#game dev critical

[kaija-rayne-author]

Creator presence in fan spaces.

This topic will likely be a hot button topic. (Or people won't care, I can't ever tell.) My response is informed by personal experience of massive harassment, and from working in publishing for almost 15 years. In case people who don't follow me see this, I'm an editor, author, diversity consultant, and media critic. I'm neurodivergent, queer of various flavours including non-binary, and I'm mixed race.

I've also been outspoken about the flaws in Dragon Age Veilguard. From my first review series while I played it right after release up until relatively recently.

I've spoken about it on my website and my gaming blog (which you're reading) and in semi-private groups.

I'm autistic/ADHD. My language usage can come off confrontational and people read me as being angry sometimes.

I'm not angry. I mostly try not to think about DAV these days. I'm just sad that a beloved IP was ruined.

Why was it ruined? Unless someone wants to inject a shot of self-awareness and actually talk now that they no longer work for BioWare, we will never know. A lot of things likely contributed to it.

Honestly, the never getting an answer to why it was ruined has probably haunted me the most. I'd really like to know. Even while I highly doubt there's enough self-awareness floating around the group who created DAV to fill a thimble, I'm an eternal optimist. We might get an answer, someday.

So what prompted another uber long essay? I just watched Mark Darrah's new video.

CONTENT WARNING: Mention of past suicidal ideation.

That was definitely a video.

Keep in mind that true harassment is never okay.

While harassment isn't ever okay, actual harassment has an active component. Someone specifically targets someone else in a way they know they'll probably see. Intending to harm.

Definition of Harassment:

Persistent attacks and criticism causing worry and distress.

Deliberate pestering or annoying.

That's not even touching on the legal definition of Harassment.

So, no, none of that is okay.

And of course I have more to say. Succinct I shall probably never be.

One of the first things we're taught in professional publishing (or they try to teach us, because few people listen until they learn the hard way) is to NOT go looking for reviews, to NOT react in any way to the reviews, to not even thank a reviewer for a positive review! We're taught that there's a distinct line between creator spaces and fan spaces. And that we creatives need to stay in our spaces.

Why? Reviews aren't for the creative. Just like blog posts/games reviews/forum conversations etc. aren't for the creatives, they're for the fans. They're for readers/gamers/etc. A creative interacting with reviews or reviewers... it causes massive amounts of anxiety in reviewers and people who need or want to talk about thing, for whatever reason.

This isn't a joking matter, reviewers have been harassed, doxxed, stalked, and attacked in various ways by creatives who didn't like what the reviewer said about their brain baby. I have personally been attacked and threatened because someone didn't like what I had to say about their book.

Clarifying here that in my usage of the word reacting up there? I'm adding 'goes to read things they shouldn't, gets upset, whinges in private or in public about being harassed because they went looking and read something they shouldn't' and someone then feels the need to, in some way, scold the people who are expressing their critique of a piece of media in appropriate places.

I cannot know what amounts of actual harassment the previous BioWare Devs are getting. I unfollowed the lot of them (the few that I followed) for behavior unbecoming of a professional on social media not long after DAV came out. I personally didn't see any harassment. But I'm one person. I'm not very active on social media, it doesn't surprise me that I didn't see any. But a lot of people are saying they haven't seen any or only seen very little. They wonder if it's going to emails and direct inboxes, which, honestly, it could be for all I know.

Areas where writers/devs etc. are considered fine to be in regarding the thing they made are few and far between. That applies to pretty much any media. Social media like insta, bsky, private groups run by the creative, etc. are pretty much the only places an author/game dev/other creative should ever be regarding our own work. AMAs, interviews, those are fine too.

Places we shouldn't be, unless specifically and personally invited, are review hosting outlets, private blogs, people's websites, semi-private groups, and forums regarding our work. And we should most definitely not be passive aggressive or even aggressive toward fans anywhere. (Both of which I've personally seen some of the previous BioWare Devs do.)

I absolutely acknowledge how toxic the gaming community is, I've been on the receiving end of toxic behavior from DAV fans. I'm a female presumed gamer who lived through Gamergate. I don't use voice chat in most games because my voice pins me as female. And there are very good reasons for that. Toxic reasons. I'm not at all trying to say that the gaming community isn't toxic.

And just the fact that Darrah brought up the places Devs shouldn't be makes a logical leap of 'they're counting that as harassment too' pretty easy. Possibly incorrect, but it's definitely an easy jump to make.

I don't feel great after watching that video. And not because I think I've done something wrong. I certainly haven't been harassing devs. I barely say boo on social media to start with. I haven't DMd or emailed anyone.

I feel emotionally and intellectually violated to learn that devs are sneaking into places they shouldn't be in. Likely using sock puppet accounts as disguise. (Y'all do know using sock puppet accounts to see what people are saying about you is considered shit social media etiquette, right? If you didn't before, you do now.)

