#ea critical

[anneapocalypse]

For the record I feel like saying "Dreadwolf is going to suck because they laid off Mary Kirby" is like... really dramatically missing the point of what's going on here.

The next game has been in alpha for nearly a year now. Kirby's work on the game as a writer was probably mostly finished. Which does not make this better. If anything, it makes it worse.

The layoffs aren't terrible news because a game we're looking forward to might be worse because of them. They're terrible news because people who have devoted years of blood, sweat, and tears to making the game good (including the person who wrote one of the two characters on which they've been hanging the entire marketing campaign for said game thus far) have been axed now that the company has decided it can probably get by without them.

The quality of the game when it finally comes out is irrelevant here. If it's amazing, it won't make this any better, and if it's awful, it won't make it any worse. What matters is the people whose labor made it exist at all are profoundly undervalued, the industry as a whole is broken and frankly abusive, and I wish everyone in it some good labor organizing.

[rookinthecrownest]

I think the thing that Gets Me about Veilguard is just how much of an impossible task it had heaped on it from EA from the start of its inception.

It’s arguably supposed to be a soft reboot for the series while ALSO being a follow up to Inquisition. These are two fundamentally incompatible goals in my opinion. This game had to walk the most insane line of any video game in recent memory. I guess EA wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

And the more I think about it the sadder I become for the original team who worked on Joplin. From what I’ve seen of the art book, Joplin was going to be about as firm a sequel to DAI as you could get - with references to rescuing whoever was left in the Fade, having Calpernia and Imshael as companions, having to fight Solas’ agents, etc.

Then EA makes them scrap it for live service. Fine. But wait - now we���re scrapping it again. Back to single person RPG but you also kind of need to distance yourself from the previous games as much as possible while still somehow being a follow up to the previous game.

New setting, few returning companions, and new Big Bads in the form of Elgarnan and Ghilanain to get a clean slate. Any mention of what’s happening in the South (where we spent 3 whole games!) needs to be relegated to letters and codex. ** I dont have the art book yet, so I dont know if these two were supposed to appear in Joplin beside Solas - or if Solas was supposed to be the sole antagonist in that iteration of the game.

But.. I hope you see what I mean when I say this game had a monumentally, borderline impossible task ahead of it. And when I think of it that way, I think it did as good a job as it possibly could. Especially since the actual development time was closer to 3ish yrs to get what we know of as datv today even though it’s been 10 whole years since DAI.

I hope it’s successful enough to get DA5, but who know’s what’ll happen.

I wish everyone except the EA execs who meddled with this game’s development and are seemingly trying to kill dragon age a pleasant day. I have a cynical detective I need to romance 😔

[citrusai]

i don't wanna knock on bioware's crew or w/e but damn maybe you guys shouldn't have fired half your fucking production team and left the game partially unfinished just to beat an arbitrary deadline thinking you can compete with larian cause you got mad fans were showering bg3 with love. but whateveerrrrr

[teenage-dreams18]

Usted se fue y la dejo en un rincón llorando.

[luna-drinker]

Bioware has been throwing all their best employees out like trash and replacing them with the most insane and unlikable people they could find. I'm starting to think Bioware is EAs tax write off.

[biomechanicalwhoscape]

With all the Dragon Age Veilguard (I refuse to include the The) info coming out, it just reminds me of the Bitter Pill I still have to swallow over how EA essentially threw Mass Effect Andromeda under the bus for an untested IP. Cause "gAmES aS a SeRViCe!!!" The game had potential, but it's so obvious it was rushed, given to a less experienced studio (likely deliberately) and given minimum possible support post launch.

I'm excited to dive back into the lore of Dragon Age again, but boy, am I going in with an air of caution. I hope it's good, but I will just have to wait and see.

[mrdragonageherself]

I'm just sick of these huge companies putting out shit and expecting us to eat it up and say thank you. Like I'm not going to jump for joy at this launch cause it feels hollow. The amount they've reworked this game I'm not excited I'm concerned. I'm not throwing all my money at a half assed piece of work simply because of the name attached. It needs to be genuinely GOOD for me to care and right now I'm just not seeing enough to be excited.

