#DA fandom critical

[thedissonantverses]

Hehehe I really really really try not to engage with this stuff but just. The bad media literacy. Because of course this person is also reblogging just bad bad bad takes like this:

@postcardsfromheapside you get my salt take for the day and thanks prev!! Hahhahaha

I need people to stop focusing on Solas either through a romantic lens or one where he’s the hero he paints himself to be. Ya know. Speaking of unreliable narrators. Solas has been the villain the whole time hate to break it to you. And that’s good! It’s good writing!! I love this character even if I want to break his nose and yeet him back into Fade jail most days. He’s a good character! He’s just also an ancient elf supremacist who cannot stop fucking up to save his life and he’s an arrogant bastard while he’s at it and that’s wonderful for us. Not so much for him.

You can rejoin the Discourse once you figure out Solas was never and should never be the main character of Dragon Age because it would make the universe worse. Until then….think ya need break from video games for a while.

Oh and Emmrich was right Solas was wrong.

Wow, asshole

[thedissonantverses]

Alright the calling Veilguard immature or young adult media because there’s not enough naked people…I don’t get it. It comes across as immature and like you conflate nudity and sex with mature content. My two favorite flavors are “the romances were chaste” and the game is “weirdly sexless.” The former feels like you’re not familiar with BioWare and the latter feels like you didn’t actually play Veilguard.

But more…I don’t know fanworks are just so much better at this? Like even if there had been full cut scenes devoted to it I still would want to read fanfiction over it. This goes for the romances too. I get wanting them to be more fleshed out but again, this isn’t a romance game. Go read fanfiction!!! Seriously!!!

I actually do what to encourage people to write their smutty fanfics on this. I want you to adapt the whole game to focus on your romance. I’m not saying this to be pedantic I mean it! I’m doing this and do you have any idea how much has to get left out to make VG romance focused??? It’s A LOT.

I just think if you want romance and sex only there are games that cater to that. I’m all for both of these I just think DA is more interesting as a whole because they don’t cater to the romances. The story is well written and mature.

Alright now we gotta talk about the Acephobia of it all. (for my ace and demi mutuals I’m talking about Lucanis again and I bet the rest of you are as tired as I am hence the cut)

A LOT of these posts come from Rookanis shippers. Lately I’ve seen that Lucanis isn’t a finished character, that his romance isn’t fleshed out, that he’s not even “into” Rook which I’ve watched the romance. He is. I didn’t even have to read the codex.

Lucanis is a very well-written character with clear motivations and desires. It says way more about you if you can’t tell he’s into Rook than it does about his writing.

It’s also INCREDIBLY acephobic. I don’t know if people know that’s how they’re coming across but calling a romance immature or unfinished because it’s not validated with a naked sex scene on camera is actually childish. It tells me you don’t know what mature storytelling is.

I need people to stop a) acting like the game is immature because it’s not BG3 b) quit being weird because Lucanis didn’t meet your romantasy tropes.

That’s all a you problem and not a writing problem.

[sha-lyuzar]

"You're just mad it's not like origins"

Yeah, how dare i be disappointed in a game series that has followed a certain tone and theme for three games, and has always been narratively complex, and about navigating hard decisions and moral dilemmas, structual injustices, deep characterisations, beauty and tragedy in tandem, rich worldstates and character arcs and thin lines between heros and villains... it's almost as if my disappointment stems from care and passion for dragon age, and not from an unwillingness to accept change, or a misplaced sense of nostalgia. It's almost as if people are allowed to criticise a thing and discuss its flaws, while also enjoying other aspects of it, and voicing their opinions on the world's most unprofitable social network to a handfull of followers and mutuals, isn't going to make any meaningful dent in the game's success

[cerulianecho]

So hating Veilguard is equal to hating trans people, Jewish people or both? I thought you people couldn't get any lower or be more braindead with your takes but you strive to prove me wrong every day. This has to be the most pathetic attempt at silencing criticism I've ever seen. Dictators around the world would cringe at how amateurish and transparent you are. How dare we have standards when it comes to video games we pay for? We must be Nazis or some other monster whose opinions must be dismissed by the hive mind immediately lest it falls prey to discordant thoughts. Surely, quality doesn't matter but only the message of the game? Companies can create an absolute disaster and shit on everything a franchise used to be, but as long as it is queer and trans positive, it means they can get away with anything and we should just gobble it up and say thank you. And anyone who dares criticize the game in any way must be a Nazi. /s - I have to put a tone indicator cause people who defend Veilguard have proven to me that they don't use their brains, and not just because they defend Veilguard, but the way they choose to defend it.

