#dragon age negativity

[leliwardens]

Answering the Anon question about the South under the cut so big Veilguard spoilers are hidden + neg.

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Understandably, there is a quantum nature to The Warden and Hawke that got uh, fucked over when they wiped worldstates. I assume the vague nature of scene (and as I discovered, letters from the Inquisitor also I believe?) are so you can "headcanon" whoever is alive in your worldstate is running around (outside non-quantum like Aveline).

But the kicker to me is they run with what is a common worldstate, despite their previous claims about it. Like Isabela talks about Kirkwall and mentions Merrill, Harding talks about everyone in the Inquisition.

So the assumed timeline is one where everyone was recruited and lived throughout the three games.........you're saying all of them went down like bitches??? Just like that??? That's what 15 years worth of characters and stories end up?????? Thanks for being invested in the franchise, now we won't ever mention the fate of your favorites/MCs again and they're probably dead now, or not, up to you!

Bitter af about this lmfao.

[lithosaurus]

It's coming up on a month after the limited worldstates news and I'm coming to terms that it really did kill my interest in Veilguard. If the game doesn't have the same writers, mechanics, characters, world building, or narrative through line, why even act like this is a sequel? I'm not against game series changing over time. Plenty of franchises reinvent themselves. The difference here is that this is supposedly a continuous narrative. DA2 and DAI both ended with open plot threads. DAI and DAV are both marketed as direct sequels supposedly following the plot's of the previous games.

Except all the tension built up by DA2 and the expansion books before DAI were answered in what more or less amounts to the tutorial levels with major retcons along the way. There's even an achievement or reaching Skyhold (meaning you must have resolved the mage-templar war) before level 5. And now DAV is entirely divorced from any decision that wasn't Trespasser, the DLC ending that cost an extra 15 bucks and wasn't even released for all platforms.

There's been layoffs and retcons and so much turmoil at BioWare that I've effectively lost all trust in the company. Even if they managed to hold it together for one more game, there's no telling which decade that game will release in, who will be writing it, what sort of gameplay it will have, what major details of the world will be changed, or what they'll decide to completely change.

Why should I get invested in any decisions if there's no guarantee they'll matter next game? Why should I care about the new characters if their arcs are going to be written to be as inconsequential as possible? Why should I be excited about returning characters when they're Schrödinger's Character development?

We had a 10 year long cliffhanger re: Solas, and 15 years of unanswered questions going back to DAO. It all ends with limp 'it matters in your heart!' from a dying game company.

TL:DR this sucks, man

[dreamerinsilico]

Me, finding out my computer will run Veilguard: goddamnit.

[afroditeohki]

me: I'm such a stick in the mud, completely void of excitement for the new Dragon Age, can only see the flaws in the new trailer

my entire tumblr circle: mocking the new trailer

welp, guess that's not just my hatred towards EA and disenchantment toward Bioware talking huh

[hauntedgarden95]

When we finally get a dreadwolf trailer I want to see gameplay mechanics, locations, everything. I wanna see that I shouldn’t just throw in the damn towel

[snarkspawn]

did I doodle this mostly so I had an excuse to draw this spite reaction image?

(YES HAHAHA YES!!!)

[unveiling-unguarding]

"People hated DA2 and Inquisition when they launched but love them now. The same thing will happen to DA:TV"

Like hell it will. Veilguard gives empty answers to empty questions with empty characters. There is nothing deeper to sustain it.

[amadelii]

Relationship status: year 10 of an awkward situationship that could have ramifications for the fate of the world because the gods she used to follow might actually be horrible (aka It's Complicated)

I can't wait for the new game - I'm very fond of this desperate, tortured, wet cat of a man. Bonus points if Lavellan can swoop in and save him from his own delusional chaos for Peak Drama 🙏🙏🙏

[whereismywarden]

"We wanted to make the game accessible to new players."

It's not though. Not entirely. The plot is a direct follow-up to Trespasser. And romantic or not, the relationship between Solas and the Inquisitor will apparently play a pivotal role. By definition, you're already including content that could make new players feel like they're missing parts of the story (which they are).

Also, you could easily have a default worldstate with next to no references to the older games while still giving returning players the opportunity to input a few additional choices that could crop up if relevant in codex entries or background dialogue. I forgot which game it was, but I remember playing a game once that asked you at the start whether or not you wanted to see past events be referenced during the story. It really could have been that simple.

But by choosing to remove past choices from the game entirely, not only are you not really making the game more accessible to new players, but you might end up alienating half your existing player base.

[zundely]

Sorry for a little petty and not a very positive post but it gets on my nerves a little when I see people being like "My RPG choice/romance is in the Bioware CANON WORLDSTATE we won!" like I dunno what to tell you man, congrats your singleplayer game choices were approved by the corporate or whatever but it's a little weird you want to use it to make your, again, singleplayer RPG game choices feel more valid then other ones.

And while in plot choices it's bad because it feels unecessary discourse about which choices are the 'correct ones', it really rubs me the wrong way when it is about romance options. Because first- there obviously shouldn't be a right and wrong romance choice. There shouldn't be secret winning romance. And second- if it is a thing that there is a romance option that gets loads of attention from creators because they chose it as more canon then others... yall realise why this is actually a bad thing right? Especially when usually it's a straight locked romance? And how it's especially bad when there is no alternative with comparable plot relevance? Like I dunno if that's winning guys when all but one choice in the game with multiplechoices don't get any followup in the narrative.