And before anyone else bothers, yes, I'm aware that it's the internet, and anything I publish here is free game for anyone to read. (Should everyone read it? Nope!)

The things I restrict for fan spaces are not written for the devs/authors/producers. They are written specifically for fans, often already hurting fans. To learn that game devs are violating the unspoken line of creator spaces and fan spaces just strikes me as really gross.

When I critique a piece of media, and this isn't just about DAV, it's any media I critique, (I was on about Bridgerton last night) I focus on the flaws of the media when I talk about it. People often assume hate from me because of how I use language, but in reality I'm just pointing out the flaws of the media. I rather get paid to do that, for what it's worth.

There seems to be this mass delusion in society that we can't critique something we love. Unless I'm being paid for it, I don't critique anything I don't love with a passion. I've got far better things to do. I certainly haven't been paid anything for reviewing or talking about or critiquing Dragon Age materials.

While I'm on about mass delusion, just because someone doesn't like a thing you liked? It's not a judgement call on you. It's a critique of the thing. Whatever the thing happens to be. The thing is not you. It's a thing you liked/loved.

While Darrah is saying it's peoples' right to be upset and to express that, because we bought a game with our hard earned money, it feels to me like there's another underlying message there. I could just be reading into things too much. But a hazard of being an autistic editor is actually seeing what is there.

Darrah, intentionally or not, while saying it's fine! to express our opinions in these specific areas, (which is not even remotely harassment based on the damned definition of the word) is also giving the strong feeling that, no, it's not actually fine. It feels like he's also saying people shouldn't express their true opinions on forums/private blogs/etc.

I don't agree with that. Of course, name calling and other childish behavior isn't cool. Cheering when people lose their jobs isn't okay either. It should be obvious to everyone that death wishing someone isn't okay. (I've seen all three of those behaviors myself, so yeah, there's a lot of negativity a BioWare dev is gonna find about DAV if they go looking.)

Whether Darrah meant that message intentionally or not, it's certainly there. According to Darrah, the reason we're not supposed to express our opinions to other gamers in semi-private locations, places that the Devs shouldn't ever have anything to do with? Is because, apparently, gaming devs aren't taught to not go looking for shit they're not going to want to see. And it might hurt their feelings.

Seriously? Really? Really really?

I don't watch many of Darrah's videos. I've seen a few, maybe people always feel like this after watching one, though I really hope not.

Y'all. That is not harassment. That's the Devs willfully committing self-harm. That is not on the writer of whatever piece the Dev happened to hate. That's on the Dev for being in a place they shouldn't be.

I've said it before, will probably have to say it again, but if you go looking for peoples' opinions on your work, that is totally on you. You will find both positive and negative stuff. The negative stuff will likely make you feel like shit. It is absolutely a form of self-harm. Which is why we're not supposed to do it.

We're also not supposed to go into fan spaces because knowing the creatives are potentially there is a violation of the very firm line there needs to be between creatives/fans. Social media makes that line a bit blurry, but to intentionally, as the creator/part of the creative team, of thing, go looking at what people are writing in fan spaces about that thing... it's a violation. How are fans supposed to feel safe airing their grievances as is truly their right, if they think the devs/authors/whatever are anonymously stalking them?

Well. They can't feel safe. Now can they?

So your game/book/movie etc. is almost universally panned. Boo hoo? Welcome to professional writing? Don't want to read negativity? Shocking concept here, but maybe, don't?

I can see why a company might have a division that would monitor postings and what-not, maybe to see if there's repeated critiques that would make a next game better. That makes complete sense.

But Darrah is pretty clear that these Devs hang out in spaces that should be fan only just to know what people are saying.

That honestly nauseated me a little.

I'll caveat that a bit with, yeah, they're likely gamers, too. They're perfectly welcome to interact on games they didn't have anything to do with creating. Just like I'm an author, but I'm also a reader and it's fine for me to interact as a reader in reading spaces, about books I didn't write. We don't automatically become not human beings and have our need for socialization removed the second we become professional creatives.

I'll reiterate that if people go looking in forums etc. for peoples' opinions that's on the people who went looking.

That video left a bad taste in my mouth. I've generally liked the few Darrah videos I've seen. I obviously like his past work, AND that video reeked of something marginalized people experience a lot. The 'why can't everyone be nice to each other' schtick.

That's a whole 'nother blog post. But the 'why can't everyone be nice' thing? It's not an awesome thing to say to people. Nice is fake, for one thing.

It's also nigh impossible in today's social media environment to critique a thing and not have people get annoyed at you. Something like DA is innately polarizing. I can try to word something as kindly as possible, and someone will still accuse me of being hateful. Just because my opinion diverts from theirs.

