#bye bye bioware

[contessaexchaos]

I think Gaider had already seen signs of this happening. It’s possible this isn’t the first time he sat across execs to explain why [insert money-shilling game feature] doesn’t fit with an IP like DA. It’s likely that this or a similar clash played a role in him leaving post-DAI, while Project Joplin was still Project Joplin…only for the execs to scrap their original idea and their meddling, blowing up production costs that they then needed to scrimp and rush to deliver a product they can sell by 2024.

I like Veilguard for its gameplay and robust cc and how beautiful Solas looks. I don’t like its writing. But I think the devs and programmers and the art department and the writing team did their best and pushed hard to make the Bioware Magic shine once more. That’s why the game was stable on release, with few bugs. It ran smoothly for my entire playthrough. They managed to produce a smooth running game on release in under three years, better than other AAA studios that had disastrous releases in 2023-2024.

That said, I grieve for what we could have had if the execs hadn’t meddled with the development cycle. If only they trusted that the BioWare team—many of whom are veterans of game dev and vg writing—have their fingers on the pulse of the DA fandom. All the money they spend to retain their veteran staff, they’d have 10xd in profit after a successful game launch. Instead they slash the studio and tell themselves they were right, that they should have pushed for live service and that’s why VG failed.

They don’t even know the first thing about this IP.

David Gaider: "If I really dig into my empathy, I can kinda see the thinking here. Like, let's say you don't actually know much about games. You're in a big office with a bunch of other execs who also don't know much about games. What are they all saying? "Live games do big numbers!" "Action games are hot!" Your natural response? "We should make more action games, and all our games should have live service!" Cha-ching, right? Then some uppity devs spoil your buzz by saying "that doesn't apply equally to all games" or "we have an established IP with an audience that has certain expectations". You frown. You go look at their sales. Good, sure, but not as spectacular as live service and action games! Profit's great, but what's the point if you're not #1 in the charts? If you're not making headlines? If the devs can't make it work, this is THEIR failure. This, after all, is the future of gaming! Eventually, you're going to ask yourself why we (the company) even bother with those other games. Like single player games. It's a question you've asked aloud before. The fans bristle, but you're not here to supply every audience what they want. You're here to make money and increase share value. Maybe I'm being unkind. There are certainly all sorts of lessons a company could learn from a game like Veilguard (I still haven't played it, so I'm going off what other people have said), but "maybe it should have been live service" being the takeaway seems a bit short-sighted and self-serving. Not that there's any shortage of that, when it comes to deciding why a game doesn't do well. For the anti-woke crowd, for instance, there are woke games that do well and woke games that do poorly and only the ones that did poorly did so *because* they were woke. Says more about them than the game. My advice to EA (not that they care): you have an IP that a lot of people love. Deeply. At its height, it sold well enough to make you happy, right? Look at what it did best at the point where it sold the most. Follow Larian's lead and double down on that. The audience is still there. And waiting. ❤️" [source thread]

--

User: "Maybe they can sell the IP to Larian. Or someone else who would treat it respectfully." David Gaider: "I suspect Larian is, smartly, done with working on third-party IP. You do all that work, and the IP overlords do little more than dictate the minutiae and make your life difficult and then you have to cut them a huge slice of the proceeds too? Not a lot of studios are going to bite THAT hook. [source] I know you said SELL the IP, but there's no way EA will relinquish its hold on an IP that could potentially do big numbers. In their ideal world, a studio takes it on, does all the work, and they rake in the cash. Giving up that kind of potential would require BIG money... and who would buy it?" [source]

[secretsimpleness]

Sometimes I want to bring Morrigan but then I remember I play as a face-tanking rogue and I bring Wynne. Warden Cousland, Morrigan, Wynne / Dragon Age Origins (c) Bioware

[tawnyfool]

he's always wearing that stole

[fadetouchedfennec]

it beats for you

[tetras-stuff]

varric immediately getting excited about inviting hawke and rushing off to go and hide on the battlements with her STILL makes me smile. the love, the tragedy, the friendship!!! 10/10