[biowaredisasterbisexual]

I’m sorry. I can’t. I try not to get involved in fandom foolishness too much. But egad, the vile treatment of Neve because she romances Lucanis if (AND ONLY IF) Rook romances neither of them is…horrific.

How, BisexualDisaster, you may ask?

1) A lot of critiquing that Neve is uncaring, unempathic, not supportive.

2) At least one claim (getting a lot of agreements in the notes) that Lucanis only gets together with Neve because it’s “easy.” She doesn’t “fix” him so he can just go on being I guess broken somehow?

3) A lot of references to her being too sexual.

4) Insinuations that she’s the type of woman you hook up with, but not the type you marry.

5) Insistence that because she is cynical, she isn’t overtly emotive in the way they would expect, she is unfeeling.

I just…..it’s awful. Why is it so awful? Well, let’s break that down point by point.

1) This is completely contradicted by canon. She goes out of her way for just about every companion to help them, even ones she isn’t super close to. She provides a sounding board and emotional support for Taash and Bellara explicitly in their quest lines. People are disregarding everything she actually says and does in the game to cast her in a role that seems entirely based on sexist and racist stereotypes.

2) There’s no basis for this either. Moreover, this is a truly troubling way to view mental health and healing. Lucanis is not a broken toy or a fixer-upper home. He doesn’t need someone to “fix” him. Nor is he too traumatized to make his own romantic choices. This argument infantilizes him, diminishes his own agency in his healing, and is sexist to boot. It’s ableist, misogynistic, and shitty.

3) This is such a common racist belief about WOC that I hardly know where to start. We are all hypersexual, and if we aren’t we are frigid and prudish and angry. I can’t even. What’s wrong with you all?

4) I’m inclined to agree that Neve isn’t a homemaker, but good grief, how tradwife can you get? I’M not a homemaker. My husband did the bulk of domestic labor in our relationship before he became disabled. Not every relationship needs to look like Leave It To Beaver, and insisting it does is wildly sexist. Oh, and this is also relying on the stereotypes of WOC all being sex-seeking ladies about town to boot.

5) This harkens to two stereotypes. The first is sexist: that women are expected to be outwardly emotive and fawning. That’s neither accurate nor fair. The second is racist: this is a subtle version of the Angry Black Woman stereotype. That WOC aren’t sweet and nurturing and only demonstrate Negative emotions.

This is ridiculous. It’s awful. It’s racist, sexist, and ableist all at once. In an effort to, what, make it so that if you don’t romance Lucanis with your Rook he can’t be with anyone else? It’s not a competition between Rook and Neve or Lucanis if your Rook is romancing them, because your LI CHOOSES ROOK. No one is stealing anyone from your Rook. It’s only if you romance neither that they get together, and the weird possessive idea that if you don’t have Lucanis no one should is deeply troubling.

Is your favorite movie Swimfan? Is it because it made you feel seen?

JFC.

Get it together, people.

Sincerely,

A WOC married to a sweet white man who knows how to cook

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

I'm really happy we're getting to choose our origin again for Dragon Age Veilguard but I have dealt with people telling me its going to suck because it won't be like Dragon Age Origins. You know I love Origins too but its been fifteen years to accept the reality that each game was NOT going to be like Origins. Its time to get over it. Even the developers stated years ago that each game would be different.

I remember people were enraged due to DA2 because it was a big departure from Origins. And then there was the very militant/vocal portion of the fandom that trashed Inquisition for being so different than 2 and many Origins fans were still complaining that it wasn't the same as the first game.

