#the devs say shes supposed to be a god

[deathbirby]

Is Sothis an actual god?

Alright, lets take a look at Sothis's abilities/feats. What is this green gremlin capable of?

Houses - shown feats

Sothis demonstrates the following things in 3houses, where she is an amnesiac and barely considered alive:

Her first reaction to Byleth nearly getting axed is to stop time, something that she does without even thinking about it. It was a reflex. And she suffers no drawbacks from doing this!

Her way of resolving the issue is to rewind time. She calls Byleth troublesome for making her do it, but that's little reprimand for having to break the concept of linear time. She falls asleep a while after this, but that may not even be connected to the act of rewinding time.

The power she grants Byleth in Zaharas lets Byleth cut a hole through another dimension. Byleth is unconscious for a short while after this but is otherwise unharmed. THAT is the price for breaking time and space? A nap?

Her powers let Byleth come back from the dead after falling off a cliff. It took 5 years for Byleth to fully recover. That's a very short time if you consider that falling off a cliff would completely fuck you up. Think about fractured bones, ruptured organs, massive internal bleeding, etc. Those are fatal injuries. Coming back from the dead within 5 years, when it took Flayn a thousand years to recover from a near-death experience. is impressive.

Nemesis is also able to come back from the dead because of Sothis's blood. This is explicitly stated by Rhea in VW.

Her spirit is omnipresent in some form. She is aware of the things happening to Fodlan even though Byleth is dead as hell.

Houses - told feats

We are told the following about Adult Sothis's powers in 3houses, whether this is through dialogue or books:

She came from the Blue Sea Star. This star is speculated to be Sirius, which is about 8 light-years away from our planet. That's an impressive distance to travel. It would also mean she can survive in the vacuum of space.

She had the wrinkliest brain, apparently, as the knowledge she shared with the Agarthans gave rise to their futuristic technology.

She caused a "Flood of Despair" that covered the world and forced the remaining humans underground.

She healed the world after a massive war that wiped out countriess off the map. This took a long time and killed her.

Hopes - shown feats

Sothis in 3hopes is a bit different from 3houses. From what we can tell, she has more of her memories and possibly a bit more power. She is still in the form of a child, so she likely didn't recover everything.

The way Divine Pulse works in Hopes is that you stop time and move around in it, being able to attack before the enemy even gets a chance to react. It's basically ZA WARUDO. Still, moving around in stopped time? Some say that means you would have to be traveling infinitely fast.

In some cutscenes, she wipes out entire groups of soldiers with zero issues.

Hopes - told feats

She calls herself progenitor and mother to all who call Fodlan home.

Epimenides says that Sothis set the earth ablaze. Take from that what you will.

Sothis has a voice line where she states that her current power pales in comparison to her past might.

One of her lines against Shez is saying that Byleth's body is not moving as she commands. More in the Heroes section on that.

Heroes - shown feats

This is only if you were to take attack animations literally, but Sothis pretty much creates a planet and then destroys it.

Much like in 3hopes, Fallen!Byleth fights against a group of soldiers who catch Byleth off-guard in a forging bonds event. Sothis wipes these people out without breaking a sweat.

Heroes - told feats

Sothis hints towards creating many worlds like Askr.

Sothis tells Brave!Byleth that all of Askr may just be a dream of hers, that she pulled Byleth into. This is further supported by her referencing Byleth's Smash Bros trailer while she's sleeping.

Fallen!Byleth/Sothis says that Byleth is a poor-quality vessel and is stifling Sothis's powers. Meaning that the feats we see in 3hopes are still a weakened Sothis.

Devs

What do the devs have to say about Sothis?

For Rhea, Sothis is not just her mother, but also the Creator, and therefore she has goals beyond just wanting to meet her mother. 

Sothis can be considered a Creator. Does this only apply to the Nabateans? Perhaps, but that's still an entire race of people that she made from just her blood.

Kusakihara: And in the original game, I feel that the depiction of the scary side of Sothis as a goddess with absolute power, the sort of primal fear humans feel when faced with a storm or natural disaster, was something that wasn’t done, so I hoped that would be delved into deeper.

Her scary side is that of a goddess with absolute power. Facing her instills you with a primal fear, like humans feel when faced with a storm or natural disaster. She is supposed to be a force of nature from the looks of it.

The feats we see from her are insane, and they're all from a weakened Sothis whose powers are also stifled from being constrained to a vessel. These feats alone would make her a god in many eyes. Her possibly being a space alien doesn't take away from that title at all.

TLDR: Sothis is a capital G Goddess

[mukuharakazui]

bg3 is crazy for being a massive $70 larian + wotc collab game whose accessibility menu features subtitles that are present for less than half of all idle character dialogue and almost zero battle dialogue

[felassan]

August 30th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length and spoilers.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for first Q&A (June 14th)] | [Link to video recording for first Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Please note before proceeding that the devs advised that this Q&A may contain minor spoilers!

Corinne Busche, John Epler and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

KFM: Community Manager Katey JE: John Epler CB: Corinne Busche

---

KFM: We’re gonna be joined by John and Corinne here in a sec, just waiting for them to get on. Hey John, hey Corinne, thanks for joining - hey!

JE: Hello! Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure.

CB: Hey y’all. It's so good to see so many people, I see some familiar names here. Good to see you again.

KFM: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to, you know, bring us this second Q&A on the Discord server. Last time we were really, really happy, with the way it happened, y'know, it turned out and how everyone seemed to really enjoy it so we're back again. Thank you for submitting your questions on the ask-bioware channel. I am going to start and kick that off in just a second, but, for those of you who might be new here, I'm the Community Manager, and I'm going to let Corinne and John introduce themselves as well.

CB: Hey y'all, I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I just generally help people on the team do cool things and create this world.

JE: And I'm John Epler, the Creative Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Corinne picked probably the best way to describe what I do, too, so I'm just gonna steal that. I'm there to make sure the team can, is enabled to do their best work and I'm super excited to share all this with you.

KFM: Awesome. Yeah before we start I also wanna give a quick heads-up, you might have seen in Announcements, but there are a couple of questions in here that we have answers to that we would consider minor spoilers. I'll give a heads-up before that minor spoiler answer is given, or even the question is read, so you can go, y'know, grab some water, or y'know, go outside for a second, or just do anything, to decide if you want to listen to the answer or not. But, I promise, these spoilers are, y'know, we'll call them out before we say anything.  

CB: That is kinda the coolest part of this session, we're getting closer to launch now, so I think we can do a little bit deeper on some of the questions this time.

KFM: Yes, no this is so exciting! Okay, are you guys ready?

JE: Yes! Yes I am.

CB: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's start with a fun one. Do all Evanuris hate tea? Does Ghilly-Flower exclusively drink haunted bog water?

JE: Alright. That is a fun one. Y'know, it's funny because I think Solas is the only one of the elven gods that actually really has a tremendous aversion to tea. That said, we don't really get too into what they drink, I would say though, knowing what I know about Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, I think Elgar'nan probably drinks a combination of gas station coffee and the Thedas equivalent of an energy drink, at all times he's got a big Thermos with him. Whereas Ghilan'nain is all about the herbal concoctions that are supposed to be really good for like, your gut health, things like that - she really takes care of herself, so.

CB: John, I think you just described you, and then me. Interesting.

JE: Hurtful, Corinne, accurate but hurtful.

KFM: Okay, next one. So we know that we can hug Assan, but will we be able to hug any of our companions?

JE: So you can't hug your companions at all times. There's not an option to just walk up and give them a hug. They've got their boundaries, they've got their preferences. But there are opportunities in conversations, in dialogue, in scenes where you will, you know - a companion may ask you for a hug because they're having a rough time and you are able to give it to them.

KFM: And will there be a lot of politicking involved? And by politicking they mean quests like Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

JE: Yeah, so I mean, there's not gonna be a quest quite like the Halamshiral Ball, I mean that was very specific to the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was trying to gain favor with a bunch of different factions, they were trying to form an army. Rook's struggle and Rook's, honestly,  challenge is much more immediate and visceral. That said, it's Dragon Age. It wouldn't be Dragon Age if there weren't politics. You'll have influence on the, y'know, things that are happening, and the fate of nations, that are happening around the world, and Rook, I mean, throughout the game, across this adventure, Rook does become a fairly important figure, so it's natural that you’ll have some influence and some involvement with the affairs of the different factions and nations.

KFM: Gotcha. So this question, this next question comes from Onomatopoeia. I know this has been asked before, but they didn't see an answer for it - is there a way to toggle off nudity and sex scenes?

CB: Yeah, let me take this one. It's so funny, John, you get the fun questions and I get the thirsty nudity questions - I'm here for it. So, let me, let me answer and maybe elaborate. So, there is a toggle for on and off nudity. That is one of the settings we have. And we'll be going deeper into settings and accessibility and things like that as we get a little bit closer to launch. But let me also expand on this. So when you're in character creator, you'll actually be able to select what underclothes your Rook wears, and whether that exposes your chest or your breasts. So, by default nudity is on, chest or breast, that is up to you by your underclothing that you select, particularly as you get into, say, romance scenes, but, at any point you can toggle the setting to be non-nudity and it will override your undergarments. 

KFM: Gotcha. This question comes from DarkGoddessEris. What are the companions’ ages? That was a question that actually came up a bunch, so I'm excited for somebody to be able to answer this one.

JE: Yeah,  I can take this one. So the companions in The Veilguard range anywhere from kind of early-mid twenties with Taash at the youngest, all the way up to Emmrich who is in his early fifties. The rest of the companions tend to be in their late twenties, early thirties, again though, they're all experts in their field, they're all people who have been through a lot, so even the ones that are at the younger end of the age spectrum, their experience, they've been through a tremendous amount by this point by the time you meet them, so, yeah. So I mean, I guess, Taash is the closest to Sera at early twenties, but they’re all in kinda that age range, so.

KFM: This next question I'll pitch to Corinne. How linear is the quest experience? Are there going to be side quests that you can stumble upon and resolve within areas or are you locked into a golden path?

CB: This is such a good one. Yeah, a lot of people have been asking about this so thank you to whoever submitted it. So the content in the game is a mix of directed, kinda like story quest missions, and then explorable content. Or you might say optional content. I don't even like calling it side content because it's a lot of fun, it's really good content. So to give you an idea, a lot of the main story quests are critical path missions if we want to call it that. They're very highly crafted. They're more linear than some of the other parts of the game, because we feel that’s how we can tell the best stories, give you a very intentionally-paced experience, y'know, with lulls and climaxes, so it really hits you. But that's only part of it. You're also gonna explore, fully explore a bunch of the locations in The Veilguard, so like, let me just lay a few on you: Arlathan Forest, Hossberg Wetlands, those are probably two of the biggest ones, the Crossroads - now we've seen Crossroads before in Trespasser, but this, isn't necessarily the Crossroads as you remember it. So you'll be able to explore this, this part of the Crossroads, and as you're there, you're absolutely gonna be discovering new areas, new quests, mysteries and new challenges. So exploration in the game is absolutely about player agency in these larger, less linear levels, and it's really an important part of the overall experience and core to our design. Now, as a player - and I'm just speaking for me personally - I'm the kind of player that wants to 100% every area. I want to go find all the optional quests, all the treasures, I wanna see that big 100% completed on my map. That's gonna take you quite a bit of time. So hopefully that answers the question. It is both.

KFM: I think that's a great answer, thanks, Corinne. This next one is from a user named Benedictus: Will we ever get the Venatori gear?

CB: Yeah, I can take that one as well. Venatori gear - so like, I'm assuming what we mean is for to like, wear on Rooks or on companions. Gosh, y'all, I'm gonna be honest - we really, really tried on that one. Hopefully you've seen in the videos our cloth sim, our hair sim, I think it's quite beautiful. The Venatori gear, generally we couldn't make that work to the quality we'd expect within combat. So, no you can't get most of the Venatori gear, but I will say there is a unique Venatori-themed helmet. I, I don't want to spoil what that is exactly, but, so, you can get a helmet, it is unique, it's pretty interesting and ties into some of the events that can happen in the game but I'm just gonna leave it there.

KFM: Gotcha. So, now we're getting into our first real minor spoiler question, so - consider yourself warned, do whatever you need to do, either listen or don't for the next, like, I don't know, minute. So this question is from Kala: Will there be any romanceable NPCs outside of the companions?

JE: I'll take this one. So, no - not this time. This time the romances for Rook are strictly within the companions. We wanted to really focus on those relationships and make sure that they were as developed and as deep as we could make them. And yet honestly and part of it - the other side of it is - Harding was a great example in DA:I, that was a character that as we were building the game, it really struck us, stuck out to us, this is a character that, actually, y'know, you see a lot, you build this very specific rapport with, and the writer, Sheryl, wanted to create that light romance with Harding. None of the characters in The Veilguard really jumped out to us in that same way as, this is a character we really want to build a relationship with, for Rook, but again, y'know, really focusing down on making sure the companion romances were as deep and meaningful as we could make them.

KFM: And this question is just for fun. So we're passed a spoiler, we'll get back into other spoilers in a bit, but this one's just for fun. We have so many cute, silly bird videos on the internet - Lucanis' Ninth Dagger, by the way, says that birds are their favorite animal - if you could just snap your fingers and a bird Easter Egg would be added for Assan, what would it be?

JE: Oh, that's a good question. So actually I'm gonna cheat, because I am trying to think of bird memes, or bird videos specifically, and I'm having a hard time, but, y'know, the thing about griffons is that they're half bird and also half lion, so I'm gonna go with a cat meme, say my favorite meme, and this is one that still brings me joy years after it came out, is the video of the cat grooving to the guy playing Finnish polka on the drum. Again, years old, I've loved - that's one of my favorite videos on the internet, so y'know, if we were gonna give Assan any kind of Easter Egg it would be that one.