[jazzajazzjazz]

LMFAO I CAN’T WITH THIS GAME

Source

DAVRIN DOESN’T EVEN GET A UNIQUE NICKNAME

HE JUST GETS ONE THAT WAS RECYCLED FROM BLACKWALL

ONCE AGAIN DAVRIN IS TREATED WITH DISDAIN gee I wonder why

[emedeme]

@nvaderxim me

dedicating our lives to morrigan x warden art

[princehendir]

Thank God I'm getting on a plane and will not be able to impulsively start doing video game romance discourse again

[onewingedangels]

we should k**** ea's ceo just saying, cause like

[bluupxels]

havent really been in a sims mood but looking at everyone’s pictures with the pack im foaming at the mouth a little

[oopsallmabari]

played last resort of good men again and i do wish that regardless of romance there was a moment for your inquisitor to be like 'hey! same (gay) hat!'

also i wish you didn't get disapproval for ending the conversation w dorian's dad early (at least, not if you do it in the sense of 'no good is going to come of this' rather than 'i don't give a fuck')

[fracturedgems]

It ended THIS blight??? There's a whole mess of the stuff in the Fade that it was heavily implied would be the focus of a potential DA5. There are voice lines in the game after almost every high dragon fight implying some mysterious entity grooming the world (and possibly you) for some other purpose down the line. This was, in no way, supposed to be the last game based on the text of the game.

I agree that DA can and should live on in its community, via fic and art, shit, even short films if anyone's got the budget for it lol but to say this was always supposed to be a conclusion is just incorrect. And if it was meant to be one, it's an extremely poor one. Designed conclusions usually aren't supposed to have story hooks and for sequels.

I am seeing the news about the DA writers and developers and it makes me sad that this seems like the end of the road, but the truth is, DAV was meant to be the conclusion. It ended the blight, it answered the question of the Titans, it explained the true story of the Elven gods. Yes, it did drop a few new small questions, but there are no big cliff hangers, nothing that requires a follow up. The main story of Thedas is over.

I love DAV. I played it multiple times and I do wish we were getting DLC for it, but I am also satisfied to have the answer to my questions, to get one more set of wonderful companions and go on one last new adventure in the DA World. Dragon Age is special to me, I have been a fan for many years and I will always love this adventure.

The great thing is the game development world of today is so different from the game development world of DAO. There are great games out there with rich and interesting stories, stories tha feature POC and lgbt+ characters and new games come out regularly. It is sad that this might be the last installment of Dragon Age for a long while (video games at least, as long as the IP makes money I am sure we continue to see it popping up in other mediums), but there are plenty of other games that are out and ready for you to experience.

[fenxshiral]

Yeah, I'm trying to give this game a fair shot, but so far I'm not impressed. So far, the game in a vacuum isn't bad. The problem is that *by bioware standards* this is bad. Not gonna spoil anything, btw.

Dialogue is very… not good. It feels stilted, forced. Like dialogue written by a DM who’s new to DnD, or a college creative writing student writing a story they don't care about. This does not feel like dialogue written by Bioware, it feels like dialogue written by a new studio stocked with inexperience writers, or by a studio that’s never made a story driven game before. I wouldn’t necessarily classify the writing as *bad* so much as it’s amateurish. I know that most of the writing team is completely new for Veilguard, as most of the old guard has left or been let go from Bioware - but unfortunately it really shows. While I had my problems with DA2 and Inquisition, dialogue in the previous three games was tight and flowed naturally. It felt like dialogue written by seasoned pros who really knew how to make characters feel natural. This feels off in the way that only rushed or amateur writing can feel off. And it’s not an issue with voice acting - even though that isn’t the greatest either in some parts (but that’s another discussion) - it’s very much an issue with the quality of the writing. People accept things they shouldn’t, they question things they shouldn’t. This is dialogue written by people who don’t take the time (or don’t care) to think about how characters will think, feel or react. It’s dialogue written for the purpose of getting from point A to point B rather than to actually engage with the story and the world.  Again, not necessarily *bad* but it’s certainly not good. Maybe this is early game woes and the story struggles to get off the ground. I’ll revisit this later if the dialogue quality changes or stays the same.  

