Dragon Age™: The Veilguard is a Return To Form

[PixiGreen]

A little fresh air:



(I am beginning to hate the purple colour. Now I know how the "eye caries" feels like)

A 6? Seriously? Yeah... no.

He did not give 6 out of 10. He compared different reviews out there to show they are all over the place and it's not good (for the game).

[Jordy]

>boot up dark fantasy RPG
>ready to get lost in a realized world, cleaving the skulls of my foes and facing tough moral choices between idealism and pragmatism
>art and story are like a Pixar movie
>meet Taash
>Taash is written as average sh*tlib on twitter, her only character traits are HD LGTV talking points
>can't disagree with Taash, can't even choose not to recruit Taash
>most meaningful choice game will give me is whether or not to come out as *****
>uninstall game, unplug computer and give it to poor kid down the street
>take up woodworking

>poor kid down the street becomes a ******

[WaterMage]

I took it from another forum but interesting non the less.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Are you guys still surprised that bots and all kinds of botting used in marketing? Please, tell me you are not that stupid.

[1998]

Are you guys still surprised that bots and all kinds of botting used in marketing? Please, tell me you are not that stupid.

I mean OK, but if they drop serious money on bot-marketing here they are doing a terrible job at it

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Are you guys still surprised that bots and all kinds of botting used in marketing? Please, tell me you are not that stupid.

I mean OK, but if they drop serious money on bot-marketing here they are doing a terrible job at it

Bots are extremely cheap, so it is not even a big money.

[Nooneatall]

I took it from another forum but interesting non the less.

**** Mort. Dude is a huge ******

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Larian sold out https://www.pcgamer.com/games/dragon-ag ... nts-to-be/

Larian's publishing chief Michael Douse has been playing The Veilguard alongside reviewers for the last few weeks and went on X to call it "the first Dragon Age game that truly knows what it wants to be."

I’ve been playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard in complete secrecy (behind my backpack at the office in front of a giant window, in the kitchen). From me, you may be wondering “is this a game compatible with my experience during BG3” so I’ll tackle it from that perspective.

The answer is yes. It is to a heavy, 9 season long show what a well-made, character driven, binge-worthy Netflix series is.

It has a good sense of propulsion and forward momentum. The combat system is honestly brilliant (to me, a mix of Xenoblade & Hogwarts which is giga-brain genius). It knows when it needs a tentpole narrative moment, and it knows when to let you toy around with your class and exploit some of its stronger elements.

More important, to me, it feels like the first Dragon Age game that truly knows what it wants to be.

In short, if you want some character driven romping with a strong combat system in a universe you know, love, or have heard of, it is much better than the average action game, and much less heavy than the gargantuan RPGs that may intimidate at times. In a word, it’s fun!

To me, I’m extremely happy BioWare gets to stick around - presumably - in these uncertain (because of moronic corporate greed) times. An existential game, and a fun one at that.

I don't remember who was trying to convince me that BG3 is greatest RPG of all time, definitely better than DOS2. **** this people, you expect me to believe that this kind of devs can do something good or even great? **** you.

[Analogue Dreams]

I still find it a confusing *****-formation how we went from qunari guy of first game, Sten, an outcast from an extremely strict warrior society, to these beastmen that look like D&D 4e tiefling rejects and act like 21st-century game devs who wrote them. I was told answer was in DA2, but uninstalled it before I finished it once I noticed every environment in the game was a copy paste job of reused assets (on top of the usual reasons). So I am just left with a bizarre unexplained discontinuity between what I remember and what I see. Great retcon.

"Bioware" brand of today reminds me of folklore about fey and demons; incapable of creating their own culture, they can only imitate it in a perverse mock performance of the real thing. Is it a coincidence they chose Halloween for this terrifying freakshow to be released? The spirits of the otherworld will all come over to our side this Samhain, and retreat immediately back to their world in terror from any home where they see the occupant playing this. I'm in disbelief at how bad and woke this looks and how far this series has fallen. Is this actually going to be as horrible as marketing material makes it look, where every NPC talks like at a Bioware workplace meeting declaring pronouns and how to address them?