KFM: I love that one - 

CB: You know, don't judge me on this, you're putting me on the spot here, but, the only thing I can picture in my head - y'all remember that video a few years back where the kid unleashes the rabbit into the field and then immediately that hawk comes down and snatches it up?

JE: Yes!

CB: Don't judge me, y'all! Don't judge me. But that's where my head goes.

JE: Oh, man.

CB: Assan just getting a little treat.

JE: I love that.

KFM: I love that.

JE: That's a great, that’s a great answer, Corinne. Fantastic.

KFM: So this next one is from a user named Ash. So Taash breathes fire, Lucanis has wings, Harding is a dwarf who has magic. A lot of our companions have some strange abilities - is this because the Veil is compromised?

JE: Oh, I'd say it's, I mean partially yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how over the course of the time since Dragon Age: Inquisition, I mean, it started at the end of Trespasser. The Veil's not in great shape. Corypheus already did a number on it, and Solas has very clearly, as you saw, in the [inaudible] preview, not been making things better in the intervening times. So, there is to some degree, y'know, I'll use Bellara as an example - Bellara's someone who's seeing these artifacts turn on, and being able to interface with them because there's all this magic that's coming back to the world through the torn Veil. Other characters though, I mean, you are recruiting people to stop the end of the world. You're recruiting extraordinary people, they're gonna have extraordinary abilities, and you know, someone like Davrin, a lot of his abilities are focused around Assan and the fact that he's got this partnership, this, almost, you know, familial bond with Assan, his griffon, so.

KFM: Can we get some Assans in the chat?

JE: I think I'm seeing a lot of Assans in the chat, so I think we're well covered there.

KFM: Me too.

KFM: Alright. This next one is for both of you, and I will say, another quick little spoiler, minor spoiler warning, depending on the way that either of you might want to answer this question. This is, of all the companions, who's the team's favorite and what companion was the most difficult to design?

JE: Ooh. I'm gonna cheat, I wrote Bellara so, I’m definitely not gonna say the companion I wrote because that would be weird, but I will say I loved the companion interactions so I'm gonna go with two of my favorite relationships that Bellara has within the team, friendships that she has within the team. So, Bellara and Lucanis start off as two characters who feel like they're from completely different worlds, their experience growing up was very different, where they lived, what they do, and over the course of the game, they kinda build this friendship over all these things that despite again - very different upbringings - they have a lot of things in common. They're both the, y'know, characters who just believe family is deeply important and that shows up in a lot of their interactions, a lot of, y’know, the way they talk to each other, they interact with each other, both within the Lighthouse but also out in the field. The other one - and this was one that came up organically as we were building the game - is Neve and Bellara and they, y'know, Bellara is a character who, y’know, despite being out in Arlathan is very big on stories, very big on - she finds - gets all the newspapers from Tevinter and she has kind’ve learnt who Neve is through that, and they build this very sisterly relationship that I love and that over the course of the game, I mean, we started out without this kind of as the intention, we started finding all these places that this can show up and it turned into, again, one of my favorite friendships that exists between the companions, so.

CB: Oh, that was such a good answer. Yeah, I think I might cheat as well, John, because, first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of the entire team. So I'm gonna give you my two faves if that's alright. And I feel like y'all already know me on this. Every time we have a chance to talk about Taash and Emmrich I'm right there for it. I'd say they're probably my two favorites, but here's the thing y'all, here's why I love them so much. When you're out in the field like exploring, or on missions with them, their banter is so good, because they do not see eye-to-eye on necromancy, like, at all, and, it's really funny, it's really delightful, I love seeing how it evolves - so like, look - if you wanted a recommendation from me on like, banter in the field, you've got to hear Taash and Emmrich. Most difficult to design, let's touch on that really quickly. I, so, I'm gonna answer, but I don't want to say that like we put more effort into one versus another, but I would say the most challenging was probably Harding, just because you've probably seen if you saw some of the teaser footage, the pre-release trailer, we have teased some strange new powers for Harding, and when we do that we have to figure out how that layers into her combat kit, and when we onboard that, and, yeah it was an interesting challenge, it was a really fun one.

KFM: Awesome. Backing away from spoilers for a quick second, I'm going to ask this question to Corinne. With only two companions per party, as a Nightmare mode player, how can we balance not having a warrior in the team to tank? Will higher difficulty players be forced to bring Davrin or Taash for a melee instead of bringing the characters that we want?

CB: Oh super good - I was hoping this would come up, especially after we released the combat deep-dive for warrior trailer - hopefully y'all enjoyed that. So, let me start by telling you what's happening under the hood. Well, first of all, I'm not gonna bury the lede - you're not gonna have to bring a tank if you don't want to. But, let me first tell you what's happening under the hood, this is gonna be kind of high level, maybe we can go a little bit deeper when we have more time. Behind the scenes when you walk into an enemy encounter, we generally know how much pressure, or you could say intensity or aggression, we want to be putting on Rook to maintain that satisfying moment-to-moment experience. So to give you an idea of some of the levers we have for each encounter, that is the number of enemies that could be specifically focused on you versus your companions, how many enemies can be attacking at once, and even when you have multiple enemies coming at Rook, we have a ticketing system.

[text block character limit reached]

CB: And what that means is each enemy basically knows when it is allowed to attack or not. So, I tell you all that because basically when we're looking at the different types of classes and team compositions, those levers exist underneath the hood, so that we give you the most autonomy and flexibility, but also maintain that, that pressure, that engagement for you the player. So, a couple of other things on that. Now that you kinda get a sense of like what's happening under the hood, it is absolutely beneficial, but not required to have one of each class in your party. We did go into this with the goal of giving players more flexibility than perhaps we've seen in past entries. It's just a different approach. What we know is that players tend to get very attached to certain characters. If you've got your favorites, you oftentimes wanna bring them with you or if you're romancing a character, sometimes it's a feelbad to feel like you have to leave them behind because maybe they're the same class as you. So, the whole game is built and balanced around flexibility, and giving you the agency. So you can be successful, you can mix it up, but you gotta plan for it. So what, what do I mean by that? If you're not using teamwork, if you're not planning for your party composition for those synergies, it's definitely not gonna end super well. Right? Like, I've done no tank runs, but it takes some foresight in the strategy here. So I'll give you an example if you don't mind, I think I've been pretty out there that my favorite class and specialization right now - could change tomorrow - is the rogue Veil Ranger specialization. And this is very much a ranged archery-based specialization. So, I want to keep enemies at ranged, because I want to get those well-aimed critical hits, right, if those enemies are right up on top of me, I'm not gonna be able to do that. So if I don't have a tank in my party, a couple of the tools that I turn to - and I have done this, in fact, in my last playthrough I did this quite a bit - I might bring Bellara and use her Galvanic Tear, which pulls all the enemies towards like this really cool-looking gravity well and gets them off of me. I might instead use Neve's Time Slow. So the cool thing about this is it slows time for everything in the world except for you and your team, right? So I'm running away, I'm doing a Heavy Draw, getting those headshots, or making other tactical decisions. I could also turn to my rune loadout - hopefully y'all saw runes in the warrior combat deep-dive - that's an important part, especially if you're playing on Nightmare Mode, the strategic and tactical options that gives you, will allow you to overcome things like not having a tank. I think everyone may have saw the rune where you're doing a, basically an AoE freeze, and freezing everything in place. So it's kind of a long-winded answer, I'm sorry, it's complicated, but point is, is I think you're gonna have more flexibility in your build crafting and your synergies, but it's gonna depend on the strategy and composition that you feel works best for you and your own preferences. And then you did mention Nightmare, let me just finish with saying, and this is anecdotal, but in our own Nightmare playthroughs, we actually find that the most challenging aspect to plan around isn't necessarily aggro management, but making sure you have coverage on all the various elemental damage types. So, I just say this for anyone planning to go into Nightmare - plan well.

KFM: Staying on the topic of combat, it was noticed during the high-level combat videos that weapons and armor seem to be tied to different factions. Are there bonuses or something similar involved if Rook is a Grey Warden while using Grey Warden equipment? Are these removed if a Shadow Dragon Rook is using Grey Warden equipment? 

CB: Oh, interesting. You know, everyone went deep on that gameplay video, hey, I’m glad you noticed that. Yeah, so, to answer this, you're going to be working really closely with the factions in the game, right? Like the threat you’re up against is a world-ending threat so you’re going to interact with each of these factions. So that means that you’re gonna get a lot of the gear that that faction tends to use, and especially the stronger you help them become, the more gear you’ll have available from that faction. So when you see a piece of gear that has like the Veil Jumper icon on it, that signifies that it is aligned with that faction, but you can use it regardless of if that’s your faction background or not. All it means is that, you know, if I want to maybe improve it or get more gear in that vein, or that looks similar, I can see it’s from the Veil Jumpers, I’m going to go back to the Veil Jumper quartermaster, and that’s where I will find more items of that type or upgrade possibilities. But it also leans into the thematic identity. So, you know, I think in that video we were using the transmog system, but if I’m using a Veil Jumper gear like an armor, it’s gonna look like it was crafted by the Veil Jumpers, and it’s gonna lean into the mechanical themes of the Veil Jumpers as well, which, one of those themes tends to be lightning damage. Now, I will also say, and this is a little specific, but occasionally you will find gear, or even like skill nodes, that will occasionally be empowered, they’ll get stronger relative to your strength with that given faction. So like if you find a piece of gear that’s really core to your build, and it strengthens the stronger the Veil Jumpers are, like that gives you a pretty good signifier that maybe that’s a faction you wanna focus on.

CB: Katey, I don't know if you're still there.

JE: Yeah.

CB: Did we lose you?

[there is silence on KFM’s line]

JE: Ope.

CB: We may have lost Katey, y’all. 

JE: We can start, just, you know, let’s - 

CB: Yeah. Why don’t, why don’t, I do have the list of questions here so why don’t I ask the next one until Katey comes back. I hope everything’s okay on your side Katey. Alright. Next question I see, the Evoker description on the blog-post highlights ice-based magic. Does that mean we will not be able to have lightning- and fire-themed playstyles as the Evoker? No, no, absolutely not. The Evoker can lean into all of the elements, in fact, all mages can to a degree. You probably have seen the skill trees, you’re gonna pick up abilities, perks, traits, of all elemental types, and powering up those elements. So just because you’re an Evoker, doesn’t mean you’re like pigeon-holed into ice spells. What I will say is, if you’re heading towards that specialization, you’re gonna pass through the section of the skill tree where you’re more easily going to be able to naturally pick up those ice spells, right? So it might lean towards ice, but you can expand it. The name of the game is agency here.

JE: Corinne, why don’t I ask you the question so we can still kinda do a Q&A thing? CB: Yeah, that, that sounds good.

JE: Corinne, can I set the gear to look however I want without losing stats? And that is a question from YoCallMeRob.

CB: Alright, well, y’all know, fashion’s the true end game. So, we did confirm we have a full transmog system, so what I’m gonna do is spend some time going a little more in-depth for y’all, so that we’re getting new information. So yeah, if anyone’s not aware, transmog basically is, I have a piece of gear, but I apply an appearance to it that makes it look like something else that I like better so I can be fabulous. So, how this is gonna work is you’re of course gonna find gear as you adventure through the world, and you can equip that. But any piece of gear you find is also going to unlock the appearance for that gear. So you might find something that you really like, and you wanna look that way, and then you replace it, anything that you’ve already acquired, you can apply the appearance to whatever gear you want. Additionally, and this is one of my favorite parts, is, you’ll also find some appearance-only cosmetics that are specifically used just for transmog. So sometimes these are some of the fancier or more niche pieces of gear, maybe end up looking like a training dummy for instance. So you’ll get these appearance datas from opening treasure chests, exploring the world, and more frequently from vendors. So, look, if you’re in it for fashion, check out those vendor inventories because they got you. I would also say that you can transmog your casual wear, so field wear and casual wear, fully transmoggable. If you wanna be platemail while you’re hanging around the Lighthouse as a mage, more power to you. And then if I were just to give you a practical example of this, like on the Blood Dragon Armor, the pre-order bonus, those are cosmetics, those are just appearance datas, right, so they’re effectively evergreen, you can use them anytime you like without compromising your stats.

JE: I will say that I don’t think I’ve spent as much time in any other menu other than transmog, because as Corinne mentioned at the beginning of this, fashion is the true end-game, so. Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

JE: Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

KFM: Am I back? Can you hear me?

JE: Yay, you’re back. 

CB: Katey, we did our best Katey.

JE: Yeah.

CB: But I don’t think we were very impressive -

KFM: No, I think you both did a great job. It was one of those weird situations where Discord force-quit, but I could still hear everything everyone was saying. I don’t really know what that was about, but.

CB: I just assumed you didn’t like my answer.

KFM: Yeah, I rage-quit actually Corinne, it’s all your fault.

JE: Taken by the Fade.

KFM: No, thank you for taking over while I was figuring that out. There is a non-zero chance that that happens again, so just keep an eye out. 

JE: We’ll keep an eye out for it, we gotcha.

KFM: Thank you.

KFM: So I’ll just pick it up from the next question. The latest, latest - wow, I can’t even talk anymore - video series mentioned how each companion can set up or detonate specific combos. Are those always set in stone or would we get opportunities to change it up, through the skill-trees or otherwise? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. I eat up these really specific combat questions. So first, let me give you an overview of how the primer-detonator relationship works between the classes. Like, this is very nitty-gritty y’all, if this is your jam, get your pencils out. So here’s the overview. Mages, and this whether, this is true of companions and Rook, mages apply weakened and overwhelmed debuffs, and those are two of the debuffs we call primers. Magers detonate the sundered debuff. Then if we go to rogues, rogues apply weakened and sundered debuffs, and rogues detonate overwhelmed. Warriors apply sundered and overwhelmed, and warriors detonate weakened. So you can see, kinda the interesting rock-paper-scissors relationship there. And when I talk about it as beneficial to bring one of each class? It’s just the inherent nature of that rock-paper-scissors relationship that I’m really thinking of. But, to answer your question, that is just the baseline, that is the default if you don’t modify it. Throughout the game, you will find opportunities, whether it’s from gear, skill-tree nodes, even runes, that allow you to break this paradigm. So when it comes to your companion builds, again it all comes down to the abilities you choose, what gear you’re equipping them with, how you allocate your skill points. Yeah, does that answer the question? There’s quite a bit of flexibility but there is a baseline paradigm as well.