Now there is a fourth game and the cycle of complaining continues. People should have realized by now that the Dragon Age games have an established history of trying new things with how they deliver that experience. I get people don't like change, but its been years and A LOT has changed in the gaming world as well as the entire world in general since then. And honestly if a person only likes one game out of a 4 game series, then perhaps its time to accept the series isn't for them and move on. When I'm unhappy with something, I move on. I don't wish for it to fail, I don't wish for people to lose their jobs, and I don't demean people who are looking forward to the next game. And I would never expect the developers to cater to my wants/demands.

[firelxdykatara]

I continue to be very confused over the shock and outrage I keep seeing over the worldstate shit cause it's like... this is not new at all? The series has, from the very beginning, discarded big choices if they needed to in a future game and otherwise ignored just about everything else outside of a few offhand mentions/codex entries/odd lines of dialogue.

You can kill Leliana, and it doesn't matter--she will still show up at the end of DA2 and be a key player in DAI. You can give Isabela to the Arishok, and it doesn't matter--she escapes the Qunari and winds up working with the Inquisition anyway. It doesn't matter who you make the ruler of Ferelden, the only scene where they show up plays out the exact same way regardless of whether it's King Alistair, Queen Anora, or both. The Warden companion can be one of three people, none of which change anything about the plotline he's involved in, and the only difference is investigative dialogue (and yeah, I ask Alistair about the HoF every time and I scream myself hoarse cause I love hearing him talk about her, but it still doesn't have a substantial effect on the story).

It doesn't matter how you play Hawke in DA2, come DAI they react the same way to blood magic (even though Hawke can be a bloodmage) and their role in the story is completely unchanged no matter what settings you give DA2 in the Keep. Also, the game will act like the Legacy DLC happened regardless of whether or not you actually played it, which is very annoying because both DA2 and DAI have a serious problem with paywalled content being super super vital to the next game (and in DAI's case, it was the true ending of the game that was paywalled!).

And the list goes on. Which is not to say that any of this is bad, but it is generally inevitable! You can't have games that interconnect and branch so wildly while still preserving the ability to create any more games in the series. Mass Effect gets around some of this by having a single protagonist with a fairly set character through all three games, but even then, each game plays more or less the same and it all leads to the same three choices in the end. Which I've also seen complaints about, but like, what's the alternative? There's only so much that can be done if you want to have a coherent and still-playable game.

I get that the fandom cycle is the endlessly bitch about the latest game in the series until a few years have passed and then it's suddenly The Best Ever and anything that deviates from it will suck but it is seriously getting exhausting lmfao

[eff-plays]

Hey man if you're posting Veilguard defense/positive and tag it as #veilguard critical you're a huge asshole btw 💖

Like some mornings I open the shitty Tumblr phone app and search for "veilguard critical" to see what my correct girlies are saying and every single time I see some motherfucker whinging about how mean everybody is being and how negativity is the poison of the heart or some shit, and inevitably I go "ugh ok this is probably showing up because I searched for veilguard critical instead of going into the tag itself, they didn't actually tag it as such" and inevitably it IS tagged with the critical tag, wasting my the benefit of the doubt.

And I'm like oh wow!! Have you tried not going into the veilguard critical tag you stupid slut? Maybe your experience of the fandom would be so much better if you didn't browse and post in the veilguard critical tag, a tag where people are critical of the thing you like? Just a thought!

Like I get it, you think you're some sort of enlightened bastion of positivity and that you're descending from up high and into the muck where we vermin live in order to dispense your pure hateless wisdom, but trust me, the disrespect puts us off both you and the game you go to bat for. Respect the tagging etiquette even if you don't respect our opinions. Cuz none of the actual veilguard critical posts I've read have been about the people who love the game, but every veilguard defense post tagged as veilguard critical has had a whiff of toxicity and superiority that makes you come off as far nastier than us mean and evil critics.

I'm gonna start a sideblog and reblog only those posts I swear to god.

[saintlethanavir]

I'm going to say something controversial. If you are disappointed about the world state thing for Veilguard you are valid, but also you need to realize that Dragon Age as a series and Bioware as a company are not BG3 and Larian Studios.

