Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thread

[Harthwain]

As far as 'lore' is concerned I increasingly believe that it is better for a good game to be a one and done experience rather than receive a sequel as in the majority of cases what made the original game work will inevitably be ignored and/or changed.

You can arguably have a good sequel (or an expansion), provided that there is still room for the extra lore and exploration left.

 

[Orud]

As I mentioned, even back then the DA2 debacle, the common opinion was they got fucked over by EA.

Yeah, no. DA2 was being blasted from day 1 for shit like;

• "DA2: shit mountain", because the starting location of DA2 made it look like a puddle of shit.
• Memes about shield carrying character having their back towards the enemy, because of the stupid mechanics in the game.
• Web comics about people revisiting the same damn cave, with the entry sign's name being crossed out and overwritten with a new name.
• Comparisons with DA:O about how most of the few DA2 locations not only looked uglier, but a lot of the DA2 background NPC's looked like characters from 1997.
• Ect... .

As someone that was on BSN back in the day the devs were only interested in blasting anyone not liking their game for "not understanding it", "wanting to waste dev time on content hidden behind choices" and "you're not our audience anymore". It did NOT go over well.

Only months, if not years afterwards, did the devs themselves (and the Bioware apologists) start with the "oh no, it was all EA's fault" narrative.

 

[Tyranicon]

As far as 'lore' is concerned I increasingly believe that it is better for a good game to be a one and done experience rather than receive a sequel as in the majority of cases what made the original game work will inevitably be ignored and/or changed.

You can arguably have a good sequel (or an expansion), provided that there is still room for the extra lore and exploration left.

It's a question of ownership.

Long form series excel most when it's created by a single author, who has complete ownership and creative freedom. When it's a corporate cash cow IP, handed through successive generations of declining ability and dedication, the end result is predictable.

 

[Camel]

Fuck off with the revisionism, both DA2 and DAI were SHIT. DA2 with its terrible, recycled maps and axing of all C&C, and DAI being a singleplayer MMO for faggots that want to ride the bull

DA2, Andromeda, Anthem and Veilguard are shit. Inquisition is a boring game but sadly it sold well and got shilled hard by the game journos.
There is a notable decline in writing quality since DA2 and ME3, the latter had the best combat in the trilogy at least.

 

[Larianshill]

If you want to remember how DA2 was viewed at the time, here's a good reminder



There's an interesting criticism that Perturbed Pablo makes, that few people do - you spend the entire game in one city, so you'd think they'd make it interesting, but it's boring as shit and ugly to look at. The story spans ten years, but only one character visibly ages (and drastically too, making it weird that nobody else does), and there are no meaningful changes to the city across these ten years.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

If you want to remember how DA2 was viewed at the time, here's a good reminder



There's an interesting criticism that Perturbed Pablo makes, that few people do - you spend the entire game in one city, so you'd think they'd make it interesting, but it's boring as shit and ugly to look at. The story spans ten years, but only one character visibly ages (and drastically too, making it weird that nobody else does), and there are no meaningful changes to the city across these ten years.

An interesting parallel is Vizima from the first Witcher. Half of the game happens on that city, but it's busy, dirty, interesting, often dangerous, but never boring - just like how a big city is meant to be. And it's much more highlighted by the fact that everybody fucking hates the swamps.

Bioware were never that good at making cities, and the ones they make that are notable certainly come from their licensed games.In the case of 2 you can tell it's because it was meant to be a DLC.

 

[Elttharion]

As far as 'lore' is concerned I increasingly believe that it is better for a good game to be a one and done experience rather than receive a sequel as in the majority of cases what made the original game work will inevitably be ignored and/or changed.

You can arguably have a good sequel (or an expansion), provided that there is still room for the extra lore and exploration left.

It's a question of ownership.

Long form series excel most when it's created by a single author, who has complete ownership and creative freedom. When it's a corporate cash cow IP, handed through successive generations of declining ability and dedication, the end result is predictable.

Yeah, I even brofisted this but I changed my mind now. These are passages from the new Brandon Sanderson fantasy book:

Trannies

Does it reminds you of something?

Spoiler

So I am non binary

Sanderson posted, saying, “My current stance is one of unequivocable support for LGBTQ+ rights. I support gay marriage. I support trans rights, the rights of non-binary people, and I support the rights of trans people to affirm their own identity with love and support. I support anti-discrimination legislation, and have voted consistently along these lines for the last fifteen years. I am marking the posting of this FAQ item, at the encouragement of several of my LGBTQ+ fans, with a sizable donation to the Utah Pride Center and another to The OUT Foundation.”

