Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thread

[Artyoan]

Watched the first hour of the game. My speculation:
-The game was ostensibly supposed to be a live service multiplayer game (I've heard)
-The beginning was likely going to be the tutorial where a player made their 'rook' who was just a lackey in some group, like a grunt at the beginning of an MMO. The name also makes much more sense this way.
-Stops the ritual, then the multiplayer mission shit begins after that. Team up with other players doing whatever.
-So all they did was make some characters, who might have always been party members if no one else was around, and throw in a weak story with no imported decisions since that wasn't going to be a live service thing either.

Fits at the seams. Even the transmog system was there, the art style for being an mmo-lite type thing, the health bloat combat. Doubt I'll play this even on a deep sale given the feedback.

 

[Skinwalker]

How has it been ten years and we're still arguing on the Codex whether or not the latest Dragon Age installment was a repurposed MMO or not?

In 2034 am I going to be in the Dragon Age: Shmoopidoop RELEASE thread, reviled at how it's filled with blatant "MAP" and beastiality propaganda, and wondering if the trash combat with one ability and zero companions was intended to be an MMO?

This dream is stuck in a loop.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Ten years? Lol.
I've been saying it from the start. DA:O combat mechanics have some MMO inspirations.

 

[damager]

What's wrong with him analysing how they stiched this botched neo-vagina together?

 

[Supermedo]

I highly doubt it. While there was a live-service version in the works, it was rebooted very early on. The final version of the game actually took over five years of development. I think the MMO-like elements were included because Dragon Age: Inquisition was the best-selling game in the series at the time, and they assumed that was what most players enjoyed.

 

[damager]

loool you can't be serious

 

[damager]

We have seen how incompetent these people are. You can be sure they recycled every little piece of work they could, to get faster done with this. Non of them had a plan how to make a good Dragon Age game to begin with.

 

[Supermedo]

loool you can't be serious

Inquestion is where bioware went all in "action RPG" and it had MMO style quests, it didn't start with Veliguard so it is safe to assume they decided to double into it.
Even with the enemy respawns behind you in DA II, it still retained an element of RTWP combat.

 

[damager]

Yeah I can see that they would be retarded enough to assume that DAI is a good blueprint to move forward.

 

[Supermedo]

Yeah I can see that they would be retarded enough to assume that DAI is a good blueprint to move forward.

According to former Bioware executive producer Mark Darrah, Dragon Age: Inquisition is BioWare’s best selling game with over 12 million copies sold and MASIVELY oversold the internal EA projections

People often forget that Inquisition won multiple Game of the Year awards in 2014. I didn’t like Inquisition myself, but here on Codex, we sometimes exist in our own bubble and end up rewriting Dragon Age history. So, it’s not surprising that Veilguard turned out the way it did.

 

[babayaga]

Common AAA tactic is throwing shit at the wall, seeing what sticks and then overload their next game with excessive amounts of said shit.
Just because a certain aspect of a game is popular doesn't mean you have to put more of that shit in. There needs to be ballance.

 

[Ivan]

GROWLS SEXILY

fucking dead

 

[Vorark]

 

[Terra]

Here's w0t I think about the situation in a big picture kind of way. The 10-year development cycle is what killed this game and potentially BioWare if the next ME is also a flop. There have been massive changes in the gaming zeitgeist in these 10 years, namely how turn-based has been turned into the preferred RPG combat style and how verisimilitude is slowly starting to get appreciated by the mainstream. I'd dare argue BG3 is almost as cringe as Veilguard, just a different kind of cringe. BG3 just has a great combat system and environmental interactions, but the content itself is very bad (like Solasta). The companions (except Astarion and fetish content farms like Halsin and Minthara) are all unsuccessful from a writing stand point.

BioWare had no chances of this ever being popular due to the enforced action combat. God of War bros won't touch this with a ten-foot pole and the new crop of RPG fans are expecting the next BG3, not a mutt with companions who are somehow even worse and don't even show T&A&D. As much as Corinne would hate me for saying this, this game needed one conventionally attractive white woman of standard stature to romance. There's a reason Shart is the most romanced character in BG3. I know RPG connoiseurs don't care about this and I personally would fill my companion roster with all kinds of freaks if I were to make a cRPG (but I wouldn't have romances either, so YMMV), but you have to have some kind of diplomatic sense when developing for the mass market and your budget is 100s of millions.

Also, this strange focus on gender issues is going about it the wrong way. DA:O had Shale who one can argue is some kind of trans because her current body obviously doesn't match her birth one. Having characters go "mom, I'm non-binary" is pointless at best, tone-deaf at worst. I'm starting to ramble about the writing again, but it wasn't my initial intention. My point is that the writing could've been ignored if the game had more RPG elements and had been TB or at least party-based RTwP.