We are spoiled for choice because of BG3 and we live in an internet society where everything is picked apart because that's what gets more clout and likes and attention. But not everything can be BG3 and Veilguard would have ten more years of development if they tried to make it so. Do I think it's silly they SUPPOSEDLY aren't doing anything with the HoF or Hawke? A little bit. Do I think it's silly they're not asking about the Well of Sorrows? yes. Do I think it's sad they're implementing their own canon yet again? Also a little bit.

BUT ALSO

We don't know the storyline, we don't know what they have planned further in the game. We've seen such a small amount of the game from various places and we have not played the game itself. They could have so much shit up their sleeves. Epler said he was okay with all the spoilers they had shared so far because the rest of the game was WILD compared to what they had showed us. I think we need to wait, and it's okay to be disappointed but also hold your horses and not jump to conclusions.

It's going to be okay, and not every single Dragon Age game needs to have every single choice harkened back to. DA2 barely had anything to do with the Hero of Ferelden or the Wardens aside from Anders and Carver or Bethany. In Inquisition we only have a few lines about romances from DA2 and companion choices, the Warden is only mentioned in throwaway lines and a codex entry. You're getting upset about valid things but it's also stuff they've been doing for years.

If you don't want to play it don't play it, but I think those of us that do want to play it need to sing this games praises when it does come out. Otherwise we may not get another Dragon Age or Mass Effect game. The chads and incels are doing our job for us we don't need to add fuel to the fire.

[burning2know]

I've seen lots of fans point to the external conditions of Veilguard's development in defense of it. So, let's examine the external conditions that made this disaster possible.

Misunderstanding of Dragon Age's place in the market

Dragon Age's brand identity is dark fantasy that explores what being a hero means within various structures of power. Veilguard can be seen as a re-branding from this perspective (for reasons that @sandetigerrr talked about at length here). To the extent that effort is successful? Well, with every rebrand, you can expect some level of backlash, because generally people dislike change. Tale as old as time. But, we can know whether rebrands are ultimately successful or not. (Warning: my head canons about how marketing works ahead, I'm not a marketing expert.) Let's use an analogy, if you are a company that produces a soap that is primarily utilitarian, you know, it cleans things. You need to reduce costs. You decide to change the packaging to something less elaborate. The considerations are a) that your customers will still recognize your soap, and b) that the soap still does what the customer buys it for: cleaning. Yes there will be initial backlash "gee, this packaging is so ugly." But presumably, the cleaning power stays. Over time people get used to it, they still buy your soap for the reason they've always done. But say, you change the packaging so that it's less shelf stable, and the soap, in the new packaging, is less effective at cleaning compared to before the change. Not only will the customers think "wow the packaging is so ugly", they will also notice "wow it's not cleaning as well either." Over time, they'll stop buying your soap and look for another alternative, one of your competitors. For the soap, the brand identity isn't JUST "the package looks recognizeable" it's also "the soap cleans well". So you can change some of it while retaining your customers. Undoubted, for the customers who buy the soap for the packaging, and they may go to competition with a similar packaging. But, if you're the only soap on the market with that kind of packaging and that cleans... We're in a different world now. There's no competition. You can do whatever you want short of stop making soap, because the customers are stuck buying this shitty rebranded soap.

Speaking of competition, here's something interesting that was on the EA earnings call just before Veilguard released (transcript in the link),

"When we think about what we have with Veilguard right now, we have a storage studio in BioWare. We have a storied IP and Dragon Age.

We have a team that took extra time to make sure the world was rich and the characters were interesting and the story was compelling I think we're going into a market that has limited competition for this category of game given some of the moves that have happened across the broader industry."

To me, this indicates that at the very top levels, the company thinks that Veilguard is in that last category... They can make whatever changes they want to DA because there's no competition. But they got a crucial thing wrong. There is LOTS of competition for stories that have rich worlds and compelling characters (BG3 is the most obvious one). But there's nothing quite like Dragon Age, because there's no other dark fantasy RPG that explores what good and evil means within various structures of power (hard sell to corporate in the current political climate, so I can understand why they Corinne Busche? chose a different angle... but I'm also here critiquing the chosen angle).