He continued saying this new stance would influence his books like The Stormlight Archives, saying, “I put LGBTQ+ people into my books, and will continue to do so. Not because I want to fulfill a quota, but because I genuinely believe that it is right for the characters–and is a good and important thing for me to be doing.”

“It’s a bigger statement not to include queer characters than to include them,” Sanderson said about his choice to focus on gay characters as part of the main storyline. “It’s a little bit nail-biting because you don’t want to misrepresent anything. Coming from my background, I wanted to be absolutely sure I got this right, so we had professional sensitivity readers, and one of my best friends, Ryan, who one of the characters is based on, has been guiding me along.”

“If I don’t do hard things, then am I actually pursuing art?” Sanderson asked the Esquire interviewer. “I hope people are like, ‘Wow, Brandon’s willing to do really interesting and exciting things with his fiction.’ But I don’t get to decide that—the fans do.”

This is a supposedly devout Mormon who raised tens of millions of dollars on his Kickstarter as an independent writer. Genuinely never really cared about him but from this point forward I am only reading books written by people who died at least a couple decades ago.

 

[Bulo]

Brandon Sanderson

Stopped reading here

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

That reads like he’s trying to get online SWJs off his back. I don’t really know anything about Brandon Sanderson, but it seems like the very few times I’ve heard about him it’s because someone that’s an extreme leftist is bitching about him.

 

[sosmoflux]

I fucking knew there was a reason I hated that Stormlight shite

 

[lycanwarrior]

Please shut down Bharvoware and give Mass Effect and Dragon Age to a new and better developer.

Oh wait, there isn't one.

We don't need Bioware or Mass Effect. Clinging to long-dead IPs is never healthy, just look at Star Wars or Star Trek.

There are always gonna be new IPs, replacing the dead ones. Rn Exodus from Archetype looks hopeful, at least I haven't spotted any red flags yet.

And there will be others. My personal guess is before Daniel Vavra retires he will make at least one epic sci-fi game, he's been harping about that for 20 years now, ever since he got his pet SF project axed by 2K, when he was still there.

Star Wars/Star Trek are pretty much Boomer IPs these days.

Only Marvel still has a large Millenial/Zoomer fanbase.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Please shut down Bharvoware and give Mass Effect and Dragon Age to a new and better developer.

Oh wait, there isn't one.

We don't need Bioware or Mass Effect. Clinging to long-dead IPs is never healthy, just look at Star Wars or Star Trek.

There are always gonna be new IPs, replacing the dead ones. Rn Exodus from Archetype looks hopeful, at least I haven't spotted any red flags yet.

And there will be others. My personal guess is before Daniel Vavra retires he will make at least one epic sci-fi game, he's been harping about that for 20 years now, ever since he got his pet SF project axed by 2K, when he was still there.

Star Wars/Star Trek are pretty much Boomer IPs these days.

Only Marvel still has a large Millenial/Zoomer fanbase.

Star Trek even more so, I was part of the convention scene about a decade ago and the Star Trek guys were all 50 and up.
Even then, the novelty of Marvel is wearing off I'd say. Like the general public is already noticing that these are comic movies after all. Hilariously, there's complains about having to watch dozens of hours of shit to get what's going on, and the overabundance of parallel titles in general, which has been a complaint from comics fans since Marvel themselves started pulling this shit with their comics.

 

[Silverfish]

Hilariously, there's complains about having to watch dozens of hours of shit to get what's going on

It speaks volumes about the average Marvel fan that they need hours of supplementary material to understand two spandex guys punching each other.

 

[Inec0rn]

Star treks dead because Paramount writing team thought they knew better than the 50 years of writers before them. Same thing the Netflix writing team did to the Witcher. Arrogant asf production teams needing to make changes for MoDeRn audiEnces.. Yep and now its all cancelled, great job.

I pretty much don't want to see any new sequels, reboots, remasters or ExpAnDinG ThE UniVerSe of an IP prior to 2010 pretty much ever again, new generation writers are incapable of doing it.

Superhero's are massive decline, basically killed off blockbuster movies with rinse and repeat CGI and dumb quips for tardos.

 

[Lagole Gon]

As I mentioned, even back then the DA2 debacle, the common opinion was they got fucked over by EA.

