#davrin? fucking vibing apparently.

[utilitycaster]

forgot how funny the sequence of quest unlocking between Unwanted Guests and Blood of Arlathan is and for two separate reasons. The first is "hey guys the Venatori have infiltrated Arlathan and are kidnapping vulnerable Dalish communities for mass blood sacrifices. but first, can you come run some errands with me?" The second is that the list of quests you get are "Neve mourns Rana's partner who died in her first encounter with Aelia, and stiffens her spine while also talking about Tevinter class struggle"; "Bellara begs her brother not to go through with raising a demon army with an evil god"; "Lucanis deposes his closest relative who has been keeping his only other living relative hostage and who called a hit on him"; and "The One Where You Accidentally Trip Balls While Hanging Out With Davrin and Assan."

[jazzmckay]

davg day 6:

if anyone needs me i will be over here lying on the floor

i'd already collected all the wolf statuettes apparently so as soon as i got the last from the inky (!!!!!!) i was able to view all the regrets back to back to back to back....

so yes. the floor. im a fun mix of excited and overwhelmed and heartbroken. stunned to find a ton of my headcanons are now actual canon. how intense. poor solas, jfc, but also shiiiiiit the dagger and the titans, thats so damn rough. i understand why lace is as angry as she is. the dwarves absolutely got the worst deal ever here. they are, after all, the ones who have to deal with the darkspawn all the time, not just during a blight. i took so many screenshots during all this.... i loved that the whole team got together like a damn book club to discuss solas' worst memories omg... rip to solas he's been mega exposed. the mortifying ordeal of being known. but my rook is absolutely sympathetic. i'm constantly wishing i could go talk to him whenever i want :( solas :(((( (id REALLY like to write a missing scene where rook goes to talk to him after minrathous vs treviso because who the fuck else would understand the weight of dooming innocents on such a scale? part of her sympathy is because i, the player, am sympathetic, but i also think the harder being a leader gets, the more she understands the complexity of the choices he made)

the topic of curing the titans came up..... houghhh is it really possible? will it happen in this game? aAaAAA

and then im meeting someone in the crossroads with morrigan, who she called "she". am i about to meet mythal? in spirit form after solas took her power at the end of dai??? i realize i can get this answer as soon as i want lmao but theres soooo much i want to do at the same times always!!!!

TAASH. i need to know everything about you RIGHT NOW

during all these sequences, i found myself so intrigued by everything taash had to add. theyre actually... really fucking smart? brains AND brawn? my DUDE thats hot. i got this vibe from the "taash talks" stuff as well. there is so much to them beneath the Brutal Warrior vibe

also i got a giggle out of taash immediately being like "they were fucking" about solas and mythal, and i got approval for agreeing "oh they were definitely doing it" sdfgmf incredible

i did indeed get a continuation about taash's gender issues and i'm so in love.... it's actually really wonderful to see a character still figuring it out instead of already knowing. cathartic. the struggle of feeling "not normal" and having a different response to gender things than others. simply not having the frame of reference or the terminology, just knowing theres this Feeling. can't wait to see how it plays out

the way solas was responsible for this with the titans and then when he woke up in the current world with the veil, he felt like it HAPPENED AGAIN.... ACCIDENTALLY. TO HIS OWN PEOPLE im going to scream. the way its linked to tranquility. screaming and screaming and

honestly all of this was delicious in a ton of ways, including lace, bellara, and davrin just being present, leaning all this about the dwarves, the elves, and the blight. bellara and lace relating over the need to reevaluate so much of what they understood..... hhh and davrin probably now understands more about the blight than any other warden ever.

when bellara mentioned that solas might be able to possess someone to escape the fade my pupils went blown like an excited cat lol literally instantly "POSSES ME, SOLAS....."

yes yes we're supposed to be wary, we're expecting him to betray us of course of course but listen. rook and solas could be in one body fighting this together as a little treat. im just SAYING

so after this i did emmrichs personal mission in the necropolis gardens, which was fucking beautiful. i do actually find cemeteries really peaceful, personally. ive been to some old canadian ones and had a great time sitting in the grass between the headstones and writing in my journal. so i loved this very much. walked around quite a bit, not sprinting at all, just taking it in and doing the side quest there

also emmrich and bellara are team "upbeat and kind, reveal their traumatizing backstory, then go back to normal like that never came up!" omg they.... i wish there was a "hug companion" button

i went to the anderfels after but i was feeling a bit overstimulated with all the stuff i learned! but i will def play more later because i am dying to find out more

[lehdenlaulu]

Okay, 40h in, some stray thoughts:

I keep going back and forth between 'oh it's not really that bad after all' and 'ugh why' basically. Every time there's actually a nice bit of writing etc. the frustration at some other aspect soon takes over.