You can (and I do) try to be kind, yet, how can you be truly kind about something that is a vast disappointment? That perhaps honestly hurt you? You can be professional, you can restrain yourself from harassment, but kind while critiquing something that, in the case of DAV, since we all know that's probably what Darrah was talking about anyway, broke your heart?

Would everything I've said about DAV be considered kind? Nope. Not by everyone. Accurate is the response I get most often. I'm not intentionally being a jerk about it, and there isn't any way that I can personally be kind about something that hurt me so badly.

The best I can be is professional.

I do endeavor to be kind and be a decent internet denizen. I'm human, I've obviously failed in the past and will again regardless of my intentions to at least attempt to be kind. Because humans... we fail a lot. It's unfortunately usually required for learning.

I'm not even sorry for saying it. If you, as the creator/on creative team of thing, go looking, it's on you, whatever you find. And you're in the wrong for violating fan spaces.

It honestly feels (and again, I could be completely wrong) like some of these Devs violate fan spaces, don't like what they see, then call that harassment. Sigh. Writers especially should kinda know the meanings of words. It's our job.

That is not harassment. It's a type of self-harm a lot of creatives are prone to, but it's not harassment.

When I'm writing critiques, it's with the express understanding that if I'm keeping those critiques to fan appropriate channels, I should be safe from the Devs/author. Meaning they don't read it, don't interact with it, don't whinge about it.

According to Darrah, gaming devs haven't learned that it's not okay to go into fan spaces.

Just don’t do it. A dev going and looking for it is not harassment on the part of the writer. If anything, it's a more subtle type of grotesque pressure for people to not have places where they can talk without fear of the devs whinging about it, or being aggressive/passive aggressive about whatever they've read.

Gaming culture is toxic, yes. And yes, there has likely been harassment. Yes. Some people have likely done things absolutely no one should ever do.

Trust me. I've been on the receiving end of that kind of harassment and hatred. I almost suicided from it. I'm not talking from the perspective of someone who 'doesn't know what it's like.' I absolutely do.

And some people have likely said things the devs didn't want to hear but wouldn't qualify as harassment of the Devs because the Devs actively went looking. Cripes, that's like shooting yourself in the foot because you thought it would feel good or somehow vindicate you.

Especially if you know the thing is widely disliked. Especially if you've already lost your job or been demoted about it. Why would you harm yourself that way?

Last point. Darrah said that 'it's just a video game'. I believe the point he was going for was that a piece of media can't ever be something worth harassing another person about.

He's right that it's a video game. And wrong about the 'just'. There is no 'just' when it comes to creative material. That's not the point or the result of creativity.

Creativity in any form is trying to create an emotional and/or intellectual reaction in the person enjoying that piece of creativity.

That's the bloody point!

Hence, there can be no 'just'. Not unless you also want to say 'it's just despair' or 'it's just joy'.

Something that is 'just' in that sense is easily blown off, people don't care that much about it, y'know?

Again, it's not okay to harass anyone ever.

And Dragon Age is by no means 'just' a video game to many, many people. Many books aren't 'just' a book to people because maybe thing kept them alive that night when everything was dark and they weren't sure they were gonna see the dawn. Maybe thing got them through some really difficult times.

I don't honestly feel we can apply the word 'just' in the sense Darrah uses it to any result of creativity. Much less something as deeply beloved as Dragon Age was.

[lizzybeeee]

When you spend 20 years attempting to bring down the child slavery, murdering, human trafficking exploitation ring that stole your childhood, murdered your friends, and killed countless innocents only to have them rebrand as 'Noble Freedom Fighters™' off-screen.

[sha-brytols]

cannot be stressed enough the horribly shady way bioware did their damndest to keep the shitty worldstate for veilguard a secret. like there's a reason why during those hype streams there was literally only one person who showed the inquisitor screen and it was an Accident. the guy that leaked the 4 choices thing said himself he thought it was actually abysmal of them to keep it from the public because of how much everyones hype was dependent on certain plot threads being resolved and he felt like it would have been too unfair and dishonest not to tell people. this was less than a month before the game was set to come out btw

[theorizer-sleepyhead]

The biggest difference between Andromeda and Veilguard is that Andromeda respects the lore, and since it's "separate" from the original trilogy you're free to enjoy it or hate it without one affecting the other. Veilguard is not like that. It was supposed to be an epic finale joining everything we did during the course of three games, but not only did it fail by itself, it also destroyed all that came before it forever. The countries and people you busted your ass to save? Oh, the Blight took everything off-screen, so now it doesn't matter! And if there is ever a fifth game, they're just gone make it in a way that not even Veilguard matters. Fucking up a standalone game is one thing, but fucking one a game and simultaneously the entire trilogy that came before it and lying to your players that you respected their choices is an absolute prize.