Character introductions are very lazy. So far every single character introduction has been the character popping out of nowhere to destroy something or to just Be there. It’s very lazy writing and I expect better of a studio with the pedigree of Bioware. I would accept this quality of writing from a new studio, but not a studio like Bioware that has shown they can do *much* better. It’s also very rushed. I don’t get to explore an area before the game goes “HERES A NEW CHARACTER WE WON’T DESCRIBE ENOUGH ABOUT FOR YOU TO CARE ABOUT THEM OKAY BYE.” So far the game has been cutscene simulator that has combat and dialogue tacked onto it. And not in a good way.

This is the quality of writing I’d expect from a Bethesda game, not a Bioware game. Again, not bad in a vacuum, but by Bioware standards, this quality of writing is atrocious. And to be completely honest - after the absolute dumpster fires that were Anthem and Andomeda, they really can't afford to release a game with 10+ years of hype behind it and have it be anything less than spectacular.

I really hope this game gets better in quality. Because so far, it's worse than inquisition in many respects and while Inquisition was better than DA2 it was still inferior to Origins in many ways.

I desperately want to give this game a fair shake because I've been enamored with this series ever since I first played Origins back in 2009. So we'll see.

[bhaalstemple]

i finished the game and veilguard was a disappointment lol

spoilers below

the way they butchered solas' character by just making him be led by the memory of mythal; no self-righteousness, savior complex, it was all done bc he wanted to honor mythal

why are the venatori worshipping elgar'nan and not a single elf. ????

how they made mythal far more important than lavellan to solas to the point for a moment i thought she was solas' ex (thank god it was clarified at the end she was only "solas' oldest friend")

the companions are so... lifeless. cheers to bellara for being the only one that feels like an actual human being and not an agglomeration of bad executed tropes (even if at the beginning she was)

the way mythal didn't end up being a villain, when she actively abused and groomed solas (and also morrigan btw) and it made all the sense in the world because she yearned for a reckoning and bring her revenge, a thing she has yearned for and been planning for a millennia because her anger is that strong... but no she just gave it up

the way morrigan's themes of parental abuse (breaking the cycle of abuse) go to shit after she embraced mythal's memories like.... as someone who has also an abusive mother that i broke contact with this made me want to fucking scream lol

morrigan's character also doesn't sound like her AT ALL, why is this woman smiling and being cocky, she's a scholar, a professional, a woman who carries knowledge that burdens her and trauma at the hands of a mother who should've cared for her. and how protective she was a kieran shows how private she is. what the hell. she would not be THAT friendly with strangers lol

and mythal being the only one who truly could change solas' mind at the end (just thinking abt it makes me want to punch a hole in the wall) + the anticlimactic departure of lavellan to the fade with solas is so fucking bad; because of the message it gives (this world is not worth-living for + a woman should spend the rest of her life and sacrificing herself for a man who put another random woman before her) and its joyless execution

if you get any other ending, the inquisitor doesn't even appear. lmfao. bye.

and lets not talk about the post-ending credits scene bc thats actually the thing that i hated the most. it makes all the themes and writing of bioware completely meaningless lol

the funny thing is that i have known for years where would bioware go with dragon age's story and 95% of my theories were correct, but me, someone who is not a writer, would've made a far more compelling story respecting dragon age's themes and nuance. i even predicted that mythal abused and groomed solas, but they executed it so badly that i can't believe these people get paid to write stories lmfao

i literally feel so betrayed, so hollow, so sad, i don't know what to do. i literally just uninstalled veilguard after finishing it. i spent 10 years imagining how the story would go, but id never imagine it would be THIS BAD.

the books, the content, so well-crafted, and so well-executed, just to make a stupid game that breaks all of its themes and leaves them meaningless. what the hell was happening in bioware when all the side-content has so much complexity and nuance (mostly tevinter nights), what happened lmao

[average-mako-enjoyer]

So, I've seen some interesting posts about Spacer Shepard and Colonist Shepard and the struggles they had to face, so I just want to ramble about my favorite Earthborn, why I think it's such a powerful background and what makes it especially heartbreaking.