I'm particularly not fond of the random faceless mook hordes that keep respawning in certain locations (seriously, DA2 was bad enough). Or the dumb pointless boss battles you have to do in order to unlock new areas in the Fade where your reward is... another boss battle. And more faceless mooks. And maybe some gear. And maybe more of Solas's tedious sob story if you're lucky. The ghost of the live co-op thing really keeps quite literally haunting the narrative.

Oh, and there's even a fucking gladiator arena. I'm guessing that was originally for PvP. And now it's just there just in case you didn't already get your fill of combat elsewhere. And wanted to ogle Isabela who now inexplicably wears only a bikini and thigh-high boots. Because apparently that's Rivaini cultural outfit now or something? Some pseudo-Aztec thing? Sure. Whatever.

Honestly, just imagine if they'd put as much time and effort into making sure the story is narratively sound and makes any kind of sense as a sequel to its predecessors as they did into crafting the combat system and the needlessly byzantine combat skill tree. *sigh*

I do really like the new exploration mechanics though. I like that I can strafe on narrow ledges and vault over fences and through windows and such. Not super fond that I can magically just use my absent companions' exploration abilities because of my mystical magical all-powerful MacGuffin, though. Guess some people really don't feel like changing their party composition ever. 🙄

And that's another thing. This game coddles the player way too much to the point of treating us like particularly dense toddlers. Not only are there tons of visual options that basically guide you by the hand and point out everything relevant (all of which I obviously immediately turned off) but the dialogue also will very unsubtly tell you what to do at every turn. Like... Taash, babe, we're both Lords of Fortune, I don't think I need to be told to check out if there's something behind the waterfall. And if someone is so new to RPGs to not know something that basic, they need to discover it for themselves, not have it spelled out to them. Honestly, I thought this game's age limit was 18, not 12.

Speaking of Taash and all things unsubtle... I feel like there was a way to introduce their struggle with gender identity in a less... anvilicious way. And maybe come up with some in-universe lore and terminology instead of just defaulting to modern real-world vocabulary. The codex entry in particular frankly felt like breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the player. And I say this as someone whose own gender identity is pretty nebulous.

Frankly, I'm surprised someone hasn't already literally told Bellara she has ADHD. Yet. I'm guessing she and Taash are relatable to some players, but to me they feel... vaguely insulting, honestly, because it really is about as subtle as a brick in the face. I'm also getting the vibe they're both someone's self insert to some degree at least. Which isn't new for DA, but... yeah.

What else... Oh. Yeah. The less said about the main plot the better. Varric, this really is your worst book yet.

Speaking of Varric, it's pretty funny how he keeps telling Rook to please get some sleep. Sure, mate, would love to but a) all I get for a bed is apparently a bare divan in a room with a massive glowing aquarium b) every time I try to sleep some smarmy elf keeps mansplaining at me in my dreams. Which, you know, is something I shouldn't have in the first place as a dwarf. Maybe I should just start chugging coffee with Lucanis. (But honestly, only Taash and Davrin get to have actual beds, everyone else has to make do with cots, bedrolls, divans, and... an embalming slate??)

Oh, and I'll be really surprised if Varric survives this story. I mean, he's barely there in the first place and keeps talking like some ailing relative who secretly has consumption in a Victorian novel. I mean, his writer was laid off after all.

The pacing and structure of this game is extremely weird. The beginning was particularly rough, then it got better, but it's still a bit all over the place.

Oh, right. I'm fairly sure we were promised cool bard songs at some point. I haven't heard a single one yet. Unless that one street performer in Treviso strumming Enchanters counts, which I don't believe does. It was nice to hear it, though, as much as it was a bit contextually odd to choose that song in particular. Ah well, I guess Empress of Fire would have been even odder.