This is a fundamental failure in identifying the brand identity of Dragon Age.

Furthermore, they forgot that their niche is intersectional at its essence. Gamers can still find excellent dark fantasy elsewhere. And gamers can find stories that explores what good and evil means within various structures of power elsewhere. Just not both at the same time. But see, it doesn't matter, because gamers won't find this in the Veilguard either.

For all the Veilguard proponents who said "like all previous games, 5 years from now the fandom will consider this a good game", implying that, this is like any rebranding (because DA does kind of reinvent itself every iteration, in that way it's like the Doctor Who of games and it is a precious IP for that reason). They're probably right. I for one, don't see my opinion of Veilguard changing 5 years from now. But I won't be on the internet yelling at people about it. That's just not healthy for me. And the people who are motivated enough to yell about it into the void 5 years after release probably liked it. Just my baseless guess (and other disingenuous hedging).

The game's tortured development cycle

It's been 10 long years coming. So word in the rumour mills is that lots of interesting ideas and intentions were the original single player iteration. Then it was cancelled and rebooted as a live service multiplayer Destiny copy. Then that was cancelled and rebooted again as a different live service game. Then THAT was dismantled and the pieces from these various iterations frankensteined together into what finally became Veilguard.

Do I feel immense sympathy for the devs? Yes. Imagine working on something for 3 years of your life only to have it be flushed down the toilet for one reason or another. Multiple times. Devastating. Getting paid for it all helps a bit. But still, devastating. And sure enough, there were waves of resignations at multiple points over the past decade. I don't blame them.

What I don't feel sympathy for is why there were these series of cancellations and reboots in the first place. How is it that an ostensibly AAA studio backed by a publisher as massive as EA can't get its shit together enough to rally behind a single vision? Corporate bureaucracy? Office politics? Blind ambition? No matter what you call it, these were management failures that had little to do with actually Making the game, but that has a disproportionately large effect on the final product. The devs made the game DESPITE the poor management, management that was supposed to support them doing their work. Management failing the one, albeit complicated, job they have. Absolutely disgusting.

But this shouldn't excuse the final product being what it is. It doesn't somehow make it acceptable or good. This is like receiving a C+ grade for an assignment that you rushed the night before, and saying "Well, yeah, I wrote it the night before. I could have gotten an A if I spent a month on it." The fact of the matter is, you got a C+, not an A. You can still pat yourself on the back and say "I'm not stupid, or bad at assignments, I was just rushed. I'm an A student really!" That's all fine for you, but nobody else is obliged to believe you unless you start turning in assignments that gets As.

In this analogy, us fans are the grader of the assignment bioware just turned in veilguard. And we should really grade the game based on the quality of the work presented, not based on how long it took the devs to make it. One because there's contention about how much of that 10 years time should be counter. And also because time spent and quality are two separate constructs. There's a special category of people who can spent a single night and output an A assignment, and another special category of people who can spend 10 years putting their best efforts into an assignment and still get C+. We can't know which kind bioware is as a studio given the kinds of changes that has taken place in the studio over the past decade (and given veilguard, it wasn't the former).

This, to me is really tragic, because I KNOW bioware writers can write brilliant games. They have previously! This is why I like DA so much. But clearly something about this team comp leading up to Veilguard did not work. We don't know exactly what it was. And making up stories in our heads about the things we don't know isn't likely to get us anywhere that's close to reality.

We should do our best to understand the reality in which everything is operating. Not the least for the sake of supporting the improvement of labour conditions in the games industry. That's the only way that we can rally behind efforts that make effective change. Changes that, you know, make sure that the types of things that made all those bioware veterans leave (apparently without proper severance compensation, to boot) are not likely to happen again at other studios.

(this is just the rumour mill, I wait with unbated breath for a jason schreier exposé sometime down the line)

But it's all there if you look for it!

First of all, it's not. It really is not all there. Because a lot of it was cut. Check out the art book for Veilguard. The things that those creatives have planned shows that they know what effectively telling those stories would have needed, and there are some hints of them that made it into the game. But only hints. I wonder at the sheer amount of information in the art book. It's WILD. It's exceptional. It's a massacre on the cutting room floor. I weep for the brilliant, lost ideas that will never see the light of day outside of concept art form. But man, does that book ever NEEDED to be published.