It's easy to guess why both the Colonist and the Spacer chose to become soldiers. For the Spacer it was the most obvious choice available (and we see a lot of these "dynasties" in the game: Ashley, Kaidan, Tali, Jacob…), for the Colonist it was revenge, but what about the street kid, the Earthborn? What kind of hell was the Earthborn living in that the only way out was to join the fucking military? Were they even 18 when they enlisted? Shepard calls the place they grew up a "war zone," so you can draw your own conclusions.

We kind of get the inside scoop on Shepard's gang days thanks to Finch, and this whole quest really got me thinking: what kind of stuff was the teenage Shepard involved in that Finch (and I don't think he's a stupid guy) really thought he could blackmail the first human Spectre?

Also, how did gang life affect Shepard? Military training must have been hell for them, because it's based on trusting your squadmates, your commanding officer, the whole chain of command, and gang life is pretty much the opposite: trust someone and you're likely to get fucked.

And what about the whole "Take Earth back" thing? There was a very interesting thought in the post about the Colonist, asking why Shepard should care about Earth at all when their own home was destroyed and their parents were killed? And it got me thinking about the Earthborn: why should they care? They saw the absolute worst that this planet can be: they were an orphan in a war zone, forced into the gang just to survive. Someone like Kaidan is fighting for his family, for his orchard and the view over English Bay, and what is Shepard fighting for? For the slums where they grew up?

What I love about this background is how well it fits the Paragade route and how well it explains some of the moments in the game.

Shepard charming the Citadel shopkeepers into giving them a discount? Street kid moment.

Shepard getting really excited about finding the credit chit between the couch cushions? Street kid moment.

Shepard fleecing their own engineers in the sci-fi poker game (after telling said engineers not to be so hard on the rookie)? Street kid moment.

Shepard getting all sarcastic around C-Sec officers? Shepard scolding mercs? Street kid moments.

Shepard checking wall safes and pockets of people they just killed? Still a street kid moment.

And you know exactly why Shep is so good at hacking and lockpicking, and why it takes some devilish concoction to finally get them drunk.

It's also the reason Shepard can't dance, hums or scoffs rather than laughs, and smirks rather than smiles.

I honestly have so many headcanons about the Earthborn that I could ramble on all day. Also, following this topic, there's a point to be made about how Bioware handles the issue of sexism in their own games, but that's definitely for another time. Bye.

[invinciblerodent]

hi, hello, hi, if this game could stop making me make incredibly difficult decisions that put my boyfriend's life in danger that would be great

I swear after this, it's just gonna be Davrin, and Rook, and Assan, all sitting cushy on top of the cozy pile of roughly 60k gold she has squirreled away during their adventures, never bloody lifting another finger in their lives for anything other than pleasure, and living like fucking warriors of legend and everyone can fuck off

(and the inquisitor too, he'll just be hanging out in the Archon's palace with his unfathomably powerful, loving husband, and like, idk, eat grapes or something.)

I feel like a part of me knew this, like something felt off, but...

Man, I was not prepared for that.

I often say that I'm sobbing at certain things, but today, the sobs are very, very literal. I straight up had to pause at one point, take my glasses off, and sob into my palms for a good minute.

Fucking hell.

I'm not yet done, but there's a moment of respite, which I certainly need to gather all the scattered pieces of my heart off the floor.

.......... and have lunch, maybe.