[mohntilyet]

actually sorry dav reads like a game that was written by people who think da2 is about found family. in every other game my ending feels earned and my choices are my own and then veilguard asks the bold question what if we could bring the hr mandatory team bonding experience into a video game?

[sunlight-shunlight]

thinking about veilguard and bioware in general, i think we are reaching a point where people need to grapple with the inherent limits of what stories can be told in our Current Society and in AAA gaming companies.

on a labour level: mass layoffs, tons of developers leaving despite previously talking about how passionate and happy they were to be involved, not even paying severance, and crunching employees to the point of burnout. this is unfortunately pretty standard for AAA game companies.

on a cultural level: it is SO white and SO centrist-ly Canadian. i wrote up these asks outlining how. it is a repeated pattern of writing in which they go into tortured racial oppression allegories at best, while constantly peppering in a "but BOTH SIDES were wrong and made mistakes :( :( :(", in between their fictional atrocities that are clearly mirroring irl genocides and enslavement. or at worst, it's "the qunari are radical islamic borg" which has even less nuance. i personally thought, since dai came out in 2014, and a lot has changed since then about the world and in public awareness, that this would have filtered into the narrative and resulted in more satisfying and historically grounded writing. unfortunately not the case. it's shocking if you compare it to how sharp and aware and unflinching something like disco elysium is.

so what does this mean?

under these conditions, it is unavoidable that we get development by people who are rapidly cycled out of the company or demoralized into burnout. we get digestible, easy little soundbites of lore without much substance, because any complexity needs more time and coordination rather than the process of "quick, we have these assets, a lot of people involved in making them just got laid off, we need to make Something by next quarter to show the CEO". we get very little cohesion between games, despite the clear intent from dai to have so many plot points set up to follow through in a sequel, because the team and development are so chaotic that they can't hold onto a vision and complete it.

we also get this inherent caution and "conservatism" from the narrative, because on an ideological level, they're largely white people who want cops to be included in pride. so any major change to even a fictional society is Bad and Scary, and shouldn't be done without making sure that every character finger-wags appropriately at non-state violence. there is clearly not much ideological or even ethnic diversity within the leadership; or at least not enough that anyone there felt comfortable even speaking up on minor issues like the Incredibly Orientalist Isabela Outfit, let alone anything larger.

i don't personally think there's too much value in trying to analyze veilguard's plot or lore at this point. the final product is chaotically developed and does not seem to reflect the goals of the creators as set up in prior games, it's basically a ship of theseus in terms of the people and ideas involved in making it. this is sad for all of us, who were interested in the story, and attached to the characters, and were creatively fulfilled by engaging in the fandom. it's probably worse for the developers who have lost their jobs, burnt out, or feel unhappy with the game that they spent years of their life working on. it's certainly miserable as an indictment of The Industry, as well as the general societal climate of white Canadian centrism.

the solution is to create a society where people can develop games in peace and prosperity and stay on projects for longer, rather than constantly getting turfed out without severance pay. and to get some genuine leftists, poc, and indigenous people on staff who can weigh in and provide significant input, rather than a Council Of Liberal White Edmontonians every time.

in the meantime, at the very least, let's please stop preordering AAA games and supporting companies who notably abuse their employees.

[zoneofsmites]

Still laughing about how they didn't want to "invalidate" anyone's worldstate. But that is exactly what they did.

Morrigan is the most obvious, I really cannot believe that a Morrigan who was a mother would have so willingly taken into her something like Mythal if she was a mother - of at this point - a 10 year old Kieran. Maybe she would, but it would be for different reasons.

Isabela is the most annoying to me. She's talking about how "Kirkwall taught her about family." as if she couldn't have been given up by Hawke to the Arishok. As if she couldn't have ran away from Kirkwall and never looked back. If I had met an Isabela from a world state like that, she would never have said that.

Harding talking about the Inquisition also feels like it misses some... extra flavour here and there based on actual choices. Like my Inquisitor didn't do well with Blackwall, and he didn't survive to see the end of the game. But Lace speaks about him fondly and in such a way that I don't think she should if the Inquisitor never 'redeemed' him.

Zevran is never mentioned by name, but what if a warden outright killed the assassin hunting them. Or he turned on them in Denerim and died later? Then explain to me that entire banter Lucanis has with Harding about why House Arainai messed up so bad they went trough several Talons about it. And now the Crows don't take contracts in Ferelden anymore.

At that point the reason that was given to us for the lack of worldbuild choices to prevent 'invalidating everyone's worldstate' feels null and void. Because you have. You have invalidated many worldstates already by bringing back these character or have people talk around them in such a way that doesn't make sense.