This is also the most forgettable Hans Zimmer soundtrack I have heard in my life. I can't think of a single theme or leitmotif off the top of my head, but the Inquisition theme on the other hand was instantly recognizable. I might say he's just new to writing video game soundtracks, but... dude's famous for his highly catchy, recognizable and evocative themes. Weird.

But hey! As much as I don't like the cartoony character models, the game is actually otherwise really pretty and has some really lovely visual designs in environments and architecture etc. It's also very stable and smooth for a brand-new game, I've only had one crash and two obvious bugs so far. That's always a big win for a studio. Too bad its actual problems are too baked in to be fixable with some patches.

Anyway, that's it for now. Lots of negativity, I know, but I actually do like playing this game for the most part. I just have to... not think of it as a Dragon Age, basically. Because for all the bells and whistles, or maybe because of them, it really doesn't feel like one. There are glimpses here and there of a great DA game it could have been, but unfortunately, the final result is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster of different and largely incompatible concepts hastily sewn together.

[gyrovagi]

some additional context for dak-wai fucked up backstory is that their magic manifesting was prompted by a fade rift opening up in seheron, and then they found out they could shoot lightning at the demons pouring out. so it felt like the world was ending and was not a huge leap of logic to be extremely scared that they had been affected by the rift and were imminently going to bust out in demons. for the next few years they were too busy getting traumatized to process any concurrent events of inquisition, if they even heard about them

anyway i was considering who if anyone would be privy to dak-wai fucked up backstory. it's not something they typically volunteer information about, it's occasional concerning dad lore drops and if you ask them about something they'll share the directly relevant information. emmrich is horrified to learn dak-wai did not really get proper magical instruction and fucked up their hands shooting lightning before trial-and-erroring their own method and getting very Functional grey warden instruction.

i think it becomes apparent that they're more fluent in qunlat than you'd expect from someone born outside the qun early on, then they talk to taash's mom and shathann immediately goes You sound like you're from seheron. and dak-wai is like 🧍 Yes. and that conversation just ends there.

taash is the person they'd be most willing to share (a barebones version of) their history with of their own volition, since dak-wai is kind of like You remind me of a younger me that i have to give advice to. davrin is their bestie but i think it's standard grey warden courtesy not to pry into someone's history before their joining, so they're truly just vibing. in the version of the game in my head where everything about the crows and lucanis' questline goes differently, they drop enough hints for lucanis to put together that their distaste for him/the crows is based in a kind of analogous personal history. but the crows aren't just unscrupulous mercenaries 🙄. and dak-wai is like Yes I actually think all the crows' pretensions make them worse. for everything i did and went through no one involved was ever under the illusion what we were doing was somehow admirable. what's not clicking

[transmasc-tabris]

Just a dump of the Rook art I've done because I'm still trying to flesh this guy out and finalize how I want him to look, because why not be an absolute idiot and plan out a guy for a game you can't even play yet, right?

Revas Vircanis

18 yrs pre Origins, 39 pre Veilguard, Age 22

I dunno just playing with eye colors. Something something elves eyes glow a little something something demon fight mode because playing with opacity was fun. Also something something cool guys don't look at explosions (I dunno that's the vibe I get from that pose - cool guys also don't dwell on how bad the job must have gone if you're leaving with no armor and torn up clothes)

Veilguard, Age 61

Normal face vs 'Davrin just launched Assan off his shield and did that little smile. Also Neve just did some badass ice magic. So he's short circuiting now.'

Also I couldn't not try drawing him having the only appropriate response to 'you can pet the griffon.'

And since I found pose references some crappy sketches of the two ways my first playthrough is most likely to go at this point because if other people can draw their romance plans then I can too. These are very bad but they were fun to do. I know it won't happen but at least people will probably have polyamory mods for this game within like two days of release so I can just.... I want to hold them both very softly, okay? Definitely didn't think of Neve's sleepless nights in Streets of Minrathous and feel things. Not at all what do you mean?

Anyway yeah just rambling at this point.

- he's yet another instance of 'much nicer and less intimidating than he might initially look' since apparently that's a thing I love.

- somewhere in the middle of making this I realized he's kind of just 'what if my HoF got a god damn break instead of a blight?' (half joking, there are definitely differences but the vibe is there).