KFM: Yeah, I think that answers the question.

KFM: Let’s see. The next one is, will we see a bit more the Lighthouse before release, as well as non-combat gameplay?

CB: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ll keep it brief here because we are gonna be talking more about exploration and the Lighthouse next month, so forgive me, but I’ll say stay tuned on that one.

KFM: Alright. Then, this next one I believe is a little bit of a spoiler. I know that some people have, can’t hear me still for some reason, if you can’t, tell folks to quit Discord and rejoin it, but -

CB: Okay, minor spoiler y’all, if you can’t hear Katey, this one’s a minor spoiler.

KFM: Yes. Thanks Corinne. This one is, will we be able to give gifts to our companions, either generic or plot-specific?

CB: Yeah, you sure can! I actually wanna shout-out one of our lovely designers, Dusty. This was a passion project from him. He was advocating for this. So, the cool thing about this is, it’s not like a transactional thing, like where I’m gonna go farm a bunch of like nonsensical items and just like, mechanically turn them over. Out in the world, and there in various locations, so you kinda stumble upon them, you can buy a gift that is very personal to any one of the companions, and then you go, you turn that into them, you give it to them, they have a nice acknowledgement. And then, the thing that’s just like so sweet about it, we’ve talked about how the companion rooms evolve over time, but if you go and get them one of these, like, very personalized gifts, they’ll display it in their room. Like it doesn’t go into some stats void. It’s actually on display.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: This next question, I'll pitch it to John. Some of our companions like Neve, Emmrich and Lucanis have been in past short stories and comics and there's also a passing resemblance to some of the old concept art from years ago. What is the process like for making a character at some point and then planning to bring them back as a companion, or were they always written or designed and intended to be companions?

JE: Alright, that's a great question, and it's actually one I'm gonna go a little deep on. So, as we build the game, as we start writing companions we see how they fit in the story, see how they fit together. Some characters have been around, some character concepts have been around for quite some time, others come in a little bit later in development as we realise we have a gap, you know, something in the story that we need someone, who makes sense to fill that gap, to be that character. But part of it’s also just as the writers we want to make sure that the people who are writing these companions are passionate, and they're writing a character they want to write. We don't want to just say "we need X, Y and Z. Write a companion to fill these gaps", but it'll be "hey, in this story, it really doesn't make sense that we don't have somebody, ah, doing X, is there a character we can build for that?" And so, y'know, you'll see the old concept art and a lot of those concepts, y'know, a lot of those, kinda the core of those characters remains intact, we may have changed details of them, we may have decided "okay, they were going to be X but now Y makes a little bit more sense" - Or as a writer I'm a little bit more interested in why, y’know, what, this particular concept speaks to me more. In terms of comics, short stories and such, generally speaking - and this isn't universal - but generally speaking, writers are writing these short stories in particular, it’s a volunteer, we ask the team, like, "hey, does anyone - we've got this short story anthology, who wants to write something for it?”, so writers are going to pick characters that they're passionate about and in those cases they tend to be their companions, so for example. You know, Neve’s shown, is mentioned. Neve, Emmrich, Lucanis have all shown up. Those were written by people who are passionate about those characters and we had already intended for them to be companions. Other characters, though - I mean, and Harding is an excellent example - we create a character to fill a role. In the case of Harding, she was in Inquisition largely to be there to kind of connect those exploration spaces together and give you a sense of the Inquisition’s presence, and then we saw the fan reaction, but beyond that, Sheryl really wanted to explore Harding's arc more deeply, so she got promoted to be a companion as well, so, yeah, I mean, it's an organic process, and I mean again, it comes down to, we want to make sure the people who are building these characters, ah, not just the writers but also the artists, y'know, the cinematic designers, the editors, y'know, the gameplay people, are excited to build these characters. And you know, and actually, I'm gonna go a little bit side topic on that. Bellara's a great example where we knew what Bellara wanted to be, needed to be in the story, but gameplay-wise it took a bit to kinda land on how her gameplay and her character arc and who she was melded together. Y'know, Corinne’s talked earlier about the companions and how they show up in gameplay. A really big thing for us on this project is making sure that the gameplay reflects the characters, their arc and their personality as much as possible, so. Yeah, kind’ve a long answer to say, it depends, but yeah, generally if they show up, especially in something like a short story, we’ve already intended for them to be a companion because, those are the characters that people, the writers are most passionate about, so.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that, now that stuff seems more overall universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough. Are there choices presented freely - are there choices presented that are impactful, that wildly different outcomes will come from, while - wow, wow, wow, let me start that one again. I think it’s just, I’m reading it straight off the sheet. 

JE: No worries.

KFM: I'll start from the top. Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that stuff seems more universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough? Are there choices that are impactful and wildly different, and different outcomes and decision paths?

JE: So, I mean, there's a few incentives, one of which, is, and I mean, the most basic is, the three classes from a gameplay perspective do play differently and, you know, I’ve, it’s funny, Corinne was talking about how her favorite is the Veil Ranger but that might change. Mine literally changes every time I play, I start a new playthrough, I develop a new favorite class, which is the class I'm currently playing. But more generally, yeah there are choices in the game, there are different outcomes, there’s content that does, that you will see or won't see based on choices you make both within the critical path of the game but also with the followers themselves so, y'know. You're not going to see everything in a single playthrough, you're not even going to see everything necessarily in a couple of playthroughs, but, y'know, you want to see how your choices have different outcomes, that's the best way to do it. 

KFM: This question is - I understand mages having very magical-looking moves, but why do rogues and warriors also have very magical-looking moves? Was making every class look like a mage a purposeful choice? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. So it's a multi-part answer, but yes, everything we've done has been with intention towards supporting the overall player experience. So I guess the first place I'd go to answer this is from a game-tuning and balance perspective. We knew that supporting multiple damage types like physical, fire, electric etc, that was gonna be an important factor in the strategic depth of the combat system, particularly as it leans into builds and the strategies you'd use to take on various enemies. It’s not the extent of it, but it's an important part of it. So that meant that making sure the various classes in some capacity have access to some or all of these damage types. And that then means that we need to make them read visually as such on the battlefield. So the first part is about making sure you have those strategic options on the battlefield. But there is more to it than that I'd say, we also found - and I've heard this from a lot of you, that some of our magical hybrid classes have been amongst the favorites. My goodness the discourse around Knight Enchanter - 

JE: M-hm -

CB: - So this felt like a very thematic way for us to support that goal if that makes sense, the goal of game balance but also leaning into the things that seem to resonate the most. If I was to just focus on the Warriors out there for a minute though, because we just released the warrior deep dive, we've actually long had a goal within the team of making them more visually interesting and impactful. We know, and I’ve heard from a bunch of you that warrior, y'know, tends not to be peoples’ first choice, but hey, any of the warrior fans out there - big props to you, because I love them, too. So this was like our chance, really, to show what a warrior can do, to make them feel like they have a presence on the battlefield that could be as interesting as some of the other classes, but I will say, I absolutely recognize that there are those of you that like, if you're playing a melee class, you even want a pure, like, physical-based warrior aesthetic, maybe something that's a little more grounded, you can generally make a build that's more physical-focused if that’s more your taste.

KFM: In addition to playing the first three games, what comic books or novels do you recommend reading before playing The Veilguard?

JE: Oh, that's a great question. I mean, generally speaking, one of the things we wanted to make sure with The Veilguard was that players could get into the story, understand what was going on without needing to, y'know, get into the ancillary material. I love the comics, I love the novels, I love the short stories, but they are intended to be kinda side content. One of the things that we hear loud and clear is sometimes folks don't really want that to feel like I need to have read this, I need to have seen this comic, I need to have watched that show for it to make sense. That said, I’d say The Missing, the most recent comic series. is a very clear lead-up to the beginning of The Veilguard, it's setting up events, it’s kinda setting up, y'know, Varric and Harding's search for Solas, it sets up some of the characters that you'll see in the game. Tevinter Nights is another one, not - we mentioned earlier that some of the companions show up there. Beyond just the companions, there’s some thematic stuff that comes out of that as well, some things that we kinda wanted to set up when we wrote those short stories, like, giving you an idea of what the worldstate is, how things have changed over time, and then I’d say, you know, more very recently, we have the podcast, Vows & Vengeance, which is intended to give you a taste of the companions and also, again, talk about the worldstate of Thedas at this point, you know, giving you kind’ve the lead-up to weeks before the events of the Veilguard, so you do have that sense of what’s going on, who are these people, and how, you know, when I first meet them in The Veilguard, you kinda have an idea of who they are. Again, though, this is all stuff that I think enhances the experience, but it’s not required, there’s never going to be, we’re never gonna put you in a situation where a character shows up and, you know, everyone makes a big deal out of it, and you’re sitting there wondering like, who, who is this person? Because they were introduced in other media. We always wanna make sure that you understand, that the only thing that you need to have done to understand The Veilguard is play The Veilguard, so.

KFM: Awesome. Also, yes, Vows & Vengeance is so good, so definitely, you know, give it a chance. The first episode is out now. I think a lot of people in the Vows & Vengeance Discord server, Discord channel are, are really stoked about it.

KFM: This next question. Will we be able to adjust how much damage the companions do in the accessibility settings?

CB: Yeah, so our customized difficulty, and accessibility settings as well, they’re more focused on how you the player experience the game while in control of Rook. So, things like enemy health, timing, things of that nature. So not in the settings, no, but if you really wanna be that kind of player that wants to amp up your companions, like have them do a greater share of the overall damage, there’s a number of ways to accomplish this. You’ll get gear that just strictly says, your companions do more damage. And then there are some unique buffs we support like Rally Party, so you as Rook can trigger this surge in your companions’ ability. So, again, we know how diverse the motivations are within the player-base, so we wanted to make sure those tools were there for y’all.

KFM: So now we’re getting back into spoiler territory. There’s minor spoilers, but, you know, definitely, take heed, for the next couple of minutes if you don’t wanna hear them. Okay, we ready? Will we finally meet Maevaris Tevani in Tevinter?

CB: Oh my goodness, y’all. Alright, you got the spoiler warning, so when I talk about cameos and appearances, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay, this one’s very near and dear to my heart as a trans woman myself, I’m pretty open about that. Yeah, yeah, our dear Mae, she’s in the game, happy to confirm it, and I am, every time I see her I absolutely freak out. What I’m not gonna tell you though is what role or capacity she plays, so you’re just gonna have to wait and see. But Maevaris Tilani, she’s in.

KFM: I am living for chat right now. Like, I try not to look at it too much during these, because it’ll distract me, but I’m living for chat right now.

KFM: This next one is also a minor spoiler. Will we find out what happened to Lucanis' parents, for his grandmother to have had charge of him?

JE: Yeah, so I mean, Lucanis is an Antivan Crow. If you know anything about the Antivan Crows you know that they are, well, assassins, and assassins tend to have fairly deadly politics, and the daggers are a lot more literal than you would see somewhere like Orlais, so. That’s all I’m gonna say. You’ll find out, you’ll find out at some point for sure.

KFM: We’re doing a great job at not giving too much away.

KFM: Do we get any jealousy dialogues from any of the companions if you switch up your romance plans partway through? Are any of the romances hard-locked at any point?

JE: Yeah so, you can, I mean, once, there is an opportunity, or there is a place in a romance where you essentially commit to it being exclusive. And we really wanted to make sure that, A), we were very up front about the fact that you were committing to an exclusive romance at that point, and before that, it is portrayed as, you’re flirting, you’re kind’ve, you know, figuring out each other. So, not, there’s no jealousy dialogues, but there are - places where you commit, and we wanted to be very clear to fans. There’s also going to be a place, because I think I’m reading this right, where, there’s a point in the story where if you haven’t committed, if you haven’t said like, yeah, let’s, let’s, you know, I’m in for it, I’m up for this, let’s do this, where you no longer have that opportunity. We’re very clear about what that point is, because again, we don’t want people to be missing out on a romance, to think like, I’ve got some time, you know, I really wanna romance Neve, but, I’ve got a little, and then find out that no, in fact, you don’t have anymore time, so. 

KFM: Are class specializations locked to a particular faction, or can Rook only learn a specialization from a particular faction, like through a faction trainer?

JE: So, the specializations are a lot more thematically tied to the factions than they are a strict, you must be X faction, you must get it from this person. You know, for example, I’ll use the Veil Ranger is all themed, as Corinne said earlier, around electricity, around the use of the Veil, around the use of that kinda magic. So while they are thematically tied, there is no, you must be a Crow to be a Spellblade for example, and part of that is because, while we do like having that connection between gameplay and, you know, roleplay, we also don’t want you to feel like, well, I really wanted to be a Spellblade, but I also really want to be a Grey Warden. We don’t want those two things, sometimes we want gameplay to influence narrative, but we never want you to feel restricted by one against the other, if that makes sense.

KFM: Yeah, definitely

CB: Katey, can I go off-script really quickly?

KFM: Of course.

CB: Alright, so I saw someone post in chat, “okay, poly next time, though”. Let me just say, I cannot make promises, I cannot, but I’m with you. I’m with you. 

KFM: I love it. Anytime you wanna address anything that’s happening in chat, by all means.

JE: Oh, shit, copy that.

KFM: I mean, don’t go too crazy. Alright.

KFM: This next question is from Que Sera Sera. Will we be able to change the font size in the UI, subtitles etc?

