#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.

[teenage-dreams18]

Usted se fue y la dejo en un rincón llorando.

[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

[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

[leavesandbounds]

Me just going through the sims 4 wiki to mentally make my brain folks in CAS using traits and stuff because I refuse to pay- what- over $1000 at this point? To unlock all the content with CAS and new traits and aspirations

Fuck you EA

I'll play your game in my damn head before I give you money

[hyperbali]

Ahahaha...

r/dragonage for months: stop harshing other people's vibes!! we've been waiting YEARS for this!! the game is going to be great!! number one on steam!! fuck yeah!!

r/dragonage one day into release: what the fuck. this is fucking awful. why is it [shit people have been warning about for years at this point]

[anneapocalypse]

This wasn't even a decision that the devs made willingly but one forced upon them by the game's planned release in 2013 (which they later were able to get pushed back, so that they could add features they'd wanted to add all along--more on that here).

This is a facet of the game's troubled development I return to a lot because I do believe it's at least part of the reason for the Inquisitor being written the way they're written, and I do think that its impact on the game's storytelling and overall player experience is not positive.

So much about the way the Inquisitor is written and voiced makes a lot more sense when you remember that they were originally going to be limited to a human from a noble family and the other backgrounds were only added later. From the Inquisitor's sort of muted, milquetoast personality to the limited reactions to certain things and people, it makes perfect sense if you assume that like 80% of that dialogue was written for a human noble character.

Like Hawke has a much more lively personality than the Inquisitor but a lot of Hawke's dialogue options would still feel very strange and confined if you tried to apply them to an elf, a dwarf, or a qunari, you dig me.

[galedekarios]

truly love how slowly but surely every companion is turned into a spineless doormat so as not to offend the fragile egos of the lowest common denominator of their playerbase or inconvenience them ever so slightly 💀

[is-there-a-filipino-legend-yet]

Looks like EA and Respawn has forgotten they have a day 0 anticapitalist character in their roster!

[v-arbellanaris]

i love how bioware doesn't even have to explain scrapping all our worldstates bcos you guys will do it for them. ok now im done i swear