- can't do magic but is very fascinated by it. not dagna level but he'll definitely drop whatever he's doing to hear something new about it. a little wary of blood magic, but even approaches that as 'best to know about it since a lot of people around here are into it, and in theory it's cool and interesting. it might be fine actually if people weren't assholes about it, you know?' (sudden realization he would like merrill if he met her)

- life's a little too chaotic for him to amass an actual collection, but always has some new book on his person. often found curled up with it and a cold forgotten coffee.

- quiet and introverted but largely happy guy at this point. a bit lacking in social graces but he'll figure it out, maybe, more or less

- great cook

- had to hold back tears of joy on finding his first grey hairs because he kind of never thought he'd live long enough to see that

- is okay now just be nice about him forgetting things and don't ask why his eye does That sometimes

- wanted to just fight corruption and bullshit in whatever small ways he could but then he just had to go and fuck up some angsty bald guy's plans so now the veil needs guarding and there's some weird fade stuff happening. at least the fade might be interesting.

[queenerdloser]

MY INQUISITOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seeing kai lavellan in this game's artistic style is so weird lol. didn't quite look right. also he's too serious :(((((

kind of disappointed they went with a boring prosthetic option considering what they could have done for his arm replacement. at least make it glow!!!

the south is overrun with darkspawn and we STILL have zero mentions of the warden. drives me crazy lol.

i would die for bellara. i would die for lucanis. i would die for davrin.

veilguard did good with its companions so far i love them all very VERY much.

taash's completely flat affect is so funny to me. she's so deadpan and blunt. getting hard tsundere vibes from her as well. also she's got like a good foot on my rook so their combined comedic potential is unmatched.

lucanis' cousin is one hundred percent the crow mole right. right???? i'm getting so many vibes from that guy.

lucanis being a Coffee Guy is so funny to me.

neve is mad at me :((((((((( i didnt realize choosing treviso would harden her... i'll admit kind of glad i went that way bc i dont want to make romancing lucanis any harder lol. but i dont like that she's mad at meeeeeee.

ISABELA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm not romancing davrin this round but i'm very excited to bc i LOVE his dynamic with rook lol. like they are the exasperated parents of one (1) mischievous griffin. rook is totally the pushover parent and davrin is the stern dad. their whole dynamic during the how to train your griffin sidequest was *chef kiss*

i really love how the companions' backstories feel nuanced & thought out. like i love all companions but this game feels like they're unfolding more naturally??? idk.

kind of surprised the inquisitor didnt have more to say about solas tbh. hopefully he'll return.

(ignoring that love languages are bullshit) lucanis' love language is gift giving. i love him for noticing all these little details about people and getting them uber specific and thoughtful gifts. as someone who ALSO shows love through extremely specific gifts, this spoke to me. and rook getting HIM a gift.... romance.

i'm trying to more thoughtfully rotate my companions on quests but lucanis is definitely a favorite. he's so fucking funny.

SO funny to me that varric was apparently the leader of his band but immediately surrenders it. like varric we all know you are not meant to be a leader, i can't even imagine him doing it. like i love him so so so much but literally he's not cut out for it.

i wont be able to play again until like wednesday maybe :(((((

also i AM playing veilguard and i made a wee pocket sized lad of a man for my first rook and i love him and his boyband hair. spoilers & reactions below the cut.

my first rook is a lord of fortune mage w/the plan to romance lucanis. he's very snarky and i love him.

i'm glad they made the call to go back to the like. da2 style of dialogue.

me so far every time rook talks to solas: get his ass!!!!!!

that said, i feel like they're making solas like rook too quick. what the fuck. it took my inquisitor like YEARS to build a rapport with this motherfucker.

i hate the combat lol. maybe i'll enjoy it more when i get used to it but there's too many moving pieces to keep track of for me. my favorite combat is where i can just like mash one button and easily kill everything in my path, i don't want to be strategic and have to micromanage everything. also what is this three potions bullshit. even dai gave you 10. and i have to like find them in random pots????? what the fuck????

very fun to sprint and jump. makes me feel zoom.

why do the elves just accept that their gods are back and evil? like. it feels like they accept it WAY too quickly lol.

dialogue so far is uh. very cheesy. a lot of "we're all great so let's work together!" stuff that is like. fine. but cheesy.

i'd die for lace harding. she looks so cute in this game.