Kind of more disgusting than funny. At least a lot of BG3's was funny, but I don't think this will even have illithid gay bear druid sex in it, will it? Highlight of my evil BG3 playthrough was the surprise illithid sex and psychically forcing my party members to watch it, and bugged zombie Minthara not making a single comment to me about it or anything else.

[Roguey]

Cromwelp is a moron, true years ago, true now.

Devs journos and publishers have circled the wagons and are all defending bioware from the evil... *checks my notes* ... customers.
Interesting strategy.

Took 13 years to get from this to now https://www.neogaf.com/threads/bioware- ... er.425309/

To summarize, in the case of Dragon Age 2, BioWare neglected their main demographic: The Straight Male Gamer.

To the OP: doing the same act repeatedly and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. What you hope to achieve by posting the same thread over and over again I can't honestly say.

To some of the others on this thread: While an ignorant opinion politely expressed doesn't make it less ignorant, I will say that the behavior of some of you is far worse. Calling someone a "troll" who expressed his thoughts in an intelligent manner and acting like hooligans suggesting if you just throw enough dirt that eventually that person will either go away or the thread will get locked will earn you a ban. No matter the opinion, I think how it's expressed deserves the same in kind. If you can't do that, refrain.

To the issue: I've said it before and I'll say it again-- perhaps a bit more eloquently, since it's apparently of dire concern to some.

The romances in the game are not for "the straight male gamer". They're for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don't need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant... and that's ignoring the idea that they don't have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The "rights" of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent "right" to get more options than anyone else.

More than that, I would question anyone deciding they speak for "the straight male gamer" just as much as someone claiming they speak for "all RPG fans", "all female fans" or even "all gay fans". You don't. If you wish to express your personal desires, then do so. I have no doubt that any opinion expressed on these forums is shared by many others, but since none of them have elected a spokesperson you're better off not trying to be one. If your attempt is to convince BioWare developers, I can tell you that you do in fact make your opinion less convincing by doing so.

And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.

The truth is that making a romance available for both genders is far less costly than creating an entirely new one. Does it create some issues of implementation? Sure-- but anything you try on this front is going to have its issues, and inevitably you'll always leave someone out in the cold. In this case, are all straight males left out in the cold? Not at all. There are romances available for them just the same as anyone else. Not all straight males require that their content be exclusive, after all, and you can see that even on this thread.

Would I do it again? I don't know. I doubt I would have Anders make the first move again-- at the time, I thought that requiring all romances to have Hawke initiate everything was the unrealistic part. Even if someone decides that this makes everyone "unrealistically" bisexual, however, or they can't handle the idea that the character might be bisexual if they were another PC... I don't see that as a big concern, to be honest. Romances are never one-size-fits-all, and even for those who don't mind the sexuality issue there's no guarantee they'll find a character they even want to romance. That's why romances are optional content. It's such a personal issue that we'll never be able to please everyone. The very best we can do is give everyone a little bit of choice, and that's what we tried here.

And the person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the one who deserves it least. And that's my opinion, expressed as politely as possible.

In a wall of text. Sorry about that.

And I'm sorry if someone didn't get everything they wanted out of the romances-- as I always am. I wish we could do the ideal where there's something for every desire and opinion, but as usual we make do.

Frog hitting a nice rolling boil.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

I took it from another forum but interesting non the less.

Well mort saying it’s the best game in the series will instantly make me people raise there eyebrows.

[Rand]

Larian's publishing chief Michael Douse has been playing The Veilguard alongside reviewers for the last few weeks and went on X to call it "the first Dragon Age game that truly knows what it wants to be."

Yep. The lead dev wanted it to be degenerate and disgusting alphabet nonsense, and it sure is.