[flowersforthemachines]

so, Your $70 Doesn't Buy You Cruelty by Mark Darrah (Executive Producer of DAO, DA2, and DAI who also worked as a consultant on DAVG) had a bunch of great points, but this bit about hypothetical reasons writing on a game may not be good in certain places particularly caught my attention:

what the fuck was going on at EA/Bioware

[miyku]

[krillonthegrill]

me waking up every morning knowing that i can appreciate every life is strange game in different ways

[angelknives]

"It's unfair to compare Veilguard to BG3!"

Err, no it isn't? A game supposedly in the same genre, made by a studio with experience in that genre, produced around the same time. How is that unfair? I love BG3 but Larian isn't reinventing the wheel. It's building on what works in this genre and (gasps) improving on criticism it got on its previous games.

But sure, let's not compare DAV to BG3, how about we compare it to:

Disco Elysium

Divinity Original Sin 2

The Witcher 3

Pillars of Eternity 2

Elden Ring

While all different, they all contain elements Bioware gutted out of Dragon Age: The Veilguard (like a good snappy title), to reach a younger broader new audience. These titles didn't gut themselves and were highly successful on every metric. And they all came out between DAI and DAV, so Bioware could have learned from that.

Especially as they already tried to dumped down, simplified approach with Andromeda and most people weren't happy with that either.

Oh and I forget one important game DAV could have learned from:

Dragon Age: Inquisition

[lizzybeeee]

THE ENTIRE DRAGON AGE AMA IS A DUMPSTER FIRE

They avoided all the high-rated questions with genuine criticism (not blind hate!) and went for questions that were safer and allowed them more leeway. After that awful IGN article and that treatment of Davrin...God, just put it down. I have no faith that BioWare will be able to continue Dragon Age or Mass Effect with the respect it deserves.

Edit - They had an opportunity for genuine discussion with fans who were concerned/unhappy with the way Veilguard was -> people unhappy with the story, the marketing, the lack of 'RP' options in an RPG, etc... Instead they just doubled-down even more, avoiding those critical questions, with no real acknowledgement that fans have very reasonable problems with this game.

Some Highlights & My Initial Ramblings Below:

The Executors

"They attempt to manipulate events in the most subtle way they can manage."

So, very clear that they're not simply observers of what is happening in Thedas: they're manipulators...

"Magical Illuminati Confirmed! Lizard People Did 9:30 Dragon!!!!"

All that complexity of character -> his hatred of Orlais, his experience as a general, his relationship with Cailain, and the influence of Howe...all diminished. Any influence from a shadow cabal is too much influence - all the humanity of Loghain's choices/consequences...God, what a waste.

Not to mention what this does to other events/characters in the series -> they imply they've been intervening as far back as the magisters breaking into the golden city. I do not find this compelling! At all!

2. Solas and the Executors

Oh my god, he sounds like such a fucking Mary-Sue I'm so sick of Solas at this point -> "Actually, I know more about the Executors than anyone alive - not even the rest of the Gods know as much as me."

("I'm also, like, an Ancient Elven God, I'm responsible for the Blight and the Veil, and I kind of locked the Gods away cause they were evil - but, like, I'm really sad about it. Also the Herald of Andraste thinks I'm cute <3")

<- Previous comments: massive oversimplification, obviously

But I miss the days when not everything was about Solas. It removes so much interest and wonder in this world when the fucking egg is behind it all. I loved him as a character in DAI and now I just feel this bone deep tiredness when I see his stupid face.

Don't you dare threaten to bring Gareth David-Lloyd back -> keep him away from this mess!

3. The Fate of the Rest of the Evanuris

Yay. I'm so looking forwards to "The Return of the Elves: Electric Boogaloo 2" - it was done so well the first time!

"It was the elves all along!"

The only character with any potential to be interesting is Andruil*, but how they handled all this lore was done so shallowly and so poorly that I find it hard to give a damn anymore. Not to mention that the game literally mentions Ghilan'nain mourning Andruil - so is this a retcon/redirection/or have you confirmed that one of the most interesting members of the Evanuris' is dead?

*interesting in that she's established in lore to potentially have a tonne of really cool things attached to her (the void armour, the great weapon she has etc...). The rest of the evanuris are nowhere near as well established as she is.

4. Southern Thedas, Sociopolitical Issues, and Future Games

NOW YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE GEO-POLITCAL EXPLORATION?? You avoided any meaningful discussion like the plague in DATV but now you're acknowledging it?? OkaY. okAy.

They couldn't even give us the long-term ramifications of the mage/templar war how the hell am I supposed to believe that they will be able to pull off 'elven gods are real' etc...? For a game series that totes : your choices matter -> they have not proven that they have been able to show that in a meaningful way. They literally cleaned the slate with this game to avoid doing that.