when solas stabbed varric i SCREAMED. i was like. do NOT kill my boy in the first fifteen minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm still only like a couple of hours in but varric was being suspiciously sick in the cutscenes so i have feeling he is going to die :((((

me: where is my BOYFRIEND (lucanis) and my FUTURE BOYFRIEND (davrin)

i love neve but i have a feeling we are going to butt heads a lot lol. i'm playing my rook as the reckless, confident type with a saving person thing that feels true to what we know about his backstory and he's already disagreed with neve several times. whoops.

i love the little marker showing me exactly where to go. hell yeah, hold my hand with this bullshit. kind of glad they dumped the open world of dai and got us back on rails.... tho that may change as i get further in the game???

when i say i spent HOURS in the character creator.... like i love it but it honestly felt like TOO much tbh. esp. when i had to do it for rook and then immediately again for my inquisitor too.

i ended up going lord of fortune background almost entirely bc i liked their casual look the best but i think i'll definitely try to play most of the backgrounds. they're so fun! i was THIS close to doing shadow dragons.

honestly minrathous is really cool???? all the locations so far have been great, love the lighthouse. (v. funny 2 me that we get all of these cool locations thanks to solas. man knows how to find a cool spot and name it i guess.)

the updated blight is VERY creepy. also those new darkspawn??? i gasped.

i do like that they're playing solas as this like. enemy who is begrudgingly allied due to worse enemies. but i'm so curious how they'll play it when the inquisitor gets involved. i'm doing my kai lavellan inky who DEFINITELY is going to try to stop solas at all costs... uh oh lol.

i know people were salty about not getting to integrate a lot of dai choices but tbh i'm fine with it. i'm more happy we got to include our inquisitor tbh.

morrigan showing up looking younger than she did in da:o.... um okay lol. also i kind of hate that she's considered an expert on elven history yet again. stop that.

im going to say again i hate the combat bc i really do hate it. praying it grows on me as i get more used to it bc otherwise i'm enjoying the game a lot.

[utilitycaster]

Didn't get a chance to update my progress last night before CR started but. many things have happened:

Did Davrin's companion quest. I must say. Davrin is a fucking INTENSE person. He wants to talk all the time back at the lighthouse. He uses the most wild hunting metaphors. He is single-minded and arrogant. It is a vibe and he is fun to talk to but he is So Much (I say, known Paladin enjoyer). I also need to level him and the other new companions up more (I am NOT playing favorites even though I have them) but the thing is also, I play a warrior so I was doing pretty good with my initial crew of rogues and mages. The quest was great though, Assan is adorable and I did like learning about Davrin's past (which he's really forthcoming about). You get the sense this man hasn't had anyone to talk to in a while but unlike Neve or Lucanis he's like "and I'm going to do so IN ABUNDANCE." (Bellara and Harding and Emmrich seem to have had more people to talk to; Lucanis would have but for the year in the Ossuary; hard to read Taash).

I have picked up Emmrich! there was a weird crossroads thing where I could eavesdrop on the elven gods whose names I can't spell reliably due to the apostrophes. I love the crossroads by the way. I am trying to balance out my impatience with doing quests (including sidequests) and hanging out at the lighthouse watching Lucanis explain cacio e pepe to Bellara (real thing that happens and it's glorious; it's a way for you to also catch that Lucanis is buying nice coffee for when Neve comes back, pardon me while I lie face down on the floor) with the fact that I would LOVE to explore things forever with the fact that I can't read a fucking map apparently. ANYWAY brought Bellara there and she and Emmrich are pen pals, so this was fun. I fucking love the Necropolis, which is good because I do play a Mourn Watcher and it would be weird if I didn't, but I must admit Emmrich's recruitment quest is like "kill six billion demons while I do a ritual for a bell" and it's like professor you must be shitting me. Then again I play a Mourn Watch warrior (I have heard this is weird within canon lore, to which I say fuck you I'm a cavalier, also clearly SOMEONE needs to kill venatori and ferry around wisps and slay demons and these mages sure aren't doing it, AND the reaper specialty fucks hard AND I get to say goth things that Neve and Emmrich like and Myrna needs SOME boots on the ground to boss around, so there) so it would be kind of weird if I hated it. Anyway Emmrich is great.

