#dragon age the veilguard for blacklists

[fallowhearth]

Well my resolve to wait a few months before buying DA4 cracked. Since I'm home sick today I thought it might be fun to play this evening. Unfortunately I forgot my internet is terrible and it's going to take 24 hours to download, lol

[squidproquoclarice]

Found this codex entry while playing Veilguard. Clerra's really got herself a devoted (and still awkward with his words) sweetheart of a husband. :)

[songofstone]

Just finished Veilguard. That shit was so good. I can't give it a 5/5 because too much holds it back, but damn I loved it as a long time fan. I can tell that there was a lot of developer crunch and internal issues (I know it's been in development hell for 10 years but how long the devs have had to work on this iteration of the game is a different thing entirely) but I still love it. I love my Rook. I love Lucanis. Davrin. Neve. Harding. Taash. Emmrich. And definitely Bellara. Wow. Despite everything, it's still us, and it's still Dragon Age. It may look different, but the love is still there if you look past the surface.

[emmavakarian-theirin]

bioware fandom: just let varric rest already!

bioware: BET

[notenoughdragons]

so i caved yesterday after *gestures* all of that on the other side of the pond, and bought veilguard (meant to wait till the first bugfix patch is out), and i have thoughts

(spoilers for the first few quests)

fucking adore the character creator. overwhelming as heck but God a+

addendum: why tf aren't there different lip/mouth shapes. we have like 30 eyelash options. i'm p sure da:i had diff mouth shapes

THERE'S NO QUICK SAVE/LOAD OPTION???? why on god's green earth

the photo mode is NEAT (tip, get yourself reshade plus the "mod" that allows hiding the UI, so you can do screenshot nonsense in cutscenes too)

it took me like 15 min to get rid of the quest marker bc that shit is hidden in Two diff menus but oh my god so worth it

on that note, i'm Really enjoying the area/level/dungeon design, and traversing it Without an annoying big blue star thing blinking at you is really good

the environments are just. unhinged in the best way. THE CROSSROADS? D'META VILLAGE?? THE OSSUARY???? perfect no notes

have i mentioned the hair? the hair is really good. i'm a lttle obsessed with the style i gave my rook, i didn't think i'd like it this much

okay let's talk plot bc. uh.

see, on the one hand? so far (recruited bellara and got the dagger and fucked around in the crossroads and am currently getting murdered by murdering calivan so lucanis will murder for Me) it… works for me? like it really feels like getting thrown into the DEEP deep end, but it's a kind of. idk. sensible progression?

and oh my god ghilan'nain. i kinda hate how normal she comes across in the memory dungeon lab? (which. AMAZING QUEST) but also i love that SHE'S UNHINGED, that solas clearly held sympathies for her, the way i YELLED when you hear her voice when that dragon shows up in the blighted village??? amazing

(NO fucking idea how this would play for someone who's not familiar with the series, good lord the amount of exposition crammed randomly into codex cards???)

that being said. how the fuck does this connect from trespasser/tevinter nights. solas what Happened to you. like this is (part of) why i'm Not using saar as the inq in this run, bc even pretending they Weren't madly in love, it doesn't work. i don't think it works for Any inquisitor who befriended/romanced him (unless maybe one who decided to go full scorched earth and hunt him down at all costs)

in meta terms i know why this is happening but How is varric our insight point into solas and the connection to him. even if you're not playing them, this Should be the inq. solas doesn't lose a single fucking word about anyone But the inquisitor in trespasser. it's just this really tragic dissonance y'know

also the way this game is frontloaded is so fucking funny (i am also choosing to find it funny). IMMEDIATELY unleash the evanuris. IMMEDIATELY get solas trapped somewhere so he can't use his not-god powers to help you. FIRST "normal" quest is a horror movie walkthrough of The Most Blighted Village You Can Imagine, like okay! solas spends all of da:i being fucking coy about the blight and now it's like 'the evanuris are blighted. yeah they used the blight for power that's why i trapped them. they got out and immediately start spitting blight everywhere For Power. the REST of the blight is trapped in the evanuris prison. yeah the black city IS the evanuris prison. also blight is alive too. uh what else'

sidenote. did. did no one think it was A Little Weird to frame it like 'solas is trapped in the fade' - 'but not like us! we're also trapped in the fade but in a completely different way!'