So, what, does that mean that the Veil is never going to come down now? Or are you going to have the entirety of Thedas build themselves up again just to have the Veil fall and send things into chaos once more?

What a fatalistic, miserable outcome for Thedas -> why the fuck would anyone bother to live in Thedas if you're going to keep throwing meteorites at them? By all means, change/conflict has to happen for the series to move forwards...but this is just so miserable at this point.

(The Elder Scrolls, at least, gives people room to breathe between crisis' or sets them up in different areas of the world! Bethesda treats past installments/your decisions with greater respect than DATV does.)

Even, then, if the Veil remains up, that means that the spirits are just trapped in the Fade being miserable for the rest of existence. The entire series has been humanizing spirits, from Justice to Cole, and now they're just throwing in the towel? I guess they can stay in the fade now! Problem solved!

What do you mean the Evanuris are not a threat anymore? IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION YOU LITERALLY SAID SOME ARE STILL POTENTIALLY KICKING AROUND THE BLACK CITY?

Weakened, sure, but Solas was 'weak' in DAI. You're giving yourself an out if you decide to go back to the elves again. Please do, I'd love more content on how the elves alone fuck everything up!

5. More Southern Thedas, the Chantry, and Tevinter

Thanks for the confirmation that things in the South are so fucked up that they have to work alongside the 'Slave Capital' of the known world to rebuild!

Slavery was one of the biggest things that caused a rift between the north/south chantry system -> one of the reasons why there were exalted marches -> a uniting belief in the south is that slavery is fucked. They didn't address slavery in DATV - what hopes are there that they will do so effectively in a future game?

Don't tell me that Dorian fixes everything off screen either -> either he solves slavery off-screen or the south is being forced to work the slaver-capitol because their land is nuked and they have no ground to stand on.

I'm so thrilled.

6. Solas and the Idol / The Blight

I will never get over Solas fucking curing the Blight off-screen and no one asking questions/giving a shit. Hello?? The Hero of Ferelden would like a word with you???

So the Blight is calcified in Minrathous, at least, but everywhere further away is still fucked! Once more, the South is doomed to suffer from the long-term effects that regular blights have -> not to mention the red lyrium (which still exists according to the AMA) across the south.

I don't care; it's lame. It's a lame way to conclude the blight and I hate it. This game did not earn 'cure the blight from thedas' at all. You could have had us learn how to soothe a titan and see how that can diminish the blight but you did it this way.

Another 'magical ritual' because Solas has such a good track record with them lmao.

7. The Agents of Fen'Harel / The War with the Qun / The Crows

Turned him against the idea of being a leader???!!

Fen'harel's Call to the Elven People After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned. This is from the Trespasser Epilogue, Epler!

Your concept art for Joplin literally had him as a leader of a faction of elves. Just be honest that it's a retcon and you changed course - don't try to save face with this reasoning.

About the Antaam: "We needed some big mindless bad guys to fight and so we did this because we didn't want to address the Qunari War/Invasion we set up in Trespasser".

You had to canonize Sten as being alive and Arishok in order for this reasoning to work -> you didn't even come up with an alternative Arishok to take Sten's place.

Yeah, the exchange that set up the Crows we see in the game as "idealists" did not make the game. I can confirm that!

I'm sorry, "Caterina kept Illario in check?" as in, 'kept him an idealist and not the usual Crow'? The woman that beat him with a cane and starved him and his cousin to train them as Crows. Fuck off.

lmao -> tell me you're coming up with this on the spot without telling me that you're coming up with this on the spot.

8. World State Discrepancies - Isabela

Outright ignores the very real criticism about the marketing from this game and World States.

"there are absolutely places where we unintentionally suggested there was a hard canon (...that Isabela is always assumed to have joined Hawke's party.)"

Unintentional?

Excuse me, you have her talk about Merrill and the Kirkwall Crew as family - that was not unintentional in the slightest. Not to mention Sten, Blackwall, Sera, and Cole are canonized as being part of your world state no matter what.

You had a story you wanted to tell - one that only fit a few world states - and you went ahead with it and disregarded those choices. Don't try and lie about this all being a big misunderstanding.

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Edit - They could have taken the opportunity to address the very reasonable criticisms that people had with this game but they cherry-picked questions and avoided/minimized anything remotely critical.

They could have provided us some insight into the game development time but each time they approached the topic they settled for "we're happy with what we delivered and it was well optimized."

They had an opportunity to acknowledge that people were bothered by the handling of the lore/stories (to potentially mention they could course-correct/ rethink their plans) but instead they doubled down on everything that they did and even 'justified' some decisions. They doubled down on the Executors, Solas's changing motivations, the destruction of Southern Thedas, and the elves/Solas being at the heart of everything etc...

