a real slog. New enemies appear out of nowhere, attacking you in waves. You may think you're going up against three darkspawn, but nah, have fun grinding down these six waves of teleporting cunts that'll never kill you but take ten minutes to finish off.

The absolute worst part of combat is the way the "party" works. You don't have a party, not really. Mechanically, it works like a retarded card deck builder. You see, your two companions are immortal (they have no health bars) and aren't targeted nearly as much by enemies in battles like yourself - they're mostly ignored and do little damage besides. Instead, they only serve one real purpose in battles: for you to use their abilities. They can have three equipped at a time (as can you), and these ability cards are the only stuff that does any significant damage. You're supposed to figure out combos, but there's nothing to figure out. Use ability X to give an enemy the effect Y, then use ability Z that does extra damage against enemies affected by Y. It's banal at best. Moreover, all these abilities come with a cooldown - a cooldown they fucking share, meaning once you use one all three go on cooldown (there's a few exceptions to this) - which means you'll spend most of your time simply auto-attacking and dodging enemies whilst waiting for the cooldown to end.

I could go on and on and on, but I won't (I've an actual review to make before the embargo lifts). This game is an utter mess and anyone giving it a positive review can never be taken seriously again.

not a joke

The urge to hit 'B' for SKIP has peaked. This is beyond parody. They know little of DA lore and very little of actual fantasy literature, so what do they do to compensate for this? They fill the game with MODERN-DAY ISSUES.

Did someone already post this? Ah well, I'm posting it again. Get depressed like I did when I saw this:

That picture with the redheaded elfin Rook and Taash and their teeeny mosquito bites, just like in the character creator.

That shit could not have been drawn seriously.

Very sad to see this is how this series is going to die. Not with another mediocre game that fails to live up to Origins, but this disgusting propaganda machine that is barely a game.

Now you have seen what happens when the woke cultists have been given free rein to create something. It may bear the trademark "Dragon Age", but in all other ways this is the perfect example of the hypothetical suggestion made to them - creating new IPs instead of pozzing old ones. For all intents and purposes, this is a new IP now.

They're not creatives, they can never be because their minds are not free. They can only regurgitate propaganda. They're virulent walking bombs.

The author:

I admire the boldness of this loaf of white bread for wearing pan-african colors.

"By Azura, by Azura, by Azura! It's the Grand Champion! I can't believe it's you! Standing here! Next to me!"

"You're the best! Can I... Can I follow you around? I won't get in the way!"

"Golly, you're the best! I'm going to follow you and watch you and worship the ground you walk on! Let's go!"

I knew it would be A.I. Still the mental image of some soyfed tweeb getting cucked by a videogame character was amusing.

I still cannot comprehend subj looks this shitty.

And the game isn't even out yet! Just imagine the marvelous cringe awaiting us when the game fully releases!

That shit is purposely vague, so that it instills fear in the prospective designer. Fear results in maximal self-censorship. You'll have the slaves doing most of the work for you, and when you don't make the doctrine's fine points known it makes it harder for the slaves to question said points.