My advice to BioWare going forward with the DA franchise if EA even allows them to make more - remake/remaster DA:O. Fix its combat issues (maybe even make it TB?), expand on the various stories which were left hanging or cut (especially stuff to do with Loghain and Orlais [and no, Corinne, Loghain isn't trans]), add 1-2 more origins (Dalish mage and/or human commoner) and promise the next DA would follow this formula more closely than the last 3 entries. This would give the devs much needed experience with how to create a game like DA:O in the future while providing them an already almost finished game which most people like for a much needed boost in revenue.

They're already thinking about it, according to an interview John Epler made a few days ago. Seems the devs are reluctant because they'd have to work harder (lol). Ultimately the sales of Veilguard will probably decide what EA decides to do. Quote from the article;

“I think I’m one of about maybe 20 people left at BioWare who’s actually used Eclipse,” Epler says. “It’s something that’s not going to be as easy Mass Effect, but we do love the original games. Never say never, I guess that’s what it comes down to.”

They're talking about it in the article as if they have to remaster all three games, however (probably due to the journalist's brain rot), which is obviously retarded given how different the DA games are from one another. Like you said, just remaster or - better yet - remake the first one. There's no crowd for a remaster of the second game anyway, and the third doesn't warrant one.

I'm not sure there's a crowd for a remake of DAO as envisioned by current BioWare either. Based on the BioWare's current direction, I can only imagine what other embellishments they'd add to a remake or remaster. Morrigan will have a penis (& be pansexual), Alistair will be transitioning from the outset, Leliana will cut off her tits and the game will culminate in your player character (who is also trans) having to convince Morrigan to impregnate Alistair (the child will naturally be bisexual). The Dog will die of shame somewhere along the way. Upon release a crowd of troons will be nodding approvingly alongside BioWare, all noting how the new remake seamlessly fits in with the existing timeline and leads directly into the events of the second game. They'll throw in the dialogue wheel and given the Warden the voice of that gay Krogan from a few pages back as a chef's kiss to the package. There's your remaster.

This is a joke right?

It's funny and kinda sad - they can't reference anything she may have done in Origins, her main game, and the one that made her a beloved character but they still found a way to have a dig at any straight male heathens that romanced her to further the degeneracy agenda. Basically just a mascot character at this point trotted out by the puppeteers at BioWare who, being what they are, can only corrupt existing things. The whole thing reminds of the Command & Conquer 4 situation; EA can dress it up however they want and even bring back the fantastic Joe Kucan as Kane, but nobody's buying into that shite as the canonical sequel to past games.

I'm dying for an an update from Gaider tbh, after his prophetic "apparently the Veilguard writing is stellar" quip pre-release on his current safe-space not-Twitter platform of choice, I'm sure he's delighted that Weekes and his entourage destroyed everything he spent years building in the space of one game. Will probably still keep toeing the party line while inwardly seething.

 

[kapisi]

https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/s/Z33gJQquHF

Many people in the subreddit consider Veilguard ending worse than ME3, some have even sent mail to Bioware

 

[Silverfish]

How has it been ten years and we're still arguing on the Codex whether or not the latest Dragon Age installment was a repurposed MMO or not?

Single-player MMO that's living in the shadow of a far more influential Baldur's Gate release. Nothing has changed in 15 years.

 

[Skinwalker]

Many people in the subreddit consider Veilguard ending worse than ME3

Genuine question: what's the ending? Or is it better not to know.

 

[Tyranicon]

There's people complaining about how much the series has declined since Inquisition.

When slop eaters from 10 years ago look at the newest generation of slop eaters:

 

[kapisi]

Many people in the subreddit consider Veilguard ending worse than ME3

Genuine question: what's the ending? Or is it better not to know.

Tldr - Varric died at the beginning, the South (and with it all previous games) is wiped out. Oh, and Illuminati-types were behind all games' events all along

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The storyline of my next rpg will be an isekai.

Larian seems inclined to avoid a conventional fantasy setting for its next game, so I suggest you embrace the isekai setting of the John Carter of Mars (a.k.a. Barsoom) series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, started in 1912.

Painting by Fortunino Matania (1881-1963)

 

[Skinwalker]

Many people in the subreddit consider Veilguard ending worse than ME3

Genuine question: what's the ending? Or is it better not to know.

Tldr - Varric died at the beginning, the South (and with it all previous games) is wiped out. Oh, and Illuminati-types were behind all games' events all along

Thanks, I hate it.

 

[Camel]

You might find it informative:

is anybody gonna play it lol

The cutscenes are horribly written and directed. You know you fucked up when your audience roots for antagonists to kill good guys.

 

[Berengar]

Hey at least this game is producing top notch cringe! Silver lining!

 

[mondblut]

Because his image of what "a barbarian" in a fantasy setting should be is pinup art for paperback pulp books he hasn't read, but has seen pictures of.

Go on then, let's see these real stereotypical barbarian women. I mean, I'm all up for being enlightened, especially when it comes to barbarian women. If not stuff like Conan, He-Man or movies what is this elusive source material?

 

[Storyfag]

The whole thing reminds of the Command & Conquer 4 situation

Repeat after the Confessor: there was no Command & Conquer 4. The Confessor is your friend, and wants the pain to end. Repeat the words. Accept Kane into your heart.