CB: I can take that one. So, quick reminder, we are gonna do a deeper dive as we get closer to launch on accessibility settings, but let me just answer this one. Yeah, yeah you absolutely can. There are limits of course, but as a fellow person who often has to squint, I’m 42 y’all, my eyes are starting to go. I can play comfortably, I suspect most players will be able to play comfortably.

KFM: Will there be a way to save characters we make so we don't have to start from scratch each time?

CB: Heck yeah, you absolutely can. We, I mean, look, all of you playing Inquisition, you’re still sharing your OC and your characters ten years on. We know how much you love it, so yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do wanna have a, some caveats here though. So, it’s when you’re in the character creator, you can import the character appearance, it’s just gonna be the appearance data, from an existing save of yours. So when I say an existing save, just let me put a very fine point on it, that save has to be local to the machine. Remember, we’re an offline game, there’s no online character sharing built in. But for those of you that like, your OC, are very near and dear to your heart and every time you replay you like to have the same character, and you’ve spent hours and hours and hours working on it, yeah, you can import that.

JE: We saw how many of you were saving screenshots of sliders in DA:I, and that was not a great experience, as we’re well aware, so.

KFM: This next one is, are companion quests going to focus on internal factors or external personal events? Like will it be a growth in character and self-discovery, or are they firmly-rooted in their sense of self and will ask for/need help with their factions, interpersonal relationships, etc?

JE: So that’s a great, another great question. It’s a mix of both. I mean, each companion has their own personal arc over the course of the game. You know, you go on missions with them, you solve problems with them and the nature of those problems, you know, it’s, the problems are a lot, often-times very external in nature, you know, something’s happening that they need help with, but most of the time those problems are also tied to their own personal growth as a character. Again, you know, we really want to make sure that players feel invested in these characters, feel invested in their stories. And we also want to show that these characters do grow over the course of The Veilguard, this is, there aren’t characters that remain completely static from moment one to the end-game. These are characters who grow, and you help them grow. They’re still, their problems are still not going to like, they’re not sitting there saying, well, Rook, you need to do everything for me, but you are, you’re intended to be the leader of this group, but also, you can be their friend and help them with things that, their challenges, so. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a mix of both, we really just, it comes down to the individual character and there is a lot of nuance in that answer I think too.

KFM: This next question from XenoGabby is a minor spoiler, so you’ve been warned once again. The question is, is Lucanis possessed?

JE: So, again, spoilers, everyone has been warned, fairly warned. So Lucanis Dellamorte is also known as The Demon of Vyrantium. And, he has spent a lot of time killing Venatori, who are mages, and who do know a lot about demons, so. Yeah, somebody decided that it might be a good idea to make that nickname stick.

KFM: And this next one, from a user named Crom, is there reactivity towards the specialization that you chose? Like some people might trust more Champions, or maybe freak, others will freak out with Death Callers or Reapers? 

CB: Yeah, what a good question, so, in general the reactivity is reserved for things that aren’t necessarily likely to change, things that can create a throughline that we can keep building and building upon, so like your faction, your lineage, your class, your choices. So that keeps a consistent narrative thread with those elements, and then we can assume that thread continues from A to B. So the answer is no, they don’t react to your specialization, but in part that’s because you can full refund, you can respec at any time, you might a Death Caller one moment and another specialization on the next encounter.

KFM: And, this next question. You mentioned encountering companions on their own missions in the world. If I keep my party mostly the same, does that mean that I miss out on their side missions, or are they unavailable to be picked up during that time? 

CB: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re, you have all the tools that you’re not gonna miss out on quests based on who’s in your party. How would I answer this - so, there are certain plot elements that can change what quests are available to you, and in some cases, some quests that you might have in your journal can actually expire based on choices and how you advance the plot. So there are ways that quest content gets cut off, or alters. But in general you have the visibility and the tools so that you won’t miss out on it. I can give you a couple of examples, that might be helpful. So when you meet companions out in the world, there’s kinda like a couple of different ways that they can show up. In a recent playthrough, I was exploring Hossberg Wetlands. It was technically for a quest that should’ve been more oriented towards Davrin, but I didn’t have him in my party, and as I got close to the objective, he showed up with Assan and helped me clear the path forward. The other way this will happen, I was out in Arlathan, actually doing, on my way to do a main story mission, and I get to the far reaches of Arlathan Forest, and I already knew that Taash wanted to help me with some of the challenges of that arc. Well, Taash is right there waiting for me, so I actually chose to instead like, ah, Taash seems impatient, I’m gonna actually jump on that story arc right now instead of what I intended to do, so. Just some examples of the way that as you’re journeying through this world, opportunities are gonna show up, but they allow you just to express more agency, you’re generally not going to miss them.

KFM: Awesome. This next one is, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned. This next question is from Tazaba. What's the difference between the Veil Jumper faction and the Veil Ranger Specialization?

CB: Yeah, okay, so, yeah we just wanted to kinda flag this as a spoiler, just because there might be assumptions about how you take on specializations in this game. So John touched on this a little bit already, but specializations really represent the training and fighting styles used by a given faction. As John mentioned, you do not have to be a Veil Jumper to choose a specialization that’s associated with the Veil Jumpers. You’ve just been around them, you’re aware of their techniques, and you wanna take that on yourself. So, in this particular case, and I get the confusion because Veil Jumper and Veil Ranger sound very similar. If I’m playing as a rogue, using the Veil Ranger specialization, all that means is I’m fighting in the style of the Veil Jumpers, like they do, with bow and arrow, typically with electric damage, that sort’ve thing. So just, to be super clear, it’s not required that you have to play a Veil Jumper in order to be a Veil Ranger.

KFM: This next question is, where is the equator in Thedas, or the planet Thedas is on, relative to places we’ve explored?

JE: That is a great question. So, I will say that, you know, it’s funny until I saw this question, it’s not something I’d ever thought a lot about, but as I started thinking about it a little bit more deeply, based on how the climate changes across Thedas, you know, obviously, to the south are the Avvar and things get a little bit more wintry, and then up north is a lot more tropical, I’d say that Thedas is a southern continent on this world, so.

KFM: Are there any main story missions that require you to use a specific companion? Kinda similar to a previous question.

CB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there are a few, yes, again, in the warrior deep dive, I’m not gonna describe it, just in case anyone, you know, didn’t wanna have spoilers, you can see that a companion was required for that. However, that’s the exception rather than the rule. In general, we try to give players the agency to bring who they want for these moments. There are these times where a companion, either their faction or their story arc is so closely tied or intersects with the events of a main story mission that they do become required, but it’s not the standard. And then of course, in general, if you’re doing your companions’ arcs, those are the moments where they’re more than likely gonna be required.

KFM: Will we be - 

CB: It's pretty flexible, like if, if you’re worried about like, every mission I go through, like am I gonna have someone that is gonna be mandated? Generally not.

KFM: Sorry, I almost talked over you there Corinne, my bad.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to pause cutscenes? Will there be any kind of dialogue history to look back on if we miss what was said? 

JE: So, you can pause every cutscene in the game. Obviously, life happens, you know, somebody, maybe you’re cat’s, you know, just to use an example that definitely doesn’t happen to me regularly, my cat might be throwing up in the next room and I need to find a way to get her off the carpet and on to, you know, not the carpet, so you can pause any cutscene, and conversation. There is no dialogue history at the moment unfortunately, and that’s not something, we did look into it but it’s just based on how the dialogue is structured and how it’s built in this game, that’s not something that we are going to have unfortunately. 

KFM: I saw somebody say “cat vomiting is so real”, and I agree, sometimes when I’m playing games, my dog decides to do something insane.

KFM: So, this next question is, since companions can get into relationships with each other, is there a mechanic behind which companions get together? Can a companion leave due to your world decisions, and if so, will their partners leave with them?

JE: I’m gonna answer half this question, the other half is a spoiler that we’re not gonna get into right now. Companions, there is not actually a mechanic behind the companions getting together. We never wanted it to feel like a mechanical thing, and obviously, different companions are gonna have different attractions. One of the fun things is, as you’re going through, especially if you’re not flirting with one of the companions, you can see these relationships starting to develop, and the thing that actually allows them to, you know, completely develop is, generally committing to another relationship, or, you know, not being engaging, not engaging in a romance with those companions at all. So, yeah, I mean, there’s not a mechanic, it’s just what we felt made the most sense and, I think that’s honestly one of my favorite things about the companions is, they’re all written to feel like real people with real preferences and real, you know, attractions. So beyond just romances, they also develop friendships and even rivalries with each other, because of these, them feeling like these characters that exist outside of just the game, so. 

KFM: Awesome.

KFM: This question is all about Davrin. Hildrana would love to know more about Davrin. What’s his personality like, what kind of hobbies or things does he like, and what his relationship with Assan is like?

JE: So Davrin is one of my favorite, I mean, I say one of my favorite characters, honestly I love all seven companions so it’s challenging for me to say which. But Davrin is stern, thoughtful and considerate though, he has a soft side for sure. You see that develop over time as he starts to warm up to the other companions. He has, you know, a kindness to him that is brought out in particular by certain companions, and also a strong sense of pride and when he develops a rivalry with some of the companions. So there’s that sense of, he knows who he wants to be, he knows who he is, and a lot of his arc is making that journey. In terms of how he relates to Assan, you know, his relationship over, evolves over time, I’m not gonna get too deep into spoilers because there are spoilers for that in his quest. The other interesting thing about, about Davrin, and this shows up, we’ve talked about this before. He’s a monster hunter. He’s not just a Warden who sees fighting monsters as, you know, just part of the job. He believes in turning this into a skill-set that he alone, you know like, he has more than anyone else. Learning how to defeat monsters, learning their weaknesses, and that does show up a lot in his character arc, so.

KFM: This next question came through our askbox on Tumblr, so shoutout the BioWare Tumblr. Rosered is asking why do elves seem to not like wearing shoes? Is there a lore reason behind it? Are they not afraid of getting frostbite or stepping in something gross?

JE: So the shoeless elves thing is in part a, it’s a, Dalish are very close to nature, they walk, go around shoeless, in large part, to become closer to nature. It’s part of their culture, it’s part of who they are. But, you know, especially, and it’s not true of every Dalish clan, the Dalish are a tremendously widely-spread and widely-varied people, so. For example, Bellara does not go around shoeless. She wears boots. She’s climbing around on ancient ruins, walking through maybe a shattered eluvian, or a place where eluvian’s shattered, it’s a great way to get your feet sliced up on the hard rocks and on the hard glass. And in general Veil Jumpers are a little bit more, where they go and what they do really requires a lot more care and a lot more protection, so. I mean you’ll notice in Bellara’s visual design but also in the visual design of the other Veil Jumpers, they’re very practically minded, they know that what they’re doing is dangerous, and, you know, and, again, not every Dalish clan goes round shoeless, so.

KFM: ZJ wants to know, do all companions have aesthetic changes when in the Lighthouse and outside of the Lighthouse?

CB: Amazing. Yeah, yeah, they absolutely do. So, just like Rook, each of the companions has what we refer to as their casual wear. This is how they look in their downtime, their more relaxed moments. It’s definitely different from how they look headed into battle. And I’ll tell you this. If Emmrich’s casual wear doesn’t send you, I just don’t know what to tell you.

KFM: I’ve got a fun one coming up. Do they companions have favorite foods, and if so, what are they?

JE: Oh I love this one, so they do. Each of them does have favorite foods. It’s funny, I’d say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is probably the most we’ve talked about food in a context of Dragon Age, ever. But yeah, I mean, you know, some of them are a little bit more, you know, they have simpler tastes, and in large part that’s because that’s what they’re used to or what they can cook. We talked, I’m gonna actually give a little bit of a, I don’t know if I consider this a spoiler, but maybe if you’re really sensitive to spoilers you don’t wanna listen to this last part. We’ve talked about how there’s people on the team who are better cooks and people on the team who maybe don’t have necessarily the skill-set, who could burn water. So one of the things I really love is, you know, Bellara and Lucanis actually end up being, essentially, the team cooks. Bellara, you know, spending a lot of time out in nature, learning a lot about, you know, different types of cooking, is really big on experimentation, she likes to, you know, try different things. Lucanis comes from the Crows, Lucanis is very big on the finer things, so between the two of them, there’s a point in the story where they basically decide, if we don’t do this, the entire team is going to starve, so let’s just call ourselves the cook, cooks, and make sure that nobody dies of food poisoning, so.

KFM: This next one, I believe we actually might’ve even touched on this in the first Q&A, but, Trev has noticed a lack of dwarves in our promotional material concerning Rook. Inquisition had them sharing facial hair options with humans. So their question is, will dwarves return to more braided, grander beards, or will the facial hair options be shared like previously?

CB: Yeah, we did touch on this briefly, so let me go a little bit deeper. Yeah, there are some grander dwarven beards, like braids, beads woven in, it’s really lovely and really thematic. And y’all have seen our Strand hair, how great that looks, I think it looks just as great for the beards. And I do know, we’re gonna, at some point leading up to launch, we are gonna be showing some dwarf Rooks. So, let’s see if we can’t get some beard options on display there. It actually really was quite the challenge to get the physics to work with all the armor variance we have on those beards. So I’ll tell you what y’all. The team loves hearing from you. Would it be okay if I just asked in chat, could we get some love for our character art and tech anim teams because they put their heart and soul into make sure this would work for y’all. 

JE: It is, it is incredible how good the beards look, like, it just, they did, the work that they’ve done is just spectacular.

CB: Aw y'all are too kind. And then I guess just to finish up this question, we try and let you use as many options as the character creator has for any character you wanna create. So we definitely created bears in mind that are more dwarven in nature. You can use that on a qunari if you want, or you can use a more traditional human beard on a dwarf if you want, but your options are there. Aw, y’all are lovely, thank you so much.