But Douse is a stupid *******. Origins wanted to be a dark fantasy RPG and nailed it. Also was a decent game, unlike FailHard.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

All right place your bets on the critic scores for tomorrow. I’m guessing mid 85 on metacritic and for user scores on release day will be mid to low 70’s.

Right again.

I really wish the games industry wasn’t so predictable in all its worse aspects but time and time again I’m proven correct.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Cromwelp is a moron, true years ago, true now.

Devs journos and publishers have circled the wagons and are all defending bioware from the evil... *checks my notes* ... customers.
Interesting strategy.

Took 13 years to get from this to now https://www.neogaf.com/threads/bioware- ... er.425309/

To summarize, in the case of Dragon Age 2, BioWare neglected their main demographic: The Straight Male Gamer.

To the OP: doing the same act repeatedly and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. What you hope to achieve by posting the same thread over and over again I can't honestly say.

To some of the others on this thread: While an ignorant opinion politely expressed doesn't make it less ignorant, I will say that the behavior of some of you is far worse. Calling someone a "troll" who expressed his thoughts in an intelligent manner and acting like hooligans suggesting if you just throw enough dirt that eventually that person will either go away or the thread will get locked will earn you a ban. No matter the opinion, I think how it's expressed deserves the same in kind. If you can't do that, refrain.

To the issue: I've said it before and I'll say it again-- perhaps a bit more eloquently, since it's apparently of dire concern to some.

The romances in the game are not for "the straight male gamer". They're for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don't need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant... and that's ignoring the idea that they don't have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The "rights" of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent "right" to get more options than anyone else.

More than that, I would question anyone deciding they speak for "the straight male gamer" just as much as someone claiming they speak for "all RPG fans", "all female fans" or even "all gay fans". You don't. If you wish to express your personal desires, then do so. I have no doubt that any opinion expressed on these forums is shared by many others, but since none of them have elected a spokesperson you're better off not trying to be one. If your attempt is to convince BioWare developers, I can tell you that you do in fact make your opinion less convincing by doing so.

And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.

The truth is that making a romance available for both genders is far less costly than creating an entirely new one. Does it create some issues of implementation? Sure-- but anything you try on this front is going to have its issues, and inevitably you'll always leave someone out in the cold. In this case, are all straight males left out in the cold? Not at all. There are romances available for them just the same as anyone else. Not all straight males require that their content be exclusive, after all, and you can see that even on this thread.

Would I do it again? I don't know. I doubt I would have Anders make the first move again-- at the time, I thought that requiring all romances to have Hawke initiate everything was the unrealistic part. Even if someone decides that this makes everyone "unrealistically" bisexual, however, or they can't handle the idea that the character might be bisexual if they were another PC... I don't see that as a big concern, to be honest. Romances are never one-size-fits-all, and even for those who don't mind the sexuality issue there's no guarantee they'll find a character they even want to romance. That's why romances are optional content. It's such a personal issue that we'll never be able to please everyone. The very best we can do is give everyone a little bit of choice, and that's what we tried here.

And the person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the one who deserves it least. And that's my opinion, expressed as politely as possible.

In a wall of text. Sorry about that.

And I'm sorry if someone didn't get everything they wanted out of the romances-- as I always am. I wish we could do the ideal where there's something for every desire and opinion, but as usual we make do.

Frog hitting a nice rolling boil.

Oh my GOD!

The truth is that making a romance available for both genders is far less costly than creating an entirely new one. Does it create some issues of implementation? Sure-- but anything you try on this front is going to have its issues, and inevitably you'll always leave someone out in the cold.

This ****** openly said that he wanted to add women and lgtv to paying customer base but do not want to spend money and effort to offer them compelling romance! Instead he declared that homosexuals and heterosexuals build their relationship in the same way and saved tons of money on production!

The most hilarious of all this is the fact that women and lgtv accepted this impersonal and universalized something and asked for more! They defend this approach! Do they have any self-respect at all?