Secondly, we can find evidence for anything if we look hard enough. That's the power of fandom. In a way, it's why I'm here. I'm a big fan of untethered tinfoil-hat fan theories. But, it's important to distinguish an interpretation from the actual text. Because we can read the text, but we can't read minds.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Soooo, I've read a lot of differing opinions about Veilguard at this point, and one I can't stop thinking about is how aggressive some people get about the idea of critiquing it by comparing it to the previous games.

"It should be judged solely on it's own merit; there's a deep and beautiful story being told that everyone's missing by focusing on what it's not!"

"It's been 20 years in game since Origins! Things have changed, so it's really bad faith to criticize it for not being exactly like the other games!"

I've played DAO, DA2, and DAI several times. I'll play them and DAV several more times in the future. I'm going to compare all four games and treat it as one long narrative. That's not something new, and it's how I find engaging with Dragon Age the most enjoyable.

However, I also sympathize with this perspective because I believe it's born from frustration. I see it as people over-correcting in their vexation, as wanting others to love it like they do and the obstacle in that is the hyper-fixation with the previous games... so if we remove that, then everyone will see it for what it is: a great game with a great story.

I totally feel that... But, that sympathy goes out the window once those same people start throwing out that, "If you don't like DAV's writing then that's because you lack critical thinking skills, media literacy, and are just an overall moron who can't comprehend themes in good storytelling."

Like... no, buddy. C'mon, that's not the way to go about that.

If you played DAV and adored it, if you were emotionally invested and thought to story it told was powerful, if you love the companions and thought the romances were beautiful... then yes, it's upsetting to see so many others dismiss the good and shit on it for "not being Origins."

And yeah, if you solely focus on what it's not, then you do miss out on the things it does well, because it DOES do a lot of things well!

But, I also think this way of approaching DAV is flawed, and insulting someone's intelligence because they're not engaging with the story the way you do is unproductive.

Just... y'know what?

You're right—If you toss DAO, DA2, and DAI aside and just look at DAV by itself, it IS a much more enjoyable, comprehensible story.

Because then you don't have to stomach the fact that the Crows purchase children and groom them into assassins with most of those children not surviving the process.

You don't have to think about how the Dalish would never be okay with the humans, dwarves, and qunari in the Veil Jumpers touching ancient elven artifacts.

You don't have to remember the horror of the Brood Mothers that birth darkspawn, or how they're created with women the darkspawn capture: "First day, they come and catch everyone. Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat. Third day, the men are all gnawed on again. Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate. Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn. Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew. Eighth day, we hated as she is violated. Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin. Now she does feast, as she's become the beast. Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams."

You don't have to remember all the slavers that came after Fenris, or any of the things he described Tevinter to be. You don't have to deal with feeling bad about all the apparent slavery and extreme racism that runs rampant in Tevinter because you don't see it, you just know it's a thing and that the Shadow Dragons are fighting it.

You don't have to be horrified about Morrigan's current state because you don't have to think about the way Flemeth physically, mentally, and emotionally abused her; "My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age."

The ending cutscene between Solas and Flemeth in DAI? Rewritten, so you don't have to remember the way it actually went.

You don't have to think about the implications of the Antaam being here. You can just forget the slow, steady build up of three games regarding the qunari plans of invasion. Oh, and if you push Taash to embrace their qunari side more, you don't have the think about Karash being "rehabilitated" and what that actually means.

Everything with the Chantry, the Circle, mages and templars can be forgotten because that's just a southern problem. Don't worry about it.

You don't realize just how shallow of a protagonist Rook is because you don't have to think about the depth of choice that was given to the HOF, or how interesting the personality system was for Hawke.

The only thing that matters about the Inquisitor is who they romanced, whether they disbanded the inquisition, and how they feel about Solas... That's it. You don't need to remember that they were the sole survivor of the conclave, burdened with a mark that slowly killed them and resulted in them traumatically losing an arm; forced to be the face of the Inquisition; no longer seen as a person in the eyes of those they led, but as the Herald of Andraste. Betrayed by the wolf hiding within their inner circle. Betrayed by the people they saved.