KFM: So we didn't tag this next one as a minor spoiler. I don’t think that it is. But, definitely want to flag it anyway. Will the Solavellans have a chance at a happy ending?

JE: Corinne, I’m gonna let you do this one. 

CB: Oh my goodness, this is the question. Look! I mean, I thought y’all wanted the pain? Didn’t you tell me you wanted the pain, that tortured romance that rips your heart out? Honestly though, I just wouldn’t feel right about spoiling anything there. I’ll just say this, I’ll just say this. Trick has done a fantastic job with Solas, they always do, this is some of ther best work I think. And then I’ll also say, as, for myself as the resident shipper on the leadership team, I’m repping y’all, but that’s all I’m gonna say.

KFM: That’s definitely what I meant by, not really a spoiler, but some people might’ve thought that in the beginning.  

KFM: Okay, next question is, since you can choose to be part of the same faction for most of the companions, will that give you an advantage when trying to befriend them?

JE: So you will get some unique dialogue with the companions that are part of your own faction. The first time you meet them, they may not all know you by face, but they’ve at least heard of you, I’ve heard of who you are, maybe even heard of you leaving the faction to go help Varric to track down Solas. But that said, you know the faction, you don’t necessarily as people. So they will know you but you still have to work to earn their trust and learn, you know, get them, help them with their problems.

KFM: Next question is, will there be more connections between the Veilguard? Like will we see them hanging out together without out us?

JE: Oh, I love this one. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I’ve said this twice already, but my favorite thing is how much the companions feel like a, end up feeling like a found family. They’re invested in each others problems, you know they’re, invested in each others’ success and failures, and this manifests through a bunch of different ways. Scenes, banter, even interactions in the Lighthouse itself. Because one of the things that I think is important, I know Corinne also thinks is super important, these worlds, these games feel the best when they don’t feel like they’re there as a theme-park just for you, just to exist for Rook as a protagonist. These are characters that have relationships, have, you know, things going on that don’t necessarily directly involve Rook all the time. They have their own relationships, their own feelings, and we really want them to feel like their own people, and feel like they do exist outside of just the sphere of Rook. So, you know, they’ll follow, you’re the one leading this fight, but the companions don’t just exist for you.

KFM: So this next one is a real minor spoiler warning. Will the companions have interactions with Solas? I imagine the companions will comment on Rook’s decisions regarding Solas, but was wondering if the potential relationship between Solas and the companions will play any part?

JE: Oh, this is a good question. So a lot of Solas’ relationship is with Rook. Rook and Solas have a connection, they have a bond, and part of that is, and I’ve said this before, but Solas sees a lot of himself in Rook. He sees, you know, the person, you know the person he was before, the person he thinks he is, in Rook, and becomes, you know, again, we, they develop a connection. You get to flavor how it is, you can make it more antagonistic, make it friendlier, but ultimately it is a connection between the two of you. Now, that said, the companions are much a part of Rook’s story as Solas is, and sometimes those relationships can cross over, as well as, there are followers who, you know, are going to have a more complicated connection and complicated relationship with just, Solas as an entity, you know, Bellara, for example, is an elf, she’s Dalish, and this a person from her pantheon, so. There’s going to be a lot more of a, I guess, like I said, complex relationship between the two of them. Davrin is another example, someone else who is Dalish, so, you know, their views on the gods in general are going to be a little bit different. And then on the other side,you have someone like Emmrich who is very big on magic and the Fade, so they’ll have their own [inaudible] and their own thoughts. 

KFM: Before I get to this next question I do wanna say we’ve got about a fifteen minute warning, we’ve got about fifteen minutes left, so we’ll get through as many questions as we can in that time. And with that said, our next one is, and, I feel like we might have actually touched on this one earlier, but, keep me honest. Would it be possible to hide some of the combat UI, such as companion trackers and enemy HP bars, for even more immersion? 

CB: Yeah, good question. It’s actually, it’s reasonably robust what you can do with your UI. So let me give you some examples. If, normally when you hit an enemy you’ll see damage floaties come off of it. If you wanna turn those off, you can. If you want to play without, say, the minimap or the wayfinding markers, have a more organic experience, you can. I challenged myself to do a, it was really difficult to do a really difficult run where I turned off my own health bar, you can do that too. And then, I know one of them that a lot of people have been asking about is, we do have the incoming attack indicators, that just help you react. But, if you’re the kind’ve player that wants to turn those off, cut down on the noise, yeah, you can do that too, so. You know, I can’t say that we support every single option that you might have in mind, but it’s reasonably robust. 

KFM: And then, another, just small, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned yet again, is there lock-picking in the game?

CB: Oh gosh lock-picking, notorious lock-picking. Well let me answer it this way. I think the approach we took in The Veilguard is that each companion has a unique, what we’re calling, exploration ability, or abilities, that you can use to solve puzzle, access new areas and find treasure. So, like in that regard it’s not actually dissimilar to lockpicking, it’s just that it is more thematic to the companions and their unique skill-sets within The Veilguard. It’s very specialized, I guess you could say. And, look, I’ve been there when you’re playing and you feel like you have to take a rogue, otherwise you’re not gonna be open the lockpick chests. Some players like that, some players dislike it, but the option that we wanted to give to y’all is that, you know, we did say this is a spoiler right? We did, yeah. So Rook does find a certain dagger and through it a method to channel these exploration abilities of their companions, even when the companion is not in your party. So like, look, if I’m exploring Hossberg, and there’s a puzzle and I know how to solve it, like I’m not running all the way back to like a party swap-point, you can just use the dagger.

KFM: This is not a spoiler, and it is actually something we confirmed a little bit earlier in the Q&A, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear. Can we freely reallocate or refund skillpoints?

CB: Yeah, so we’ve confirmed this, I’m just gonna keep it brief, yes, absolutely. Refund all, refund last, no cost. It’s an entirely friendly refund system. Go experiment, and then let me know what you do.

KFM: Will the acts be broken down into acts or stages at all? Mainly wondering for like spoiler discussion purposes, while they’re all playing and wanting to talk to one another about it?

JE: So while we don’t officially within the game say this is this act, this is the next act, there are some pretty obvious narrative breakpoints where the context changes, or there is, you know, events that make it clear that things are now advancing into a different stage. That’s now, to be clear, that’s largely around the critical path. Other content can largely be done at any time, but even there we do unlock certain things over the course of time, because, again, it makes, it maybe doesn’t make narrative sense in the context of, say, an earlier act, but now, you know, you’re into act two, it feels a lot more meaningful and makes a lot more sense in the world. You can do a lot of content in any order, but the critical path is largely broken into acts.

KFM: Now, I think this next question might be the most important question we can answer. A user by the name of doggiesnores says, would you please tell me happy birthday? 

JE: Happy birthday doggiesnores.

CB: Aww, happy birthday doggie - I feel weird saying doggiesnores. I mean, listen -

JE: You gotta roll with it Corinne.

CB: John, Katey, do we wanna sing? Do we wanna sing?

JE: No!

KFM: Oh we can - oh, okay.

JE: You can sing.

CB: Alright. [sings] Happy birthday to you -

KFM: - [sings] to you - [stops singing] are we gonna stop now? Okay.

CB: We’ll stop, we’ll stop. 

JE: Yeah, I think, yeah. 

CB: We gotta get back to the questions.

KFM: Yeah, we do have a time limit now.

KFM: Alright, next question, alright. This is from Guapa. Okay. I wanna know the helmet situation. Back in Inquisition, there were helmets exclusive to races, and to be honest, most helmets were exclusive to humans. Will elves and humans share helmets since their head shape seems to be more similar now, and will there be qunari helmets rather than just facepaints?

CB: Love this described as “the helmet situation”. I love it. Yeah, so let me describe this to you. All the helmets can be worn by all the lineages with one big exception. The qunari still use the vitaar face paint. So each helmet has a unique look, and if you’re using the vitaar variant of that instead, that too has a unique look, so you’ll wear that facepaint instead of the helmet. And we, we felt that this was just generally a good precedent following Inquisition and, really what led us to this decision is that, when you see horn customization, and hair customization with the horns in character creator, we didn’t want to sacrifice that aspect of it in character creator. It’s just effing cool, that’s all I can say about it. So, yeah, the qunari will use vitaar. All the other helmets can be worn by all lineages. We’ve talked a lot about transmog, so of course you can transmog them, you can hide your helmet, you can hide your helmet in certain situations. So I’d say, as a “situation”, we’re pretty happy with it.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to tint and change the color of our armours, or have they, or do they have their default colors only?

CB: Oh cool, yeah, that kinda gets to transmog in a way. Gosh, what’s the, the best way to answer this I think is that each armor piece, like gear piece you have, will have bespoke colors, but for almost every single armor piece, while you can’t dye them, we have created color-variant cosmetics and they’re very often aligned with the various factions in the world, right? So like, there’s one, for instance, that has this like, incredible, like flowing cape, I use it all the time. There’s a variant of it for each faction with different faction, with different colors and logos and things of that nature. So you can’t dye, but it really is flexible and very thematic. And then I guess, going back to the Venatori armor question we had way at the beginning, while I wouldn’t say they’re explicitly Venatori, there are some very Venatori-like color schemes in some of the armors you’ll find.

KFM: I think this might be our last minor spoiler question, so once again, you’ve been warned. AelaFireheart asks, will we be seeing other griffons from The Last Flight? 

JE: So, again, just to be clear, spoilers, but yeah, Assan has brothers and sisters, so Assan is not the only griffon that shows up in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 

CB: Hey, I just gotta respond to something in comment, that somebody says, wait, does that mean I can’t be pink? And I’m assuming we’re talking about armors. There are some pink armors. Don’t worry -

KFM: Confirmed.

CB: - there’s some pink.

KFM: As some of the companions come from media outside of the games, were they already chosen as companions for the game and then integrated into the additional media, or were they characters outside of the game, and the team wanted to bring them in?

JE: I think this is pretty similar to a question we answered earlier, so I mean, again, it depends, but if they showed up, especially in Tevinter Nights, they were already intended to be companions at that point, so.

KFM: Are there any lineage-based surnames or is it just based on the background?

JE: So surnames in this game are entirely based on your background choice. The reason for this is we do reference your surname in dialogue, a not inconsiderable amount, and we didn’t, at a certain point it becomes unsustainable in terms of how many different variations, so. We reference it based on your surnames, sorry, your background.

KFM: Is there any chance that we will be getting any audio snippets of some of the companions and Rook’s voicelines before release?

JE: Well that’s the great news about the, Vows & Vengeance, is that, each companion will show up in one of the episodes, and you’ll be able to hear their voice in there, so. First episode yesterday, and there’s more to come.  

KFM: Remember when I said that was the last, or we had already read the last minor spoiler, I was wrong, there is one more. So, once again, you’ve been warned, minor spoiler upcoming. This question is from SammyCherryLee. Considering Varric’s timeskip, looks are a direct, Varric’s timeskip looks are a direct translation of how he looked in the comics. What thought process went into Morrigan’s new design, and what do you usually consider when bringing in old beloved characters back, but also make sure to adapt them to the years that have passed within the game?

JE: So, in every case, any time we’re bringing back a character, we want to think about, what would, what’s changed for that character in the time since you’ve last saw them, so, Varric, Morrigan, any other characters we bring back, there is this thought of, okay, it’s been, in this case, you know, almost ten years, what’s changed for these characters in that intervening time? In the case of Morrigan, she’s coming to terms with a lot of truths about both herself but also her mother, you know, you see her with Flemeth’s crown, or a variation of it, and that’s speaking to her personal journey of, what I would call, kind’ve acceptance of who she is and how she connects to Flemeth, because ultimately we want this to feel like a real world. It’s, they’re not the same person they are ten years ago, none of us are, and we don’t want characters to feel like, either ten years have passed, and hey, I’m exactly the same, because that’s stagnation for the character, and it’s just not believable or, honestly, fun, for you. And it doesn’t do justice to those characters.

KFM: Can we clarify - ooh, fuck, I think my Discord just went down again.

JE: Yep, I can still hear you.

CB: We can, we can hear you Katey, so.

KFM: Oh, good!

CB: Yeah.

KFM: I’ll just keep talking!

CB: Great, let’s do it!

KFM: I’m so sorry for the f-bomb, I didn’t know you could still hear me. 

CB: Hey, we’ve all been there.

JE: Cursing, in our Discord, my goodness!

CB: How very human of you.

KFM: Ban me, ban me. This next question is, can you clarify if Spellblade will be forced to use a dagger, or can we still use staff as a melee combat weapon?

CB: Oh, heck yeah, let’s go. You know, I was wondering if this was gonna be clear in the combat video we put out, so I’ll speak about mage, but this is generally true of all the classes. So they each have two weapon sets, if you’ve seen the character sheet. So for mage, you’re gonna have your staff slot and then you’re gonna have the orb-and-dagger slot. So, at any point, like even between weapon swings, you can swap to your class alternate weapon set by hitting down on the D-pad. So you’re not locked down into one weapon set or the other, even if you’re in a given class or specialization. Now, like what I would say is that the Spellblade specialization has a lot of extra functionality and depth that like is augmented when using the orb-and-dagger, but, like if I give you an anecdote of how I play, the staff heavy-attack armor, I take this, or, the staff heavy attack charge, I take a trait where when I’m doing damage and playing, it’s building up that heavy attack charge on my staff. Even when I’m playing as my Spellblade. So I’ll be, just going to down with orb and dagger, I’ll notice that my staff is fully-charged, I’ll swap at a convenient moment, use my heavy staff attack, blast the enemies down, I was telling y’all, like, these Nightmare players, like planning around your elemental damage types, it’s really great to have weapons of multiple elemental types, right? So I go up against something that’s resistant to fire, I’m gonna hit down and maybe swap to my necrotic weapon.

KFM: I'm back, in record time. 

JE: Welcome back! 

KFM: Okay, did we get to the next one, or was that just the Spellblade question?