Yeah, no. DA2 was being blasted from day 1 for shit like;

• "DA2: shit mountain", because the starting location of DA2 made it look like a puddle of shit.
• Memes about shield carrying character having their back towards the enemy, because of the stupid mechanics in the game.
• Web comics about people revisiting the same damn cave, with the entry sign's name being crossed out and overwritten with a new name.
• Comparisons with DA:O about how most of the few DA2 locations not only looked uglier, but a lot of the DA2 background NPC's looked like characters from 1997.
• Ect... .

As someone that was on BSN back in the day the devs were only interested in blasting anyone not liking their game for "not understanding it", "wanting to waste dev time on content hidden behind choices" and "you're not our audience anymore". It did NOT go over well.

Only months, if not years afterwards, did the devs themselves (and the Bioware apologists) start with the "oh no, it was all EA's fault" narrative.

I'm fairly sure the "EA wanted to turn Bioware games into mass produced games like FIFA, that's why DA2 was so rushed" narrative was there from the start. Surely, not years after the release.

 

[Jaedar]

The BioWare brand has been shit for the last ten years.

Yeah, but there's a lot of people who still WANT it to be good, which is how we get the massive wave of "return to form" reviews. So the brand still had a lot of good will with reviewers (and probably some consumers). The question is if there's any value left in the brand after this disappointment. EA hasn't shuttered the studio yet, which I take as evidence that they still think the bioware brand is more positive than a new studio with a new name.

 

[Harthwain]

EA hasn't shuttered the studio yet, which I take as evidence that they still think the bioware brand is more positive than a new studio with a new name.

I suspect Mass Effect 4 will be BioWare last chance to survive as the studio.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The BioWare brand has been shit for the last ten years.

Yeah, but there's a lot of people who still WANT it to be good, which is how we get the massive wave of "return to form" reviews. So the brand still had a lot of good will with reviewers (and probably some consumers). The question is if there's any value left in the brand after this disappointment. EA hasn't shuttered the studio yet, which I take as evidence that they still think the bioware brand is more positive than a new studio with a new name.

I don’t think they give a shit if BioWare is good, they just can’t let the CHUDs win. Once the framing of the attack becomes political, you’re going to have dipshit reviewers fighting for it because now it can’t lose. If people were just attacking the game for looking bland and having shit gameplay I doubt reviewers would’ve gone as hard in the paint for it. Take Mass Effect Andromeda for example; the criticism of that game largely stayed apolitical, for the longest time it was mainly just built around people sharing gifs of how buggy the game was and showing off out badly written and stilted the game was. The Andromeda criticism was mostly apolitical and you didn’t have reviewers saying it was the second coming of BioWare, the best thing BioWare as ever made, and giving it perfect and near perfect review scores.

There’s clearly no value left in the BioWare as a studio or a brand because nobody buys their games. If The Veilguard was the same piece of fucking shit it is, and it sold well, then there’d be value in the brand. But it didn’t sell. That’s really all it comes down to. This is their third failure in a row and it took them multiple restarts and nearly half a decade to make what’s surely their biggest bomb.

EA doesn’t even need a new studio with a new name to do what BioWare does. BioWare makes third person shooters and action games now. EA already has studios better equipped to make the kinds of games BioWare is trying to make now. Respawn Entertainment and DICE could both make better action games than BioWare.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I suspect Mass Effect 4 will be BioWare last chance to survive as the studio.

Didn't we say that for like the past 3 games or so? I don't think this studio will be closed down, unfortunately, at least not no anyway. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

[Orud]

I'm fairly sure the "EA wanted to turn Bioware games into mass produced games like FIFA, that's why DA2 was so rushed" narrative was there from the start. Surely, not years after the release.

The only thing that was going on around that time was how the "button = awesome" shit during their marketing campaign was to chase the COD crowd, which was also talked about in the context of Mass Effect's changes due to some developer interviews. Considering how 'fast' ME2 followed up on ME1, no one batted an eye to the release cadence.

Dragon Age 1 & 2 was a different time, before lootboxes, it was the pre-order micro DLC time. The entire FIFA lootbox chase came year(s) afterwards, when ME3's MP lootboxes became a thing and when Andrew Wilson was promoted to CEO.

 

[Camel]

As I mentioned, even back then the DA2 debacle, the common opinion was they got fucked over by EA.