You don't realize how much the romances truly lack because you can just forget the effort put in the previous romances that would make every single playthrough feel unique with varying approaches and ends for each romance.

But y'know... it's been 20 years. Time's changed.

Except that doesn't erase the past, and that's what Veilguard seems to want to do.

Like... we're not criticizing DAV for being inconsistent in it's lore/storytelling with the other games because we're media illiterate morons. Most of us aren't comparing all four games to each other because we want to make bad faith takes.

We're also frustrated. I'm frustrated.

I've posted a lot about my third playthrough where I'm roleplaying as Carver for my Rook. It's the most engaged and excited I've really felt while playing DAV despite having fun in my previous playthroughs... and I'm so engaged because 1. Carver is one of my favorite DA characters and the story implications of him being Rook is just *chef's kiss* and 2. while I'm playing, I'm actively rewriting everything in my head.

I just... what does that tell you? Y'know??

And again, I want to reiterate that I understand why this take I'm criticizing exists. I'm just trying to put into words the flaw of raging at people for comparing DAV to DAO/DA2/DAI in a sympathetic way instead of hitting fire with fire, y'know?

I wouldn't be saying all of this if I didn't care about Dragon Age or feel similar irritation with how the fandom engages with the writing sometimes.

[thedissonantverses]

“Veilguard is bad cause it’s represented the commodification of art! What the game could have been! Disnefication!”

“The sales numbers!!!!! See if it sold less than what EA wanted it’s cause it’s bad!!!”

Do you uh. Do you see my frustration? Do you see how equating a piece of media’s sale’s numbers with its quality is a problem actually? Do you see how ignoring the rampant problems with that stat and game’s journalism at large is not helping? Do you see you those YouTubers you keep quoting at me have a vested interest in being as negative a possible because it gets them more money? Do you see how you just sound exactly like the bigots and that it’s alarming that you fell for it?

Let me put it this way. I could have been the only one who bought the game and I’d still say it’s my favorite Dragon Age game. Because I don’t judge art by how well it sold.

[eye-of-the-queen]

If you’re one of my friends (or someone else who found me through the tumblr algorithm) who is upset about the latest veilguard news turn away now because you’re most likely not going to like what I’m about to say

Rant under the cut

People are being so dramatic for no reason I’m sorry

“This was all a waste of time” when they literally say in the article that the events of the games STILL happen, it’s not like they’re retconning them. And most likely world state decisions from the previous games will still be asked in the games going forward AS they become important, they literally said they chose the world state choices based on what would be relevant to the story of the new game

It’s a new area of thedas and literal DECADES after the events of the previous games, I’m sorry it just seems silly to expect the events of the past games to still have the same relevance that they did in inquisition, which is only 2 years after da2 and 10 years after origins and also took place in the same area of the continent as them

I do agree that not including the well of sorrows decision is certainly a choice, but we also don’t know the complete story of veilguard literally at all. What we do know is solas has the aspect of mythal that was in flemeth, we also know that for at least some portion of the game he’s trapped in the fade and rook is kind of his mouth piece. Maybe the reason it won’t come up is because with him being trapped he can’t actually do anything with his powers, that’s been my theory for a while at least

I genuinely do not know how y’all got “The inquisitor either hated solas or romanced him” from what they said. The leap in logic is crazy to me because they literally said that your relationship regardless of whether you romanced him or not is going to be important

“How are they going to write around these world state decisions with them not being choosable?” Well considering the game is fully written and is coming out next month it seems they found a way

The way y’all were all hyping up this game as the next best thing and then ONE thing that you don’t like is revealed and y’all all turned on it is crazy

Also to tie this up, we literally know that veilguard has gone through at least 2 rewrites because in the same article where they revealed the world state stuff they literally said there was an iteration of da4 that just did not have that much solas involvement. Have yall considered that maybe the rewrites were due to them getting stuck on all of the choices that could be made in past games and so they decided to just pick the ones that were going to be the most relevant to the story to start with and then go from there in subsequent games

I’m sorry, coming from someone who’s literal favorite game franchise is dragon age and has replayed origins multiple times, this all just seems like such a non issue to me

[justcallmecappy]

One of the criticisms I've seen DA players have in response to Anders' actions at the Kirkwall Chantry is some degree of, 'his actions forced innocent mages into a war they had no choice whether or not they wanted to be involved in'.