CB: Oh that was, sorry I was geeking out too much Katey.

KFM: Oh that’s okay, no, it’s great!

CB: We hit upon a favorite topic of mine.

KFM: That’s okay. Do we think we have time for one more, or do we think it’s time to wrap up?

JE: I can go a little late, we’ve got, I think we can do a couple more, for sure.

KFM: Okay, we do only have three left, so.

JE: Let’s finish the list!

KFM: Let’s do it.

KFM: Alright, next question. Since it was mentioned that playing as an elf in the Veil Jumpers will see you more of a, see you as more of a Dalish elf, and a City elf if you play as a Shadow Dragon, what kind of elf would you be in the other factions?

JE: So this is actually a really interesting question for me because I think one of the things I’d say is, while City Elf versus Dalish Elf is a lot more of a useful distinction in, you know, Ferelden, Orlais, we’re in northern Thedas, things are different up here. And a great example is Rivain. Dalish settlements, you know, they have Dalish settlements within cities, integrated into the cities, because, again, they don’t have that same bias, that same distinction. So it’s not really a City Elf versus Dalish Elf thing in a lot of those cases. It’s a lot more about, how you play into the faction, you know, and, in some cases it matters more that you’re an elf, in other cases it doesn’t actually matter to the people of that faction, they’re just looking for someone who could do the work. A great example, and I’ll just, very, very light spoilers, Mourn Watch is a great example where, they just care that you are capable of, you know, executing the duties that you’re given, so.

KFM: This next question, we’ve definitely confirmed a few times today already, but I’m sure there’s been a couple of people who cycled in and out. Will, when will we be releasing detailed information on the full list of accessibility features in the game?

JE: So yeah, so I mean, we mentioned, we’re not quite ready to talk about them, but we will be diving into them before launch. We wanna make sure as many people as possible can enjoy and play the game, so.

CB: Yeah, I think we’re doing a feature, some kind of blogpost on that, but, that’ll be a good format where we can be a little bit more in-depth.

JE: Yeah.

KFM: Alright, and the final question that I have on my list. It’s about localization. WoodenSmith says, I’d like to hear more about how localization works. What sorts of things have to be changed or adjusted so they make sense in different regions? Do localization teams have to be super careful when they translate to make sure they’re not accidentally revealing more than was intended in other versions? I’ve also always been very curious about accents in other versions. For example, do the, I’m gonna butcher this, do the Orl - Orlesian -

JE: Orlesian.

KFM: Orlesian, thank you, John. Character voice -

CB: That was really good, Katey!

KFM: I tried!

JE: Yeah, you tried, you got most of the way there, yeah!

KFM: For example, do the Orlesian character voice actors speak in a French accent in the Japanese version, or dwarf characters speak with an American accent in the French version?

JE: So I’m going to talk broadly about localization, and I’ll get a little bit into the accent question. So, localization is a thing that we’re doing constantly. We’re almost working with the teams, we have regular syncs with them, and a lot of that is because localization is not just, a lot of people think of it like, yeah, you’re just translating. Well, you’re not, you’re, you know, you’re, again, there’s different things to understand about different languages, they have different rules around grammar and, I will say, I think every writer has at least one story where they wrote, kind’ve, a fun double-entendre into a conversation, and then they got a ping from some of the localization teams saying, hey, can you very thoroughly explain what you meant there? And that’s what I like to describe as being hoist on your own petard because, sometimes, you’re like, oh I said this, it was really ribald, and now I don’t want to talk to this person who is very seriously and very concernedly, looking, it’s just like, ‘can you please tell us what that means?’ But yeah, I mean, in general, it’s an art-form of its own. You know, different sayings translate differently into different languages, different metaphors translate differently to different languages, and we always wanna make sure that other people, you know, people are playing this game in every language have an experience that feels authentic and meaningful, and doesn’t feel like it’s just kind’ve, you know, phoned in, we just, we just ran it through Google Translate or something, so. Again, localization is a huge part of what we do, the localization team we have is amazing, they do fantastic work, I love working with them. As far as accents, yeah, we do try to keep some consistency, it’s not always going to be a one to one, but we do try to say like, okay, so, this character, this group of characters needs to sound similar, and they’ll find an accent that works with the language that they’re trying, because, again, different accents work differently with different languages, and we wanna make sure that there’s that consistency, so, yeah.

KFM: We did it!

JE: Yeah!

KFM: That’s all of our questions that we’re able to get to you today. Wanna just say a quick thanks again to the community for submitting all of these really questions, it was a lot of fun going through them and, you know, making sure that we were able to give you some new stuff this time around. Yeah, anything you guys wanna say before we hop off?

CB: Yeah, can I just say, look, we love here, being here answering questions for you but the support, the interest you all show, it really fuels us in the team.

JE: Mhm.

CB: You all are a big part of us being able to make this game what it is, and I really hope we do you proud, so just, sincere thank you to everyone. 

JE: Yeah, just, I just wanna echo that. I’ve been on this project for a while, and it’s been a lot of, not getting to talk about it, and quietly saying I don’t know, are we making more new Dragon Age? So being able to actually have these conversations and give you the details that you want without spoiling the game, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. This is genuinely the funnest part of my week, so thank you everyone.

KFM: Awesome, well thank you both so much for your time, Corinne and John. And, yeah, we have recorded the audio for this, so we’re going to turn that into a transcription, and put that in the Q&A archive channel, which lives underneath ask-bioware. That will be coming, you know, in the next couple of days to a week or so, you know, we’ll, we’ll be working away at it as soon as possible, so just let, let me know if you have any questions.

JE: Awesome. Thank you so much everyone, have a good Friday, good weekend, and I’m gonna go eat a sandwich, so.

CB: Happy Friday!

KFM: Happy Friday, and happy sandwich day!

CB: Bye bye.

JE: Thank you.

KFM: Bye.

JE: Bye.

[source: the official BioWare Discord server, August 30th dev Q&A]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

[sketch-twentytwo]

I'm going to get some flack for this but—despite enjoying Fairly Odd Parents: A New Wish quite a lot, I find Timmy Turner was the more compelling protagonist.

Don't get me wrong, Hazel is a fantastic and lovable addition to the show, but I find a lot of her shenanigans aren't as fun or snappy as Timmy's.

I don't really see the reason why Hazel of all people needs fairies. Her brother is off at college but he visits and still clearly loves and cares about her. Her parents get busy from time to time but they're there when it matters and they also love her very much. Her mother is probably the busiest of the two, but she still makes time for her daughter.

The catalyst of the pilot is Hazel running away to see her brother because she wasn't handling the move right away, but very quickly after all this she is able to make friends and maintain an upbeat attitude.

I don't think Hazel needs to be soul crushingly miserable for the show to work, but maybe a spare line here or there about how Fairly World/Da Rules went through a MASSIVE overhaul after a certain, infamous, pink-hatted god-child shook things up could've been nice (Jorgen mentioning that the world has improved since Timmy was a kid, so the qualifications for misery have been loosened?).

It might be the childhood nostalgia talking, but I liked Timmy as a character. He was a ten year old boy who made wacky and wild decisions, whose character only got ruined from the show running too long. If Timmy had gotten the FOP:NW treatment, I think we could've had so much potential for character growth and continuity. (I've made the executive decision not to count seasons 9 and 10 as canon because everything up to that point felt OG!FOP to me).

I see posts saying that Timmy's problems were external while Hazel's are internal, but despite her supposed internal struggles, Hazel is very emotionally mature. Again, I don't think she needs to be MISERABLE and EXTREMELY insecure, but her life pre-fairies doesn't seem that different than her supposed life without. Even without Cosmo and Wanda, I'm sure she would've been able to befriend her classmates, eventually get through to Dev, and find happiness in her life.

I guess my fondness of Timmy is that his fairies were his family. Cosmo and Wanda were like his adopted parents. Poof/Peri was his brother. He had no one else. And I guess I wish I could've gotten a quality ending for him. I need closure! I wanna know how he's doing in FOP:NW. I want to see that he's happy and thriving (and maybe a reunion between him and his family).

Timmy, for all his childishness, selfishness, and pettiness, was a good kid at heart. He was ten years old for crying out loud! Ten year olds tend to be immature lil' kids. I excuse some of his wilder wishes. All he really wanted was acceptance and love and he cared for his Fairy God Parents so, so much. Cosmo and Wanda have a HALL OF TIMMY in their house, for crying out loud!

Hazel is a good protagonist and I'm glad she's in the show, but Timmy holds a special place in my heart. In my heart of hearts, the HALL OF TIMMY still exists somewhere in C+W's house/appartment and he will forever be their son.

[tifa-simp]

Sephiroth has always had a grudge against Tifa.

Some ppl say that Sephiroth sudden changes his target to Tifa in Rebirth is weird and I say they just have selective memory cos that mf has been after Tifa's ass since Remake. It's just more direct in Rebirth.

So, Sephiroth can control 3 things: the black whispers, the black robed men and his Jenova monsters, occasionally Cloud too. And sometimes Sephiroth appears as a clone or an illusion to get things done himself.

Now let's take a look at Remake.

At the beginning of Remake, Tifa takes care of a robed man named Marco with the number 49 on his left arm. Later, in Shinra HQ, we're shown that he's Jenova Dreamweaver, which is said by Aerith to be the source of everything. Tifa was living next door to something that dangerous for god knows how long.

The morning before the mission, a swamp of whispers appear in Sector 7 and attack Avalanche. We know their purpose is to hurt Jessie so Cloud will replace her. But before that, the whispers attack Tifa, separate her from Cloud. This move seems pretty unnecessary because if they want to, the whispers can push Jessie down the stair without having to do this to Tifa. So I assume the devs put it there for some foreshadowing purposes.

Ah yeah, have I mentioned this?

Later, at Destiny crossroad, the gang has to fight Whisper Harbinger. Cloud, Barret, RedXIII fight Whisper Viridi and Croceo , while Tifa and Aerith fight Whisper Rubrum. As the boys finish their fight and on their way to help the girls, Tifa's distracted by a vision of future and can't react to Rubrum's attacks. Fortunately, Cloud saves her on time.

Now, some fun facts about these Whisper monsters, they're supposed to represent the Remnants of Sephiroth. And Rubrum takes after Kadaj.

But it isn't the only one that has something special for Tifa.

So 2 out of 3 Whisper monsters have an attack specifically aim at Tifa.

In short, in Remake, we have a robed man close to Tifa, black whispers harm Tifa for no reason, illusion of Sephiroth kills Tifa, Whispers monsters direct hit at Tifa.

Now onto Rebirth!

Open with a bang, the Nibelheim accident, where Sephiroth gives Tifa her the scar on her chest.

In Kalm, after the flashback, Tifa asks Cloud for a private talk. This is where Sephiroth starts gaslighting Cloud that Tifa is Jenova

After Junon, they sneak on a ship to Costa Del Sol, there's a breakout of monsters and robed men. The robed men have developed the ability to merge with monster and each other to become more powerful. This is all according to Hojo's plan. Tifa and Cloud have to fight a chimera between robed man and Hojo's monster. When the fight almost ends, the Necrotic Entity collapse in front of Tifa. Before it can harm her, Cloud delivers the finishing blow.

Now it's just me but this looks kinda similar to Rubrum fight. The gang then have to fight Emergent and look, another attack aims at Tifa in cutscene just like Rubrum.

This is the second time Sephiroth appears and "warns" Cloud about Tifa, also when he drops the line "That she can become those you hate. Those you fear. Those you love. And they call her Jenova." (btw in JP, there's only fear and love, no hate)

In Corel, Tifa asks the gang to visit doctor Sheiran-the one saved her from Sephiroth's slash. Once again, Sephiroth appears to warn Cloud in the clinic.

In Gongaga, where Sephiroth's scheme unveils, he's planned a meticulous plan to isolate Cloud, who's extremely weak under influence of Mako, and Tifa, who's in danger, from the rest of the gang. Out of desperation, Cloud gives in his anger and lets Sephiroth take over his body and kill all the Shinra troops sadistically, to the point Tifa has to shout at him to stop. Now this where Sephiroth's grudge is most apparent.

Firstly, we have Cloud fully believes Tifa to be Jenova, forces her to show him her scar and repeats Sephiroth's words on the cruise: "Those we hate, those we love, those we fear- Jenova could be anyone to fool her prey." Pay attention to how he switches love-fear compared to Sephiroth's fear-love. Also looks at this Devil-Angel on shoulder implication, chef kiss.

Secondly, we have a 1:1 recreation of Sephiroth's attempted murder on Tifa with Cloud as the executioner this time.

Thirdly, after the WEAPON saved Tifa, black whispers attack the WEAPON that holds Tifa and Sephiroth manifests in his real body to attack her but misses, or maybe he misses on purpose.

And finally, when she gasps for air, he mocks her that her words won't reach Cloud.

Like damn, this mf is an expert at tormenting Tifa. This has to be the most effort he's put in throughout 2 games that I've seen. Black whispers, illusion, real self, he pulls all the stops for Gongaga, ok?

BUT HE'S STILL NOT DONE!

After the temple collapses and Cloud goes full on puppet mode, obeys Sephiroth's order to give him the black material, Tifa shoves Cloud and tries to wake him up. This mf Sephiroth mocks her AGAIN and commands black whispers to hold Tifa back from reaching for Cloud, which look similar to the black whisper attack in sector 7 in Remake .

In conclusion, in Rebirth, we have real Sephiroth attacks Tifa twice, forces her to show her traumatic scar twice, makes Cloud accuse Tifa of being Jenova twice, makes Cloud to recreate the exact way he permanent scared Tifa, mocks her connection with Cloud twice, his monsters attack Tifa twice, black whispers attack Tifa twice.

This is personal for Sephiroth. With Cloud, he toys with him in flirtatious way. With Aerith, he just dismisses her words, kinda quarrels with her over the Planet true wish.