[1998]

And once again those journos are making everything about themselves

IGN：

“And while we've been asked by the devs not to spoil specifically who I'm talking about here, as a non-binary person myself, Veilguard includes some of the most authentic representation of coming to terms with gender stuff – and having to navigate your family's reaction to it – I've seen yet in a game. It doesn't feel like an after school special or like I'm being pandered to. It's quite well-handled, and finding out that the writer for this character is non-binary themselves did not surprise me at all.”

[Rand]

“And while we've been asked by the devs not to spoil specifically who I'm talking about here, as a non-binary person myself, Veilguard includes some of the most authentic representation of coming to terms with gender stuff – and having to navigate your family's reaction to it – I've seen yet in a game. It doesn't feel like an after school special or like I'm being pandered to. It's quite well-handled, and finding out that the writer for this character is non-binary themselves did not surprise me at all.”

I literally want to hunt these worthless deviants down and hang them.

[Xenich]

So basically, you're forced to be good towards the ****** companions and bad towards everyone else who isn't a freak?

Does check out with the worldview of the devs. kek

It would appear you're not allowed to be remotely abrasive or aggressive to anyone. There was not a drop of testosterone in the building when they made this game, and there's no possible way it could appeal to anyone with a drop more than that.

Your character just plays mother hen to a bunch of gay ******** children, there I spoiled the game.

I can’t wait to see the sales numbers for this game. Guessing it going to be underwhelming ( 2 to 3 million unit’s) I would want it to flop with concords numbers but it’s unlikely since it’s a established franchise with decent size fanbase.

What kills me is the level of acrobatics people do to force themselves to play garbage like this knowing it is junk, just because it is a franchise they are a fan of. Have a little dignity people!

There are numerous franchises I loved, but the moment they got too stupid with this crap, I dropped them. Star Wars, Star Trek, etc... It is absurd to consume this filth just because you liked the original. I really don't understand people and it is their "tolerance" of this garbage that allows it to exist.

[rusty_shackleford]

Selection_006.webp

[rusty_shackleford]

The preview build they shilled to content creators as "the first act" was actually the first ~75% of the game with basically all the fluff cut away and condensed down.
In awe of EA's prowess at shilling tbh

[Xenich]

At first steam forums were flooded with ****** happy dancing and proclaiming victory and circling around anyone who suggested the game wasn't the "best game eva!"

Now it appears (at least until a mod does a mass delete) that the forums are being overrun by people pointing out the how horrible the game is and how manipulated the reviews claiming high scores were.


I think this game will provide a lot of entertainment value, and you don't even have to play it!

So far, I give it a 7/10, but I fully expect it to hit a 10/10 after release.

[Griffin]

Shame that it won't be Concord caliber bomb, but hopefully flops at least as badly as Forspoken. I just found Dragon Age Origins so ******* boring slog, but at least that could be called grimdark fantasy.

[Roguey]

This ****** openly said that he wanted to add women and lgtv to paying customer base but do not want to spend money and effort to offer them compelling romance! Instead he declared that homosexuals and heterosexuals build their relationship in the same way and saved tons of money on production!

The most hilarious of all this is the fact that women and lgtv accepted this impersonal and universalized something and asked for more! They defend this approach! Do they have any self-respect at all?

Gaider's pretty matter-of-fact about production realities. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/david- ... ape-sequel

“It’s hard, especially for the younger audience today, to think of what it was like back then in the early 00s,” he adds. “Even when we started Dragon: Age Origins, on many levels, there was a lot of trepidation. I had a character I wanted to make gay - Zevran, the assassin. And they were still going, ‘Oh, well, you know that’s a really small part of the audience, so if we’re going to do that much content for it let’s make him bisexual at least’. So he can do double duty.”