i do love the fade conversations, it's got dishonored vibes

(and cut-away scenes to the Villains Having Ominous Convos! i liked that in da:o)

also i have hints turned on and the. the little pop-ups. "solas remembers your verbal jab" THANKS GAME

ACTUALLY SPEAKING OF THOSE VILLAIN CONVERSATIONS. we're just gonna drop into a fucking codex that the lyrium dagger IS the red lyrium idol??? SOLAS CAN CLEANSE THE BLIGHT AND WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT IT????

basically. the connective tissue to da:i etc is uhhhh. insane. bonkers, even. but also when i ignore that, it's legit fun??

also good lord i'm glad i didn't try to come up with a super specific character/backstory for this, the faction backstories are Real specific, and rook is written with a v definitive Slant (not a bad one! but there IS a slant)

[felassan]

let's talk a lil bit about the new Thedas Calls teaser and the new blog post, in relation to revisiting the DA:D leaks from around 10 months ago (potential DA:D spoiler warning for those last 2 links, as well as for under the cut below):

(I won't be posting the images and gif themselves from that leak here, not directly. here and here are some previous posts of mine talking/speculating about those leaks so that I don't repeat myself too much. and here is my DA:D spoiler tag in general in case it's of interest to anyone to browse or anyone wishes to blacklist it. also, the usual set of disclaimers that accompany all leaks applies - might not be real, unable to verify, games change a fair bit between development phases and final release, take with grain of salt etc).

okay, so really in this post I am just looking to tie the new teaser&blog info with that leak.

the new teaser indicates Weisshaupt as a location we'll be visiting in DA:D, seeming to confirm the leak, which shows the possible Player Character, Rook, and their companions including Davrin fighting through Weisshaupt ("Weisshaupt" can be seen in the top right text).

the new teaser implies something bad has happened to Weisshaupt (see bottom paragraph in that post) and when the 'Speaker 2' Warden character speaks their line, we hear the roar of battle, a battle cry, the clang of weapons etc. I wrote elsewhere that Speaker 2 (who insists that Wardens don't hide in their castle, they fight)

sounds like a hardened fighter, a seasoned commander. he is speaking when he’s about to be attacked, or in a pause in battle

and in the leak, text shows that Rook has the objective "Defeat the darkspawn", and shows them fighting through Weisshaupt in combat with darkspawn. this is not the worst of it however - per the dialogue there's "worse than darkspawn on the way", and the walls won't hold it back. we see Rook fighting what looks like those red lyrium-affected darkspawn creatures. Could the thing that is worse and on the way be the cause of the "tremors in the Anderfels" described in the blog post, or one of the "risen gods" mentioned in the teaser? I feel like if you squint, in some of the images from the leak, there looks to be the silhouette of a great beast in the background, maybe a dragon.

this location in the leak, also noted as Weisshaupt, looks to be this location from the teaser, just from a different angle/position on that 'level'. it has the same night-time, lighting, dark atmosphere, rocky cliffs, cloudyness, ruined buildings/structures, ominous feel, vaguely green tint etc.

the blue dome in that location also seems to show up as an asset in the Rivain segment of the teaser.

apart from the red lyrium darkspawn, the red lighting here in the leak (and potentially the reference to "Spawn Boils"), as well as the ominous spreading tendrils in the leak images in general, bring to mind the red lyrium-esque glow in part of this shot from the teaser.

the leak describes Rook as a "Level [x] Grey Warden" - interesting considering the prominence of Grey Wardens as a highlighted faction, locale (via Anderfels and their HQ), 'Warden Speaker' in the teaser and all. (remembering also the speculation that Warden is a potential background of some kind for the PC)