But with Tifa? Straight action. He always maxes out his resource when it comes to fuck with Tifa: black whispers, robed men, whispers monster, robed man monster, Jenova monster, his illusion, his clone, his real body, Cloud, EVERYTHING. If he has it, he'll use it against Tifa one way or another. I feel like whatever he has for Tifa is pretty nasty compared to Cloud. At least with Cloud, we know that Sephiroth wants to convince him to join his side. We have no idea what's his intention with Tifa to mess her up this much beside for the sake of torture her. Whatever it might be, one thing for sure is that Tifa has an incredible mental fortitude that can survive all of this and more. She'll only grow stronger and tougher in part 3, makes it even harder for Sephiroth to knock her down.

[hanafubukki]

Hana, imagine Lilia fucking dies at the end of book 7.

And stay’s dead…..

Imagine the Twst team says “Yeah, not even the power of true love can safe everything in this twisted tale”

God that would brutal……..

[In connection to this post maybe?]

Hello Camrastuff🌺🌷💞

I think I talked about this before but of course I can’t find the post 😔😔, I want to say that I don’t think they’ll kill Lilia off. Mostly because he makes them too much money (not saying other gacha games haven’t killed off money makers before), while the process of grief is needed I don’t think they’ll do it without Lilia having a talk with the boys, and well Yana and Disney relationship lol

If Yana had full control? I would not be surprised given the recent character she killed off in black butler.

But can she kill him as a plot device only for him to return? Yeah, I see a high chance of that happening. (Or maybe even off screen implication after the game ends)

But if they do, do that? Kill him off for good?

Well…a couple moots and I and others are raiding the twst devs headquarters with pitchforks.😁☺️🔥

(I swear mumble and I are funding this guy’s business 😂)

If such a scenario was to happen, I don’t think Malleus nor Silver would ever be able to recover. One, because of Silver’s guilt of not being able to save him and because they never had the talk they were supposed to have. And second, Malleus guilt at being the cause of the very event he wanted to stop. I can see him locking himself away and never making connections again. Literally, maleficia in a sense. Him feeling useless despite the powers he has. 😔

Anyways!! Speaking of Yana!! Happy Black Butler season 4 release day to everyone who watches it 🥳🥳

[luke-hughes43]

hughes little sister and went second in the 2023 draft and maybe just her brothers realizing how much their sister has grown up and it’s not the little girl who use to hide in their beds when she was scared or would cling to them when they had to leave

oh yes!

she ends up at the ducks with trev (which scares luke and quinn and excites jack) and the boys are so happy for her.

after her draft party, the 4 of them end up in the same room, all semi drunk/tipsy, and cuddling on the same bed like they did when they were kids.

they all just have one big pile of each other and just reminise on their childhood and how much fun they had together. jack says, "remember when quinn ripped off my braces and y/n, you clung to me for days and refused to talk to quinn for like a week."

"i remember. and i remember me and luke always being paired up during mini sticks so you two could beat on us. it's why i became a forward. to be better than you jacky."

"how'd that work out 2nd overall?"

"pretty damn good. we all know it won't matter until games start. as long as my rookie year goes better than yours, i'll call it a win." y/n snides back at jack jokingly.

quinn and luke laugh while jack pouts. luke pulls y/n as close to him as he can. those two were inseperable growing up, being the youngest. luke says quietly to no one in particular, "this is the last time we're gonna be in the same room until next summer."

"no it's not. we have the rest of this trip and the rest of the summer."

"y/n you have dev camp in a few weeks so you'll be gone. i'm going to see dylan and a few of the guys for a few days beofre dad starts training. jack is going to new york to see trev. and quinn is going god knows where. we all have plans for the rest of the summer. and you guys won't be in new york/new jeresy at the same time, ever."

"i guess your right luke." quinn says.

there's a silence over the room that gets broken by y/n, "i'm gonna miss you guys. i wouldn't have gotten where i am and i don't know what i'm gonna do without you guys."

"we're gonna miss you too y/n."

"at least you'll have trevor in anahiema and quinn isn't that fair away and you'll see him 4 times next season." jack says trying to look at the bright side. y/n scoffs, "because having trevor around is supposed to make me feel better? i'll end up babysitting him."

"yea she has a point jacky." quinns says. luke stays quiet not wanting to think about losing his baby sister to the nhl. jack and quinn are the first pass out but y/n and luke can tell that they are both still awake. y/n can also tell that luke is lost in his thoughts.

"penny for your thoughts lukey?"

"i'm not ready to lose you yet. not to the likes of zegras anyways."

"you're not gonna lose me. especially not to trevor. luke, i'm your little sister, i'm always gonna be the biggest thorn in your side and your best friend at the same time. besides, who else am i gonna go to when there's a big spider in my room or who's bed am i gonna hide in during thunderstorms or who's gonna be my first call after my first game? it's gonna be you moose, my big brother who basically my twin. i'm not going anywhere."

"you're going to anahiem."

"i know. but this was the dream luke. we're finally living it. this is a good thing, i know it's sad in the moment but this is a good thing. we're finally living the dream that we've talked about for i don't know how long. we're always gonna have each other and we'll never really lose each other either."

"i know. i just hard seeing you grow up."

"i know. have i told you what number i want in anahiem?"

"no." he shakes shaking his head. she responds softly, "43."

"really?"

"yea. after my big brother, twin flame, and partner in crime."

there's no words said after that. both of them letting their exhaustion consume them. later on that night/early the next morning, ellen pops her head in to check on her kids and see them all cuddling in one bed like the used to when they were little. she snaps a few pictures before leaving them be.

she shows the pictures to jim and gishes about how her babies are all grown up now. jim just says softly, "we did good honey. we did real good. the rest is up to them."

once all the kids wake up, they decide to spend that day as a family and deal with their friends and thte media later. today was about the family and they loved the idea of that.

[ganondoodle]

so its part of a way longer post i made some days ago but i want to highlight this part of it:

"i cant stop thinking about the devs saying sth like "after botw zelda wondered if the kingdom of hyrule needed to keep existing the way it had been before the calamity, but then totk happens" bc it just feels like they realized too late that botw naturally led into questioning the status quo and they scrambled to fit it back into a flat and boring road we have seen so many times before (or even worse really) with totk zeldas character naturally leads into her questioning and reexamine their history and set of rules? we gotta teach her a lesson of why she is importante god given monarchy girl that has to keep it bc what if evil brown man shows up again for no reason maybe im grasping at straws here but looking at it this way the sonau .. make more "sense"; the shiekah were a group that was under the rule of the royal family, and misstreated before (oh no look soemthing interesting) so they dont lend themselves well to be used for teaching zelda that lesson- the sonau however are tailored really to be just that; they are a supposedly godly race from the literal sky that founded this version of hyrule, that had tech even more advanced and better than the shiekah, she gets put in the past to meet the perfect god king of goodness personally, also his very fridgy wifey that zelda later replaces in a way, shes put there and treated like family and then gets to see just how evil that evil big man from the desert is, sonia is falcon-punched to death solely so zelda can feel obligated to take over her role, have her new, better 'family' hurt by gan; similarly so raurus sacrifice, look what a noble and good king he is, he payed the ultimate price to lock that evil man away, now zelda you cannot let their sacrifice go to waste, rebuild that divinely good kingdom like it was!!"

bc it feels like i finally "cracked the code" of why the sonau feel both like a reskinned version of the shikeah .. while also not at all to me, so shoved into every single corner of the game and its history (not even the forgotten temple being safe from them sure is .... also something, like them being spread all over hyrule, not just the undergound, but the surface AND sky as well isnt weird enough, the shiekah at least were integrated into the world and by far not as idolized as the sonau)

seeing the sonau like this ""better"" and more """perfect"" version of the shiekah bc they are untainted by any possible complicated relationships with especially the royal family (the sonau ARE the prefect, idyllic royal family of the past after all) makes them make so much more "sense" to me, they are a bad mix of OOTs and botws structure, sure, but the way they were done in the game i cannot for the life of me see it as that being their sole problem

(also looking at how shiekah tech was downgraded to some side gimick of purah ... idk if they ever even call it shiekah at all anymore, and if "all sheikah tech just vanished" like the devs said then ... how does any of that still exist huh? it doesnt add up at all except if you see it as the sonau being the ""better"" version of the shiekah with none of the "problematic" parts or history or conenctions (which would be .. interesting) bc they are supposed to represent that idyllic past zelda should feel obligated to recreate now, to uphold that sweet status quo ..

sidenote: someone on the post i talked about his before said its also dumbo that there is supposedly no connection at all between the shiekah and sonau, and yes! that was something i ranted about while i was still playing the game back in may even (most of my later gameplay at some point devolves into a rant about how stupid it is that there is no connection and instead its all just ... gone) bc its just ... so dumb

its also how i chose to integrate the sonau better into the world in my totk rewrite stuff, that they were once there aand had high tech but its by now only crumbs left with nothing funtcioning anymore but you discover that at the time of the ancient shiekah finding it it was still researchable and they build their tech based on the sonau ruins even if the sonau stuff is nothing but dust anymore- which i find a super ... obvious way to give the sonau a better connection to the existing world, keep the shiekah, expand upon their mystery while also still keepign them as such-

.... anyway, there beign no connection at all somehow also fits even more into my theory of the sonau, again, being there solely to represent the idyllic, perfect past zelda needs to feel obligated to rebuild while the shiekah are nothign but a funney gimick of purah now while everything else "just vanished" somehow bc we dont wanna deal with the shiekahs imperfect past so they really should be just a a helpful helper of the rocals (and the yiga a side note as a little threat to be different from the usual monsters but thats all that there is :)))) -

this is getting too long again .. feel free to add your two cents on it and if seeign the sonau like this makes them make more 'sense' to you too

[lulu2992]

And I forgot one question I've read somewhere that supposedly john was a rapist. But I don't think that for a bit. They say because he wanted to cut faiths sin out of her because he had Urges so what your take on that?

I’m “glad” (so to speak) you asked because this has been bothering me for a while.

I’m not a fan of the Seeds’ characterization in Collapse, but I don’t think the DLC ever implied there was anything sexual to his infamous “urges” and I genuinely don’t understand how that could be the conclusion some people drew.

When, in Collapse, they talk about the woman you mentioned in your previous ask, John says she “gave [him] everything”, including her body, but that she then made him “so angry” for reasons he doesn’t seem to understand. The phrasing implies that they had sex, yes, but also that she consented to it. She “gave” him her body; he didn’t take it by force. Yet, I’ve seen comments from players that affirmed the contrary and that this was the crime John was afraid he would get in legal trouble for...

In the same conversation, Joseph, who I think is written as more manipulative in the DLC, tells John it was God who “gave [him] a gift” and “put [these urges] there” so he now has to use them “for His glory”. Now, if there were anything sexual about them, considering Lust is a sin and that we were told in Far Cry 5 fornication isn’t allowed in the cult, it makes no sense to me for the Father to call that a “gift” and to ask him to put it at the service of the Project.

Sadly, that unknown woman isn’t the only presumed victim people saw in Collapse. It’s thankfully been modified now (at least for the moment), but for a while, on the Wiki, you could read this on John’s page:

Joseph's mind experienced a vision of what would happen if John survives the nuclear apocalypse and lives with him, where John's mental health worsen with insane uncontrollable urges, strongly implying to be the urge to rape Faith, which he blames God for.

When you take a deep dive into the lore, you come to realize the Far Cry Wiki is filled with mistakes and wild guesses and that it’s never a good idea to fully trust it… but not everyone is aware of this. It was very, very upsetting to see this kind of gross misinformation on a page that’s supposed to be objective and that most readers—understandably—believe can be taken at face value.

John’s thing is and has always been, even in the DLC, purification through pain and cutting people’s skin to remove their sins. It was never hinted anywhere that there was supposed to be anything sexual about that or what he does for the cult in general.

In that vision Joseph experiences in Collapse, John has a knife in his hand and says he can hear Faith “sinning”, so he has to “cut it off of her” because he “[needs] to cut something up”. Again, I don’t get how it’s even possible to see this, knowing how John canonically makes people Atone, and go, “Ah yes, sex!”

But even in Far Cry 5, there are players who keep saying it was strongly implied (or even certain) that he assaulted Joey Hudson when... no, it never was. She doesn’t say anything about that, Sharky only talks about “how John cuts people up and knows all these pressure points and can make you feel pain beyond anything you ever imagined”, and other NPCs mention torture and how terrifyingly good he is at making you talk. Context matters, and John being a man keeping a woman hostage doesn’t automatically mean that happened.

The thing is, I suppose, that many people, whether they love or hate John, do what Adelaide does and sexualize him. That’s not an issue in itself, and it’s even possible the devs made him alluring on purpose or thought he was sexy too (hence Addie’s comments) but, if you’re not careful, I think you can quickly end up confusing your perception of a character with reality and imputing intentions to them.

It’s not easy to distinguish between what you see and what is shown to you, and nobody can have a 100% objective analysis, but I think people (notably those who feel like contributing to Wikis) should be careful not to draw hasty conclusions, especially when it comes to such a serious and sensitive subject.

So my take is the same as yours: John is not a rapist. Maybe he could have been one, we don’t know, but there is no evidence to support this claim and I really wish people would stop presenting it as fact.