Harding is like, a sleeper character; I like her a lot but as a person with no emotional attachment to Inquisition I'm more drawn to the other three starter companions, and she's solid in combat but not flashy for the most part. However I perked the fuck up when she said she felt sorry for Solas and thinks he's deeply lonely; that was a banger conversation and I do think loneliness and not knowing where you fit into the world is very much a theme of this story.

Neve sent a letter saying Rana, Elek (Threads paper seller) and Hal (street fish merchant) were alive but she needs to stay there. This is honestly the best news; if Hal had died I would have never forgiven myself.

Went to do one Mourn Watch quest and was immediately given two more Myrna is my boss and she's like I know we sent you away for "going against the nobility" even though it was "baller" but now that you have a reason to be back temporarily, please do 3 quests now. And I did, and it was pretty great, although the wisp-ferrying stresses me the fuck out.

Decided that before I seek out the trillion other sidequests that suddenly popped up I should grab Taash, because i kept getting "Tab" pop-ups because I have my game on "I don't know what the fuck I am doing mode" to light Necropolis braziers and then they were like "haha no one can do this, Rook, you dumb bitch". There's also Gaatlok somewhere in Minrathous that I couldn't do shit with. So I did that. Taash fucking rules. I was expecting to not necessarily like them not because of their vibes, but because in real life when I encounter 23 year olds I'm like you're baby. And they are, sort of, baby, but they're also hilarious and blunt and a lot of fun. The surliness towards their mom is great; the fire breathing rules; I finally understand the Antaam's deal. I will say I need to go back to the Appearance Mirror because I picked up a really sick shield that does NOT go with my aesthetic. I respect you slutty pirates, but I am a goth. This also ngl makes me wonder what I would do on a replay because Lords of Fortune are not my personal vibe, though Isabela seems great. Probably Veil Jumper honestly. or a mage crow, which would also probably not work with the lore? really my issue is I love the shadow dragons and also probably will always save Treviso so I can never play it because I am if nothing else loyal. Point being, Taash is here and I'm excited.

Neve is back and she's colder than ever towards me! I don't care, she's back and I re-statted her, time to take her out into the field and destroy shit. This does mean I will probably need to, for the first time, make Lucanis heal me. I don't usually need much healing because Story Mode but I'm very slowly learning combat and one day perhaps might inch up to a higher combat level and then I will. Also the champion fights and the dragon fights. I'm just really terrible at avoiding AOE. Also maybe I'll finally use her time slow stuff. I haven't been doing much with the buff abilities because I am a melee/tank/shield-throwing beast but Davrin's taunts were actually very useful.

I have so many side quests and also some main quests so I have no idea what to do. Might check out Morrigan in fallen Minrathous; might do the veil jumpers quests though. There's also some quest in Treviso I haven't pursued and something I picked up in Taash's room. Everyone's back so might as well!

I haven't been talking a ton about all the little codex bits but they are great, and specifically it is important you know that the first book club occurs AFTER everyone is recruited, which is to say, Taash, Davrin, and Lucanis do not attend for whatever reason but Neve, who is grieving and angry, does. This is hilarious.

Manfred and I are tied 1-1 on Rock Paper Scissors; I have been petting Assan every time I go check on the unhinged pantry conversations or go talk to Davrin.

[transmasc-tabris]

Okay continuing. Trying to update this post every time I play for more than like 30 minutes so I can remember my first impressions.

First off Teia is so pretty I could die and I'm glad I finally read eight little talons a few days ago.

Got Bellara's outing and I'm gonna eat the walls. Ahhhhhh fuck she's so *incoherent sound* Like really besides that the score in all her scenes feels like a corny movie I'm having a good time with her.

Speaking of score so much of that has mass effect vibes too. The underwater prison especially.

Neves outing too it was so nice. So far I'm not one hundred percent sure on my opinion of her. I'm starting to think she'll turn out to be a rather simple type of character but in a way that I'll definitely enjoy. She seems... reserved, but not quite like she's keeping people away, more like she doesn't think they'll ever want to get close.

Lucanis - got coffee with him and I like him well enough. He is definitely not hitting as hard as the last crow we got but he's alright.

Got Davrin for five minutes and I already like him very much. Too bad the second I finished recruiting him The Choice showed up and I had only been to Treviso once. Sooo gonna have to do that again. Quite intrigued by whatever the hell is going on with the gloom howler.