I also wonder if the big door with griffons on it in the leak is what looks to me like a door/gateway covered by the suggestion of red lyrium in the teaser. I feel like if you squint you can just about make out the pattern of the engraved griffons' wings on it, or those rayed lines from the bottom half of the door. (or is this just me seeing things hh?) in the leak the characters are trying to hold the door shut and there's no red lyrium on it. I guess they fail and it becomes tainted by red lyrium and destroyed/grown over or something, or the dragon etc that I presume they're trying to keep out, does end up busting through, with the walls around it becoming destroyed too. (easily done by a dragon, magic, red lyrium or stuff magic-warping bc of Fade shenanigans etc)

According to sources that spoke to Tom Henderson's Insider Gaming, "It’s understood that you’ll be able to move from your hub to missions by passing through a mirrored portal." I know the games have always had Fast Travel all over Ferelden as in DA:O or all over Ferelden and Orlais as in DA:I etc. and it's a game, so you don't really need an explanation for jumping around travel-wise due to gameplay-story segregation. the mirrored portal obviously sounds like an eluvian though and to tie this to the new teaser, with so many different locales shown across vast swathes of northern Thedas - Anderfels, Tevinter, Antiva and Rivain at least - I have to wonder again if the PC and their companions are travelling around these many different countries and across such distances via eluvians. I wrote elsewhere,

moving from a hub to missions through eluvians was exactly what we did in Trespasser from the Winter Palace, and it worked really well. Trespasser’s setup was really enjoyable. it was a fun mechanic that helped explain fast travel and apparent teleportation. it also allowed for travelling to places all over, from the Deep Roads to ancient elven ruins to places in-between the waking world and the Fade - a variety of handcrafted places to explore still but with a tighter storyline threading through them, as opposed to open-world that felt like it was probably mandatory to include during development because of other games on the market like Skyrim and AC, but which then struggled to be filled with meaningful content to fill the space and in which that struggle was apparent. I’d be down for that. I’m just daydreaming and speculating wildly now for real (bc it’s fun) but we could travel all over Thedas that way. We did that in [previous DA games] I know but you know what I mean?

at the very least from the new teaser we now know we're travelling to at least 4 different nations in DA:D. :>

Some leak-text on Reddit also accompanied the gif and screenshots from the leak. it again mentioned the darkspawn attacking Weisshaupt. as I wrote at the time, this "explains why Weisshaupt looks wrecked", now it seems like we are also seeing this in the new teaser (wrecked Weisshaupt). it seemed to confirm the influence of red lyrium also, mentioning that some of the enemy darkspawn "have red lyrium attacks", and confirmed the attacking dragon. I wrote at the time

The dragon is also Concerning.. like. Darkspawn attacking, with a dragon involved. That sounds like a Blight and an Archdemon. Is this the Sixth Blight? is it a Red Lyrium Blight? I'm reminded of this concept art. also HELLO?

not sure about a 'red lyrium Blight' / 'sixth Blight' exactly per se, but what it reminds me of again is the Anderfels blurb from the new blog,

ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀʀ ᴡᴇꜱᴛ, ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ɢʀᴇʏ ᴡᴀʀᴅᴇɴꜱ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴏʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀɴᴅᴇʀꜰᴇʟꜱ. ᴛʀᴇᴍᴏʀꜱ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴅɪꜱᴛᴜʀʙᴀɴᴄᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ʟᴀᴛᴇ. ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ɪꜱ ᴜɴᴋɴᴏᴡɴ. ᴜᴘᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅɪꜱᴛᴀɴᴛ ʜᴏʀɪᴢᴏɴ, ᴀ ꜱᴛᴏʀᴍ ᴏꜰ ᴏᴍɪɴᴏᴜꜱ ɪɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ʙʀᴇᴡꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀʀᴋᴇɴꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴋɪᴇꜱ.

as in, the contents of the leaks sure sounds like this 'storm of ominous intent that darkened the Anderfels skies' has now struck, and hit Weisshaupt.

In the leak it was noted that

"The objective is to fight through the Darkspawn to get to the library, but as you are doing so there is also a big ass dragon attacking from above. And the dragon creates occasional environmental and traversal hazards. It ends once you reach the library, close the gates, "and then come face to face with the dragon. It appears you are then supposed to try and chain the dragon up, but it ends before the player completes that."