He also ultimately decided that having all companions be player/bisexual was the wrong decision https://www.shacknews.com/article/10347 ... gs?page=15

When I talk about blowback, I'm not just talking about the Gamergate crap either. We probably got as much, if not more, from the social justice crowd. We got it from both sides. Even after Dragon Age Inquisition came out, saying that characters had sexuality and that you might not be able to romance them? Well, of a sudden it was, "I'm a lesbian player and I can't romance Cassandra? How dare you! How dare you, BioWare, not make her available [to me]?" There's a certain amount of entitlement on both sides.

I tend to think that on the social justice side, they're coming at it from a different direction in terms of, they don't get this kind of content very much, so they're coming at it maybe from a position of need. But there's still entitlement. As far as how the writers felt about it, we liked the agency of characters who decided for themselves. The player-sexuality left a bad taste in our mouths. So, yeah, you're right, that's why we eventually moved away from that. But at the time, during Dragon Age 2, it seemed like a good idea.

I recall seeing him recoil at the news that everyone in Veilguard was pansexual, can't be bothered to look it up though.

[Irenaeus]

I just found Dragon Age Origins so ******* boring slog, but at least that could be called grimdark fantasy.

I never played Dragon Age 1 because it looked poorly written and feminist/woke even back then from the trailers/marketing material, also because Bioware was making terrible games before (Jade Empire and Mass Effect come to mind). I was really ahead of the times.

[Nooneatall]

Should I get excited for bioware finally dying or am I coping?

[gerey]

Gaider's pretty matter-of-fact about production realities.

"I wanted to add ******* to the game despite ******* being a minuscule minority and the fact their presence would alienate far more costumers than it would attract, and BIGOTS at the company dared object!"

I hope every homosexual on this globe gets rounded up and stoned to death. Cockroaches, the lot of them.

[WaterMage]

A professional game dev DESTROYING the atrocious writing in Failguard :


11:20

"I don't believe this could be AI generated because it's actually so terrible...I believe that this was created by a human who is actually incompetent at writing."

[Breathe]

Should I get excited for bioware finally dying or am I coping?

There is a lag effect so it will take some more time, but I do see it happening. This game will not sell well overall.

[Roguey]

"I wanted to add ******* to the game despite ******* being a minuscule minority and the fact their presence would alienate far more costumers than it would attract, and BIGOTS at the company dared object!"

I hope every homosexual on this globe gets rounded up and stoned to death. Cockroaches, the lot of them.

He's not saying his bosses were bigots, just that they had monetary concerns. Bioware itself ended up being radicalized by the online homophobic reaction to what they did ultimately decide on. From that second link I posted:

For every guy who's like, "I don't like that my characters can be gay!" For everyone who did that, perhaps we'd draw in someone else who said, "There are no games like this [for me]." If we could get them to play, does that not make up for it? We had no data to test that out, but the feeling at BioWare was, the more [frequent] those comments occurred, the more we said, "I don't know that I want to make a game for those people [who would be disgusted]."

There was some nervousness, at least on my part, of, what about our publisher, EA? Are they okay with this? Anyone up the chain of command could have said, "That's too big a risk. Don't do it." But nobody did.

Veilguard is the ultimate expression of "I don't want to make a game for those people."

[logincrash]

For every guy who's like, "I don't like that my characters can be gay!" For everyone who did that, perhaps we'd draw in someone else who said, "There are no games like this [for me]." If we could get them to play, does that not make up for it? We had no data to test that out, but the feeling at BioWare was, the more [frequent] those comments occurred, the more we said, "I don't know that I want to make a game for those people [who would be disgusted]."

There was some nervousness, at least on my part, of, what about our publisher, EA? Are they okay with this? Anyone up the chain of command could have said, "That's too big a risk. Don't do it." But nobody did.

Veilguard is the ultimate expression of "I don't want to make a game for those people."

Wow, the "we had no data" thing is so funny.
"Yeah, let's crash this company with no survivors by stuffing our games full of gay **** just because we feel there are more fudgepackers than there are normal people."

[Oyster Sauce]

Those super tough revenant demon things that ambush you in DAO were so cool