[leliwardens]

(Article I want to bitch about on my own blog and not put it in the tags.)

I suspected that the devs were super chronically online for various reasons and choices but this basically confirms it. Like oh my fucking god I'm being so genuine and real but they really, REALLY need to log off. You cannot approach any piece of media trying to appease all of the fans, it will never, ever work. Fandom is not a monolith, fans are not a monolith, people will bad faith read your story for fun, or good faith read it, and still come away with an entirely different take than you intention. "Death of an author" is a real and true concept.

"Wipe out a Dalish clan in all three games" is a CHOICE. In Origins it is considered the evil option of the three endings for the quest, you have to encourage the werewolves to want to kill them. In DA2 you're defending the person that the clan has been told is a pariah among the clan AND is now blamed for getting their keeper killed. In Inquisition it is a rather convoluted war table mission, but there are ways to resolve it with no death. But these are choices! The game doesn't give you a gun and leave you no room to avoid it. Taking the choice out isn't a win! It's bad game design for a roleplaying game!

"None of the Dalish would take the side of the evil gods" is not the "win" you think it is (also I guess city elves get shafted again but that's expected) because it flattens any sort of nuance, motivations, messy interactions, or just flaws? In general flaws? Going from one extreme to another in terms of "good" and "bad" is not the "win" you think it is!!! All you've done is removed character agency!!!!

I can't suspend my disbelief enough to accept the entire build up of Inquisition to Trespasser with elves leaving their homes to join Solas only for the reason they're not running around being "oh he'll end the world". Like, how could their lives get worse in that case? Sure, the extremely powerful being claiming to be right out of the mythos said his plan will cause thousands of deaths and the world as you might know it but I'll just head back to my home in the alienage where humans can do whatever they want to me like burn down my home or kill my family with no repercussions. Or I guess since the city elves are practically nonexistent, that was never considered lmfao. Or hell just, elves wanting a grab at power? For selfish reasons? Or well-intentioned reasons? You know, nuance??? Like, fuck dude.

[lithosaurus]

I know we're in the 'backlash to the backlash' phase of the fandom news cycle but there is something incredibly irritating about the phase of posts that are dismissing the upset about the worldstate updates. Obviously no one was expecting who owns the tavern in Redcliffe to matter twenty years later in Tevinter but I absolutely was expecting the major decisions of Inquisition to matter.

BioWare has put out their statements about how your choices are still your choices from past games and how hard it is to write for the amount of branching options they included in past installments, which is largely true.

However, it absolutely invalidates the big choices that were previously presented as earthshattering decisions if ten years later they're not considered relevant.

Morrigan is going to show up. Does it matter if she has a son she's willing to sacrifice everything for? No.

Varric is going to play some sort of role. Does it matter if Hawke is even alive? No.

Solas is a key figure. Does it matter if he was close to the Inquisitor before being revealed as the Dread Wolf? No.

Dorian's a Magister in Tevinter now. Does it matter if he has/had a relationship with a Ben-Hassrath spy or how close he was to the Inquisitor? No.

I fully understand how difficult it is to write for so many possible options. I'm struggling to understand how to write for a worldstate where none of those decisions have hard answers.

This doesn't have much of a thesis other than a note of annoyance. Obviously, the severe responses that actually go so far as to threaten the writers are out of hand but dismissing other people's reactions to hearing the promises BioWare has made for over a decade are meaningless is kinda crap.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Lucanis' demon being Spite is as much a telling characterization as Anders'.

"We tortured you for a year to force a demon on you and what came from it? Something epic like Vengeance or Rage? No. Spite. Small, petty, vindictive pleasures in our discomfort and downfall."

It makes sense that Spite isn't as effectively a threat.

[momochanners]

So, that new Dragon Age trailer...

Uh...

*sigh*

Some games are not for me and that's okay.

[housederiva]

I just… I can’t get over how short Veilguard feels to me and I don’t know if I’m the only one who has the sentiment. I have less than five achievements to get and a handful of codex entries to find and I’ve played for roughly 100 hours. That’s with a second play through already started after the first was completed and with several scenes replayed a few times over… Is this a valid critique of a AAA game that took 10 years to make that I have?

Inquisition’s close to 150 on average for people to 100% but on the flip side 2 is about 60 and Origins is a little over 80… to flip it again the first two came out in 2011 and 2009 respectively and Inquisition has the Hinterlands

I honestly don’t know and I’m genuinely asking for people’s thoughts here

editing this with my addition I put in the rbs 5ish hours later! xx

I’ve come to the conclusion that I feel this way because of the lack of depth that’s more prevalent in some areas than others and not because a lack of overall core content. It’s unfair for me to say it’s been 10 years in development hell when instead it’s been roughly 3(4?) for the game that was shipped and that jumped to thought skewed my opinion!

I don’t think I’m discontented by the length but by the depth and weight - if that makes any sense?

(also thank you to everyone who’s left a comment/tags, no one been antagonistic towards anyone else and the notes sort of feel like this picture)

[gautiersylvain]

quick and easy chart for the companion bond icons, based on the assets extracted by @pinkyjulien