The way Neve calls bellara Bell and how they read serials together and Bellara is her number one fan girl? Nevellara real? Neve/Rook/Bellara the throuple ever? Please?? If bioware won't do it then I will I have ao3 and some free time. (Sorry, I've been afflicted with the Brain Rot again)

Got to see Dorian and that was nice.

And wait Mae was one of the SD founders did I hear that right?

Lorelei I'd die for you.

So there's at least some darkness to the crows (Jacobus? Why are you like thirteen just kidding I know exactly why but *screech*) and I'm holding back on a full opinion on them in this game until later but it is weird that I'm expected to at least kind of disagree with the person saying 'hey maybe the guild of assassins bought off the streets as children or bred for this life since birth shouldn't run a country and shouldn't be the closest it has to an army'. Like nah they've got a point. A country can only get away with not having an army as long as there's no reason to have one.

But anyway it does feel like darker stuff is there but definitely much more apparent to people who've played every other game and at least read some of the outside stuff.

Game I don't want to save Caterina (but I don't know if a new player would have any strong feelings about her). I can see how it's the practical thing to do but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh, zip lining is weird but kinda fun.

So are the Antaam basically ogres because Blight Gods or what? That's gotta be it since there's ordinary qunari citizens who seem, well, ordinary. Not to mention the qamekmaster and all that.

Oh, uh. Neve 'you should have said no the job'? Ma'am what do you mean? I'm scared.

Harding it was kinda rude of you to waltz up to varrics room and only talk to rook but you're pretty and under much stress so it's whatever.

(probably not romancing her this go but got a flirt line with her that was so cute I made a stupid noise)

Speaking of dialogue it hasn't been that bad. Not great but hardly horrible, though there have been some moments that feel very 'we don't trust you to have actually read the note you just picked up so we're gonna just say it'

Oh and Solas treating those spirits as expendable. Knowing he's just destroying them? Well. Well then I'll.

So just collecting my thoughts on DAV so far. Literally only a couple hours in at this point since life will not just Stop for a second.

Okay first off. Character Creator? Chef's kiss. God damn. Took me forever but I enjoyed it. Also haven't made a qunari character yet but I did take a look at some of the options and neither hair nor horns were as bad as I'd feared. There are options that aren't trash.

Glad I could give my first Inquisitor the glorious braid, broad shoulders and generally haunted look he deserves.

But also? What does -18% mean for height???? I don't know. I managed to make my Rook a little shorter than Neve after a few tries so it's all good.

Moving the camera with the mouse is still something I'm getting used to, but considering all the times I fucked up in DAI and ended up running around looking at the top of my character's head, I'm fine with this new way of doing things.

The new darkspawn design? Not as bad I thought it would be. Same with the new demon design.

Combat - Well they said it was going to feel like mass effect and it mostly does. Obviously like if you took out the guns but you know what I mean. I keep expecting that one death theme to play when my Rook goes down. Like with every bioware game I've played (besides DAI, actually) it's either a breeze or a death fest with little in between. That could be a skill issue on my part though. I do like the actiony feel and the way it seems to be leaning into the absurd athleticism for rogues.

Do wish I could turn off or tone down companion dialogue in combat though. Tone down most likely. I don't hate it (how could I hate supportive Harding??) it just happens too frequently in my opinion.

Love that running around and looting instead of fighting is now canonically on brand for my Rook. True lord of fortune moment. Speaking of - LoF casual outfit is growing on me.

Irelin is so pretty I could cry. So are a lot of others but she wowed me.

This could easily have to do with the fact that I'm playing it on nvidia geforce now but it does seem like the voices are a little bit... off from the characters? Like ahead of or behind their mouths moving our sounds like it's coming from a different place altogether. I dunno there's just something a little weird about the voices in general but that's a massive nitpick and not a huge deal.

Solas hates blood magic now? Wasn't he pretty neutral on it before? Then again, I'd lie in those circumstances too.

Still wish we'd had more than three world choices to choose from especially if characters from previous games are coming back, but at the very least they are making it easy for a new player or someone who hasn't played a da game since dai came out to just jump in.

Fuck the lighthouse is beautiful.

Pretty much all technical at this point since I've literally just met Bellara at this point. Oh Merrill you would have loved her.