This AMA basically confirmed that the only reason they did what they did to the south was for a reset -> It's not a compelling or fulfilling narrative to have everything we've done reset back to ground zero off-screen. BioWare games differentiate themselves from other RPG's by their import system from previous games - it was compelling and exciting! With DATV they set the expectation that BioWare can outright throw out entire games worth of choices/build up, not solely retcon them.

Justifying your choice to water down the lore/world of your story by saying you'll address it in the 'next game' does not instill me with confidence, BioWare! It doesn't explain that lack of it in this game either!

They avoided every question that, rightfully so, pointed out the misleading comments made by devs in the pre-order period of the game:

the fact that there were only 3 imported choices from previous games was leaked by a reviewer -> BioWare was vague from the start about choices

that this game was the most 'romantic' in the series

that world states/ headcanons wouldn't be disrespected

that there are 'lore' reasons for bad darkspawn design

that there are lasting, impactful choices/consequences to be made in this game

that the lore/world was not watered or toned down

that companions are deep and you can disagree with them etc...

BioWare's behavior towards their customers in the lead up period to this games release was downright scummy. I absolutely felt misled after playing the game for myself and recalling what I read in interviews put out. While EA is undoubtedly poison, you can't hold them solely accountable for this.

I feel for the individual developers who worked on this in what was undoubtedly a toxic environment from EA - but I feel that it's pretty clear that BioWare itself has a lot of problems within and in their leadership/executives. Working for EA does not give them an excuse to mislead their customers.

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I already had a very grim outlook on the franchise from the end of DATV but this literally look my interest out the back and sent it to God. What a disaster.

[nessacousland]

Well, I finally finished Dragon Age: Friendship is Magic and that is *my* biggest regret.

[prettyflyshyguy]

I hope this hurts.

You should play Mouthwashing. Like right now. It was very good.

Could not put it down. I was not ready for just how hard the narrative was going to gut punch me. I've had a tough year, and I felt like this game was directly addressing my psyche at times - you work a shit job for what. No more than two slices of cake.

Chilling, horrifying, exhilarating, vindicating. An absolute ride from beginning till end and you won't know what's coming and that's the best part. Short, and organically sweet (no nutrition pouch sweetener added)

Take responsibility. You can fix this. You can fix all of this.

[bingsoo-jung]

TTRPGs and Violence

Not everything is radical, let’s stop pretending like it is.

A lot of people in the TTRPG space don’t like me. About a year ago I more or less set fire to the handful of bridges I had built in this space in order to make a statement about the genocide of Gaza. In the past year as I protested my way across my college campus, graduated, and joined up with a mutual aid group, I have never once regretted this.

However, I do regret not being more clear with what I meant when I did it. So, let’s begin with a bold statement, people in the TTRPG space often discuss colonialism and resisting colonial narratives, but draw the line at actually resisting colonialism. The TTRPG community has decided that ‘revolutionary’ narratives are non-violent ones because many people subscribe to the idea that violence is inherently colonial and not simply a tool of colonizers. But no liberation has ever been achieved without violence, and the decision in the TTRPG space to say that anti-colonial and revolutionary stories should be non-violent ones exemplifies why TTRPGs often struggle to hold its own against other storytelling mediums. Not because of the inherent nature of TTRPGs, but because of the culture that has formed around them.

Stories, at their best, are vehicles of discussion about the world around us. They are ways to comment on the complicated nature of reality. But simply deciding the best path of resistance is a path of consummate niceness and pacifism — not one of violence and care — ignores those complex realities. It’s been decided that there is an acceptable amount of fury that can be depicted, but that fury ought to be toothless. Thus to reinforce that narrative, stories about war are always set after the war, they’re about healing from trauma in a better world. They’re about how we become better when all the fighting is done.

But the fundamental fact of reality is that those things aren’t done. Colonialism hasn’t ended, it’s just shifted forms, wars still occur, and there is an active ongoing genocide even now. I live in a country which has elected a wannabe-Hitler, and a South African billionaire who made his money from slave labor did a nazi salute at his inauguration. We live in an actively hostile and cruel world for POC, queer people, disabled people, and so many others. But we are pretending as if we don’t.

Thus not only are we engaging in pretend when we’re acting, we’re engaging in pretend in the metanarratives surrounding which stories do and don’t get told. We’re acting as if these stories which talk about healing from trauma are responses to the reality we live in, where the trauma-causing events have passed. But they haven’t. The traumatic history hasn’t ended, we’ve just grown blind to it.

To this day I can name one Actual Play off the top of my head which depicted violent resistance, yet I can name a number of movies, books, and TV shows which have, despite them being under far greater censorship. APs have chosen to self-censor not because the TTRPGs don’t exist, but in the hopes of being palatable, yet still wish to be viewed as radical by their community. This is done by choosing to not depict the PCs as engaging in violent resistance, and not portraying that violent resistance in a positive light. Instead most ‘anti-colonial’ stories are post-colonial ones about how ‘leftover anger’ from traumatic histories can make you cruel.