What a lot of these players seem to miss is this: The mages were already involved. They have been involved since childhood, when their magic manifested.

If you are born a mage in Southern Thedas, you are marked. The Templars will find you, or your neighbors who were conditioned by the Chantry to fear magic will turn you in, and you are brought to the Circle where you are at risk of Tranquility, or Annulment, and subjected to a Harrowing. Your children born to you in the Circle will be taken from you to be raised in a Chantry orphanage (like Wynne's child was). You are not allowed to get married, or start a family, or own land. You are not allowed to leave your Circle ever, unless conscripted to fight in the army (like in the Fifth Blight) or fulfilling some whim or need of those in power (like Malcolm Hawke being made to entertain nobles at a party). You might be thrown into the dungeon and left to starve to death, like the mage child Cole (and other mage apprentices of the White Spire) did. You are at risk of physical and sexual abuse, like the mages of the Gallows were.

Innocent mages were already involved. They were already being killed, they were already fighting for their lives for centuries since the inception of Circles, long before Anders' actions.

Also, in the case of the Gallows specifically, Knight-Commander Meredith had already called for the Annulment as early as the beginning/mid of Act 3. The mages' lives were already in danger, even before the Chantry was destroyed.

Anders tried for six years to make people listen and show how magic is not meant to be feared and can be used for good -- by publishing a manifesto, by providing free magical healthcare in Darktown -- to bring people's attention to the plight of mages and change things for the better. It took the imminent threat of his people being slaughtered wholesale for him to resort to what is aptly titled 'The Last Straw'.

If players want to blame anyone for subjecting mages to a conflict they did not want, look no further than the Chantry and their system of exploitation and oppression over the mages. Put blame on the Chantry for forcing mages into lives they did not choose, and asserting methods of culling and control over them, simply for how they were born. It was the Chantry that gave them no choice whether or not they had a say in staying alive or dying.

And if DA players would still say that the mages could have tried for a more "peaceful route" to alleviate their circumstances (despite seeing how Anders' manifesto, his Darktown clinic, and years of trying to negotiate with Elthina failed and Meredith was calling for Annulment anyway): very rarely do the oppressed win change by pandering to the morals of their oppressors.

Innocent mages were already suffering and being murdered in droves, for centuries. Innocent mages were already involved in this struggle, whether they wanted to be or not. And Anders' actions at the Chantry was like a rallying cry: If we're going to die anyway, then I'd rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want.

(Also, I have not yet gone into detail on what actually started the mage-templar war, which was the Seekers hiding the cure for Tranquility, and Lord Seeker Lambert's decision to dissolve the Nevarran accord and take the Templars hunting for the free mages across the countryside because he decided dead mages were better than free mages -- because that's a whole separate post.)

[biowaredisasterbisexual]

Let me be real clear:

If someone having a subjective opinion about a videogame that differs from your subjective opinion on said videogame is enough to get you to send anon hate replete with racial slurs?

You’re not only a pathetic coward, though you’re that too, but you’re a shitty person and an embarrassment to humanity writ large. Genuinely.

Go outside and touch some grass. Good grief.

[dragonageconfessions]

Anonymous Submissions shut down for the time being

I received 27 submissions on Varric's appearance in the trailer. 60% were mostly positive while the 40% were outraged and some were viciously angry and very profane to the developers which I do not allow on this blog. And here is a little reminder of how Varric looked like in the Inquisition reveal trailer....

I was around back then. In fact here's a confession about it and back then I got a ton of complaint-confessions about it.

Here is how Varric in the game.

I remember the multitude of complaints about the Inquisition reveal trailers because this blog was around then so I am not surprised to see it for the new trailer. Please remember trailers are different than what its going to look like in the game.

Thanks for reading