Yeah, no. DA2 was being blasted from day 1 for shit like;

• "DA2: shit mountain", because the starting location of DA2 made it look like a puddle of shit.
• Memes about shield carrying character having their back towards the enemy, because of the stupid mechanics in the game.
• Web comics about people revisiting the same damn cave, with the entry sign's name kept being crossed out and overwritten with a new name.
• Comparisons with DA:O about how most of the few DA2 locations not only looked uglier, but a lot of the DA2 background NPC's looked like characters from 1997.
• Ect... .

As someone that was on BSN back in the day the devs were only interested in blasting anyone not liking their game for "not understanding it", "wanting to waste dev time on content hidden behind choices" and "you're not our audience anymore". It did NOT go over well.

Only months, if not years afterwards, did the devs themselves (and the Bioware apologists) start with the "oh no, it was all EA's fault" narrative.

Right. People trashed DA2 for gameplay reasons and bad writing. Reused locations(one dungeon, onecave, one warehouse), bad and extremely streamlined combat, introducing a dialogue wheel from Mass Effect etc.
Only one gamer notably criticised it for faggotry.
BioWare pretended to ignore the backlash but internally they acknowledged it and the ME3 endings backlash and tried to rectify it in DA:I.

 

[Tyrr]

Only one gamer notably criticised it for faggotry.

The main thing I remembered was Anders suddenly becoming a faggot just because I was nice to him. (And then angry because I told him to fuck off)
This must be the first video game where this happened. Of course today its normal with BG3 and such. But back then if was a 'what the fuck' moment.

 

[Camel]

The BioWare brand has been shit for the last ten years.

Yeah, but there's a lot of people who still WANT it to be good, which is how we get the massive wave of "return to form" reviews. So the brand still had a lot of good will with reviewers (and probably some consumers). The question is if there's any value left in the brand after this disappointment. EA hasn't shuttered the studio yet, which I take as evidence that they still think the bioware brand is more positive than a new studio with a new name.

I don’t think they give a shit if BioWare is good, they just can’t let the CHUDs win. Once the framing of the attack becomes political, you’re going to have dipshit reviewers fighting for it because now it can’t lose. If people were just attacking the game for looking bland and having shit gameplay I doubt reviewers would’ve gone as hard in the paint for it. Take Mass Effect Andromeda for example; the criticism of that game largely stayed apolitical, for the longest time it was mainly just built around people sharing gifs of how buggy the game was and showing off out badly written and stilted the game was. The Andromeda criticism was mostly apolitical and you didn’t have reviewers saying it was the second coming of BioWare, the best thing BioWare as ever made, and giving it perfect and near perfect review scores.

There’s clearly no value left in the BioWare as a studio or a brand because nobody buys their games. If The Veilguard was the same piece of fucking shit it is, and it sold well, then there’d be value in the brand. But it didn’t sell. That’s really all it comes down to. This is their third failure in a row and it took them multiple restarts and nearly half a decade to make what’s surely their biggest bomb.

EA doesn’t even need a new studio with a new name to do what BioWare does. BioWare makes third person shooters and action games now. EA already has studios better equipped to make the kinds of games BioWare is trying to make now. Respawn Entertainment and DICE could both make better action games than BioWare.

Veilguard became another battle in the culture war which why the leftists and mainstream journos defended it so hard despite it being shit and killing the franchise. DA:V is a bad game with godawful writing but chuds hate it and it has troons and fags and a player can “come out” as a troon, so the game journos felt obligated to defend it. The same will happen with Avowed.
Leftists and the mainstream journos also defend Hollywood trash like the Marvels and Rings of Power because they consider them as a part of the culture war.

 

[cvv]

I don’t think they give a shit if BioWare is good, they just can’t let the CHUDs win. Once the framing of the attack becomes political, you’re going to have dipshit reviewers fighting for it because now it can’t lose.

You have it backwards, dipshit reviewers aren't allahu akbaring games with social messaging as a reaction to chuds hating them. They're doing it to boost their signal and it's the chuds reacting with hate - to the messaging AND to the corruption of the journo profession.

 

[Camel]

The main thing I remembered was Anders suddenly becoming a faggot just because I was nice to him. (And then angry because I told him to fuck off)
This must be the first video game where this happened. Of course today its normal with BG3 and such. But back then if was a 'what the fuck' moment.

If you inadvertently clicked a heart icon you were locked in a (fag) romance with a companion.