[bluerose5]

What was your favourite dragon age game? Are you looking forward to dreadwolf or nah bc of the EA Issues™️?

I'd say DA:Origins and DA2 are probably tied for me. Some days, I like one more than the other, but they're ones I always feel an urge to return to. DA:I holds a special place in my heart because it was the first Dragon Age game I played if I remember right, but the game doesn't hold the same magic for me as the others. After playing them all, I feel like a lot of the mature, complex, and darker elements were watered down. They try to pass a lot of Inquisition's story & lore elements off as "nuance", but most of it just doesn't sit right with me. Ex. Trying to make the mage/templar conflict seem as if it's more than a war between the oppressed and the oppressors just because they showcase some good Templars here and there. The whole reveal about the ancient Elvhen being no better than the current Tevinter Imperium. A lot of elements like that, which just come across as more meh to me than anything. Not the worst route I could see them going, but not the best either.

On that note, I'm kind of on the fence about Dreadwolf. Like, with Mass Effect: Andromeda, I was excited. I was there for it. I had it on pre-order, and I enjoyed the hell out of it so much that I can confidently say that I got my money's worth of entertainment from it. With Dreadwolf, the more it drags on and the more bullshit pops up on the business/company/EA side of things (such as the layoffs), the more I'm just not feeling it? I mean, I'm excited to an extent, but more so in a "I'm gonna probably wait on this one til I see some reviews or it goes on sale so that I can see where they take the end of this journey and all the lore" kind of way.

[alistairstheirins]

So? The $im$ 4 becomes Skyrim and GTA V?!? It keeps so many unnecessary DLCs when nobody asks for them.

[sketchyelvenasss]

Fuck EA and that preorder price of $90. Waited this long, can wait longer till they pull their head out their ass

[itstheelvenjedi]

also wow look at that the “new” baby update EA wouldn’t shut up about is locked behind a paywall as another expac. Shocker /s

[citrusai]

you just know when the writers are asked ab something in vg and they say "it's up to interpretation" that's code for we were told to not write anything actually nuanced or layered otherwise the dunces at EA think their FIFA 2024 clients will be too scared to pay to play

[gentiansaint]

was thinking about this post i reblogged early, in the context of something i wrote on bluesky earlier which was just that -- while i am actively playing veilguard, i love it. it's not till i close the game that i start thinking about how much better it should be.

but like ... it's a beautiful game with great graphics and settings, the companions and NPCs are interesting and fun, the voice acting is great, and the gameplay itself is genuinely fun and entertaining. i'm playing the game and i'm having fun and loving it.

and then i close the game and my critical thinking brain kicks back in and i start thinking about all the issues we all know are there -- the plot holes, the weirdly shallow factions, the awkward writing here and there, everything to do with the south right now -- and i just feel like i can really see those seams where what they were trying to go for got cut into tatters and patched together into this, swathes of content sliced away and depth made shallow. da has always struggled somewhat with nuance but it's never been quite this apparent before.

there's the shape of this great story in there and you can see it but it's just. not. quite. there. and that whole ten years of hell we've been hearing about... well, it shows. all the false starts and rewrites, the changes of direction. you can see them. and it's sad.

[luna-drinker]

A lot of people on here are vocally anti-capitalist but will lick the boots of companies that engage in anti-consumer practices

[myparentssurplus720]

Never forget.

Mary Kirby wrote Lucanis? 🥺 [source]

[cyhaino]

i was trying to log into my old origin account because that's the one that has all my sims dlc....except i can't because origin doesn't exist anymore and i can't even use those same credientials on the stupid ea app even though i'm pretty sure i did the necessary transferring when they forced everyone off of origin and onto stupid ea so everything's gone all that money wasted

this is why i will always buy my games physically if the option is presented because what the fuck