(I said of this, "I guess the big lever we see has something to do with trying to chain the dragon up.") I feel like here in the new teaser we can see some hints of occasional environmental and traversal hazards, like lightning strikes (some dragons have lightning / electricity abilities right? like Vinsomer from the DA:D codex they shared with us), broken bridges and different places where we might have to jump to, hang from, or climb onto etc (and the leak had also mentioned that jumping returns). I also feel like, perhaps the ring-things in that shot from the new teaser have something to do with the chain-system mentioned in the leak, where it seems that you're supposed to then try and chain the dragon up. the leak also said that

"Basically, buildings and whatnot are all modeled and textured but the skybox itself is very dark and makes it seem as though the entire fortress is underground, although it is clearly not. I suspect the skybox could contain some giant world event, similar to the Breach, they hadn't finished."

given that in the new teaser Weisshaupt still looks dark, it seems like this was intentional? and likely due to the attack on the fortress and whatever giant world event may be appearing in the sky[box] that was theorized to being something similar to the Breach (and in that concept art of Weisshaupt).

[andrewknightley]

if dorian or shale or fenris or whoever appear on dragon age: the veilguard, i hope i find out in game and not in the voice actor imdb list, but probably i wont be able to avoid the credit spoilers ú_ù i follow too many dragon age blogs...

[galedekarios]

The Dragon Age Veilguard OST goes up for pre-orders on the 18th and then has it's formal release on Nov 1st, so again, please be careful with spoilers in case some track titles may allude to events in game!

[source]

[darasideblog]

Really is so weird to go back to DA:I and Cullen's lyrium recovery storyline and acknowledgment of trauma (for him and other companions) after Veilguard only doing the barest of telling instead of showing when it comes to those topics.

It's especially stark with Lucanis' whole Crow background and "spent a whole year imprisoned and only survived by shutting down" story. Nevermind Spite just being such a waste of a character.

If there'd been a character I would have thought would have a Leliana hardened vs softened story, it'd be him. >_>

[invinciblerodent]

[fallowhearth]

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by the mismatch between the labelled dialogue options and what Rook actually says. It feels like the game is chiding me for trying to roleplay in any other way than endlessly patient compassionate daycare worker/therapist to precious smolbeans, even to the point of baiting and switching. Like, I choose the stoic option "Sure." which seems fairly clear cut. But what Rook says is something like "I'd love to! Don't work yourself too hard make sure you get a nap before we go 🥰". Like how did those options to together. Some of the labels to actual dialogue are even contradictory. If you didn't want to allow players to have other personalities, why even present them as fake options?

[sqbr]

Please tag your Dragon Age Veilguard posts!

I'm putting off buying it as a halfassed protest at EA's employment practices and also to avoid the worst of the inevitable release day bugs, so I'm gonna be behind, and I would like to not be COMPLETELY spoiled when I do get there. So! Tags for spoiling posts please! And whatever tagging system you use please start with a post that won't spoil me so I have a chance to add the tag to my blacklist.

[taamlok]

possibly controversial to say but if you're wanting to go into veilguard completely blind to the point where you get bent out of shape from seeing new screenshots why in the hot wet fuck are you active in the fandom on tumblr

[quitefair]

many apologies. but this blog is now back to form. (dragon age)

[lindira]

I have to admit I got a little pang of heartache when Varric was talking to Solas. Hearing Varric insist on trying to talk Solas down and calling him “Chuckles” was so nostalgic. Varric is still so good. Such an amazing friend. …Solas is still a pretentious idiot. 😆

I’m nervous what this means for returning characters, especially Varric since he looks like he’s deep in some shit going right up to Solas like that. I’m hoping to see Dorian - it being in Minrathous and all - but at the same time, I don’t want anything to happen to him.

Also it’s kinda hilarious that we’ll be responsible for making a bad situation worse. Oops all elven gods!

[miragecounseling]

[ ivelle thorne . warrior . grey warden . rook ]