This is not to say that stories sent after colonization cannot be radical, but for them to be radical the violence used to achieve liberation cannot be ostracized and made into something that characters need to ‘heal from.’ That killing the colonizer who massacred thousands or even millions actually is on the road to hell and is something that can mar the soul. In doing so we vilify the justified anger of the colonized. We tell each other ‘don’t be angry at the injustice that happened to you.’ But Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or Cassian Andor from Andor don’t need to heal from the violence they caused, your TTRPG characters don’t need to either.

Furthermore, we treat actions that are not liberatory actions as being liberatory. No, you getting better opportunities is not liberation. No, former soldiers healing from trauma isn’t liberation. No, voting isn’t liberation. Liberation is liberation. Anything else isn’t, and shouldn’t be considered that. That isn’t to say those things important, but they aren’t equal to it. As Ismatu Gwendolyn would say, we’ve made a spectacle of liberation, we’ve made it something you can eat and consume and say ‘I engaged in liberation, my instagram feed says so! Look at this liberation meal I had!’ But in doing so we’ve failed to actually produce any stories which could meaningfully contribute to discussions of what resistance should look like and how it could be achieved. We’ve hampered our imaginations to foster a palatable leftism in favor of a useful one.

But what use is calmness, when the anger is correct? When things are wrong and fucked up? Why not tell a story about your anger? The want for violence isn’t always bad, what matters is when and where it’s used. Yes, indiscriminately murdering orcs is weird and speaks to the tendencies towards bioessentialism in D&D, but demanding we always negotiate with fascists because ‘they’re people too’ is just tolerating fascists. There is nuance and context to violence that matters, and by stripping those things from how we portray it, our stories become the worse for it. We do not trust in the viewer to come to conclusions for themselves, or to know where the line in the sand is, nor do we trust in the performer-creatives to be a rational person.

Perhaps most irresponsibly, instead of building infrastructure that would allow us to tell these kinds of stories we’ve instead cast it to the performer-creatives to take the emotional burden upon themselves. Why don’t we bring on intimacy coordinators to set boundaries and create safe environments to tell these stories? Why are things like decompressing and session zeroes optional and not obligatory? And why have we not innovated more robust and professional safety tools as this space becomes more and more of an industry? In doing so we’ve inherently made TTRPGs a less safe place that would allow us to tell more serious stories. The limitations are not solely of what stories we’ve deemed acceptable to tell, but the lack of systems that would allow us to tell them. This is not to say that if you don’t have access to these systems you shouldn’t be telling stories, but the lack of them nevertheless speaks to a greater issue in the TTRPG space, a fundamental unseriousness that impacts our very ability to be more radical in our imagination.

I don’t really know if I want to see more narratives around violent resistance in the TTRPG space. I’m not sure if the same people who have rejected such stories and the importance of them really have the capability to tell them, or if they will simply just make it work. But I hope to see new people use stories to galvanize people, and to innovate new futures. I not only want to see stories that say something, that give us new possibilities, but also new systems put in place that support creatives in telling these stories. Things like bleed should not be solely up to the performers to handle, but something that resources are budgeted for just the same as streaming assets, hardware, and so much else. If we want to create a space where people are emboldened to tell all kinds of narratives then we need to actually facilitate those spaces, not just say ‘I would like to see more kinds of stories told.’

TTRPGs are not producing stories in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, or even Deep Space Nine because we’re so focused on being better than our anger, but also trying to recreate the success of stories in other mediums. We reach towards a moderate middle ground based on the past because it’s healthy and reliable. But that ignores that oftentimes a good story not only makes the viewer feel something, but challenges them. The inherent nature of nostalgia is a conservative one which idolizes a forgone idealized past that never could have existed, and in constantly trying to recreate or pay homage to other stories, we continue to hamper our innovation.

There is such great potential to in TTRPGs as a medium, from their collaborative nature, to their real-time storytelling that provides a space for people to experience emotions and possibilities in real time, to, frankly, the lack of censorship that other mediums of art experience. They can push us to imagine and act quicker than if we were simply writing a novel or screenplay. But if the TTRPG space is to grow we must move beyond our unimaginative and anti-radical tendencies which idolize a non-violent nostalgic past, in favor of dreaming a sometimes violent radical future.

With all my love,

Theta S. Chun.

[meglosthegreat]

If one more company puts out a statement saying they're becoming more "agile" and "focused" when what they really mean is "we're laying off dozens of experienced developers because we don't feel like paying them anymore and would rather bring in new hires that will work for less" I stg