[definitelynotshouting]

So I just started playing In Stars and Time because I got curious about the sad little blorbo you occasionally post about and afshdjdkrn

I just. Wanna hug them. So badly 😭

Siffrin isat my everything my cinnamon fucking apple WKDNWKDNEKEKSK HE IS SOOOOO SQUISHABLE...... THEY NEED A HUG SO BAD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

Incredibly pleased im helping spread the isat propaganda like the dev rlly just Made a whump fic in video game format huh....... for tumblr girlies by a tumblr girlie.... my gods we respect the grind as if i could EVER be normal abt that

I'll be so real ive already written little tidbits for a longer au oneshot i want to write in between chapters of hunger au, and the exercise in 2nd person pov is SO MUCH FUN im enjoying myself immensely :] here, a snippet for both fun and profit (and more fun):

"Siffrin...." Odile says, and it strikes a sour chord, a ripple of dissonance that screws rivets around your chest and tightens. She shouldn't have to say your name like that, with that kind of weight�� as if all the Craft in the world isn't enough to carry it. Pure reflex ducks your chin into the collar of your cloak; you avert your gaze back to the rubble-littered floor of the tunnel, tracing dark crags in the stone where sputtering torchlight fails to reach. There you go again, stardust. Loop's voice is an ephemeral echo in your ears, a byproduct of months, years worth of past loops gone by. It isn't real. Gone and made yourself another person's problem. It isn't real. "— need you to start taking this more seriously." Odile bites out each word with the same deportment of a dog tearing off chunks of meat, clipped and cutting. Her brows knit together, mouth pulling down in a sharp curve; the lines around her eyes are tight, carved from the knife's edge of her own disappointment. Her disappointment in you. You almost miss the next sentence as well. "I have no way of helping you if you don't speak to me," she says. "And when you minimize these things you went through— you realize that's going back on your word, yes? Gems alive, Siffrin. We want to help." You speak before your mind has caught up with your mouth, hundreds of loops sanding down the words into something practiced, rote. "But there's nothing to help me w—" "Stop lying to me." Odile snaps, and your jaw shuts so fast you miss biting your tongue by a mere hair's-breadth. Your lungs threaten to buckle— inhale. Exhale. Come on, stardust, Loop's imaginary voice sneers, can't you do something as simple as breathe? Or are you just that blinding useless? ... Shut up. Odile's eyes slip shut. She raises a hand to meet them, kneading at the soft skin between her brows. "I'm... sorry, Siffrin," she says, halting, stilted. "I shouldn't— that wasn't productive. I apologize." Tentatively, you say: "You don't have to." "Yes, I do." Odile straightens once again, tucking a strand of sweat-slicked hair back behind her ear with a grimace. "It's not... conversations like these are... hard. Yelling is pointless for both of us. I'm sorry." "But you didn't—" "Siffrin," she says, and this time the syllables of your name twist, a rise and fall that cracks wryly in the middle. One sharp eyebrow arches up into the canopy of her hairline. "You're supposed to say you accept the apology." You stare. She stares right back. Oh. She's serious. "I..." you look down. "Um. Accept?" "Excellent," Odile says brusquely, and bends to peer at an invisible speck of dirt clinging to her forearm. She brushes at it with absent, studious flicks, the epitome of single-minded focus. "Then now we can move on with our lives."

[s-b-party]

Penacony: Land of Dreams, Exiles, and Choices

****Honkai star rail/HSR 2.2/TRAILBLAZE MISSION/PENACONY SPOILERS AHEAD****

There is A LOT going on in this story & I don’t know if I can call this a continuation of my previous HSR lore thread regarding Ena, HooH, and Xipe but I am pretty much expanding on Ena & Xipe in 2.2 while also talking about important concepts present in the story

It’s hard to really know where to begin when there’s a lot going on especially between Ena & Xipe or rather, between their factions/followers

We can start with a general idea of the situation: it’s established that Xipe the Harmony absorbed Ena the Order a long time ago, the Family is a faction of Xipe but it seems very disoriented overall because not everybody knows the truth behind Penacony and/or is involved with the schemes (the Oak Family was the one mostly involved, others seemed oblivious to what was going on)

Sunday who should have been a follower of Xipe alongside Robin ended up being a follower of Ena because he was pessimistic about the Harmony due to situations like the 3 stories he presented as questions to us (Charmony Dove, stowaway who sold everything he had including his children to come to Penacony, Robin getting hurt in an accident) & as a result, he sought control over the fates of others so that everybody would only get happy endings

*Initially I wasn’t going to say this in my other thread because I wasn’t sure if I was reaching by comparing a character to an Aeon but this quest made it much more prominent to see: Sunday’s desire for control was something that I wanted to bring up previously because Herta stating how she doesn’t like Ena’s control freak behavior in their simulated universe dev log made it hard to ignore Sunday’s own issues in the previous patch; it just set off alarms in my head that he might not actually have been following Harmony*

The way Sunday explained he would achieve his goal is that he wouldn’t resurrect Ena but instead he would have people never experience hardships through Order which I guess he could have achieved from memoria (manifestations of memories & emotions) & the Stellaron since Ena isn’t physically around to enforce Order

The reason why we see aspects of Ena present at all in the story is due to their remnants; as I suggested in my other thread, Aeons can die or disappear but their paths & concepts don’t disappear easily so to clarify, Ena isn’t alive at any point of the story but we see many hints of them in the story despite being gone

For example, the area where we answer Sunday’s 3 questions has the notable open eye on the ground; the many puppets we begin to see as we go through the Penacony Grand Theater refer to Ena’s puppet appearance; note that when you try to use clockwork but are unable to change the emotions during this part of the story, on top of looking very…unsettling, Clockie gains the same eye colors as Ena’s open eye while having puppet strings attached which references their puppet strings

Boss Sunday in the 3rd phase has eyes on the rings behind him, the faces in all phases look very similar to Ena’s white porcelain face with closed eyes, the hand that comes out for the Michelangelo’s God & Adam attack looks very similar to Ena’s puppet hands but it doesn’t have the puppet joints & the thumb is purple when Ena’s hands were white with golden joints

As it is explained by the data bank, the Septimus boss is supposed to be Dominicus who is one of the Harmonic Choir (Emanators of Xipe) but due to Ena’s influence, his appearance changed; in other words, Sunday usurped their powers originally for Harmony & turned them to serve Order

I find it really intriguing how much impact Ena had in this story despite being gone (keep in mind that Ena never enforced their concept onto anybody including Sunday & Gopher Wood, these characters saw a concept that they believed in & twisted their understanding of it for their own purposes; this also goes for Sunday’s freak control behavior which was all him & not Ena even though Herta claimed they had similar behavior)

Meanwhile one of the biggest moments we witness regarding Xipe is when the Trailblazer gains the path of Harmony

There are two main details I want to point out; first is their eyes are actually open when normally their eyes are closed & the second is they are glowing very brightly which, by themselves might not mean much, but together they say a lot when we look at other Aeons

Nanook is the first to gaze upon us & acknowledge us then it was Qlipoth; in both cases some part of their forms glowed brighter than the rest of their bodies when they gazed upon us which seemed to be their eyes/head

*Sidenote: interestingly something similar happens in Swarm Disaster and Gold & Gears

When you complete everything that you need to get the paths of Propagation & Erudition respectfully (which implies that the simulated versions of Tayzzyronth & Nous have noticed & acknowledged you), the actual art of the Aeons will change; the main difference is that they glow brighter whether it be their “eye(s)”, their entire being, certain parts, etc.*

Going back to the cutscene with Xipe, it seems that opening their eyes was a sign of noticing & acknowledging us

There’s one particular line from Sunday regarding the Aeons that stood out to me which was “And through Harmony, we obtain Order” which is interesting because the same can be said of the opposite “Through Order, we obtain Harmony”

What Sunday did was try to impose Order to force happy endings for everybody but that is simply not how life works because there’s always going to be pain; if you never experience pain or suffering then do you really know the world as it is & are you truly living? Yes it would be wonderful if everybody could get along & nobody ever had to suffer, but unfortunately that is not feasible forever

It’s the reason why balance is needed; when you face suffering, it makes all the good things that happen in your life feel much better; it’s not good to have only one or the other & that’s the point regarding Ena & Xipe

Even though Xipe absorbed Ena, their two concepts are very much intertwined & they both can’t really exist without the other; Order has been there all along, just without an Aeon for some time

Also keep in mind that Order & Harmony are both forms of balance which I mentioned in my other thread; to reiterate, Harmony is the fusion/unity of many into one while Order refers to the idea of specific arrangement (under Ena, civilizations rose & fell which established a cycle to follow; they created laws that the universe followed) but Sunday takes it to the extreme which is complete control without considering how others would truly feel about this plan of his

Before I continue, I just want to say that I liked how Sunday was characterized as an antagonist because you can tell he does truly care about other people (why would he go so far to obtain happy endings for everybody when he might not even like or know them?)

We know he cares about Robin very much despite how misguided he was in taking away her voice but as we saw, he was desperate to protect her which we see in his reaction after hearing she suffered a neck injury & when he thought that Gallagher actually killed her; these two instances explain his desire for control so well since he was powerless in both cases

He definitely was wrong about how he went about things but he loves humanity enough to go so far

Moving onto concepts, when we look at the overall story of Penacony so far, we see that dreams are an important concept; after all, it is the planet where people come to experience beautiful dreams but what makes these dreams unique is that everybody has a shared dream once they enter the Dreamscape & there are 12 distinct dream worlds in total that guests can choose to visit (each one representing a moment on the clock)

However not many guests on Penacony either know about or would come to Dreamflux Reef which was introduced this patch; when compared to the more well-known Dreamscapes, Dreamflux looks more somber & there are less people living there but it still has a few establishments so it is not entirely devoid of life

It is referred to as the Land of Exiles & to enter this area, with the exception of the teleport waypoints that we use, you usually would have to get brought by Something Unto Death whose real name is Dormancy & its affectionate nickname is Sleepie; in other words, Dormancy is the guardian of the Land of Exiles as explained by Firefly

The description of Dreamflux Reef from the Family is that it’s the “Nightmare” but it’s also how the Dreamscape is supposed to look

When looking at both this dream world & the other more popular ones like Golden Hour, they appear to represent aspects of life, specifically escapism (Golden Hour & the more beautiful dreamscapes) & reality (Dreamflux Reef)

Golden Hour is designed to be like amusement parks like the ones in Orlando with a mix of casinos like in Vegas; we can see why Penacony is so popular

On top of the fun tourism aspect, while you’re in the Dreamscape, your physical body doesn’t experience many of the changes you go through inside your dreams so you could stay in the Dreamscape as long as you want (as long as you can afford a room...)

Meanwhile Dreamflux Reef is representative of the non-glamorous things in life which can encapsulate struggles, pain, sadness, etc. Its other name “Land of Exiles” is also a nod to Penacony’s darker history as a former prison planet

However Dreamflux does have its lively moments which bodes well because it means that reality isn’t completely bad, it just might not be as fully glamorous or great like how the other dreamscapes are depicted

This topic of reality vs dream is constantly brought up with Sunday whose main struggle involves wanting to provide only happy endings even if that goes against reality or what should be; in fact we face the topic at the start when we meet Acheron & she asks us questions which she repeated along with much of the dialogue after the questions at the end right before we fight Sunday for a 2nd time at the exit of the nihility realm(?)

EDIT: Tumblr wouldn't let me post more than 30 photos so there are some missing in this portion & later towards the end and I didn't want to post photos while leaving out the others that would give more context; head to the Twitter link if you would like to see the thread in its entirety https://twitter.com/SBParty_Ryusa/status/1789763474546905198

Interestingly even as an Emanator of Nihility, Acheron still sounds hopeful; in fact she reminds me of the Doctors of Chaos (a faction of Nihility) who have been faced with IX’s display of hopelessness but these members still try to prove to IX that life isn’t all that meaningless

Another interesting thing I noticed is that Acheron is the opposite of Sunday when it comes to facing hopelessness: even when faced with the idea that everything will return to nothingness, she still moves forward but Sunday turns away from the pain of reality & relies on sweet dreams that don’t truly change your circumstances in the real world

So I’ve mentioned Penacony being both the Land of Dreams & Exiles but how do “choices” come into play? Something that I’ve seen become a huge part of Penacony’s plot is the concept of choice

Aside from Acheron’s questions, we’ve seen other displays of choice being an important concept; for instance, Sunday’s plan to obtain happy endings for everybody essentially takes away the ability to choose (yes everybody gets to be happy but it’s not happiness obtained by their hands/doing)

Robin had her voice taken away by Sunday even though she wanted to continue on her path of Harmony; Sunday’s plans only would have made him happy in the end

One of the saddest parts about this is that we do see an example of somebody who was not happy with their enforced dream despite how blissful it was for them: Robin herself

We along with Acheron & Black Swan found Robin who was actually the first to wake up and she guided Acheron & Black Swan

She explained that she was able to wake up due to the major flaw in her dream which was Sunday agreeing to not cage the Charmony Dove after it got better; while it would have made her happy that he agreed with her, she also knew that her brother wasn’t like that & her painful reality still would have been the same even if she chose to ignore the discrepancy because it already happened in the past

Of course everybody is different & may make different choices from each other; you can choose to wake up or keep living in a dream (in both cases you still have to deal with the consequences whether that be coming back to reality or becoming afraid to wake up) but the important part is that everybody gets to make their choices themselves without interference

This is Acheron’s main point when she says that the answers don’t matter because you’ve made a choice & you’ll hopefully go through with your decision

I do need to talk about the Nameless not only because a lot of backstory was given in this quest than any previous ones but also because as part of the Trailblaze, choices are definitely one of the biggest concepts for this path

The Nameless is an important faction that has followed the deceased Akivili even to this day; this group includes many curious & brave characters, both playable & NPCs including the Astral Express Crew

As part of the Trailblaze, the Nameless have faced unknown futures & dangers but ultimately made the choice to move forward into the unknown; this path is definitely not easy & it is bound to be filled with struggles & pain but for many of the Nameless, they’ve all blazed their own paths no matter where they were or where those paths led them even if it meant their end

The new Clockie event has a free lightcone reward that shows Pom-Pom with Mikhail, Tiernan, and Razalina back when they were still on the Astral Express & after the trio left; this is a bittersweet memory for Pom-Pom because I’m sure they’re happy that they left to follow their hearts but it’s still sad for them because the LC mentions many previous Nameless having left the Astral Express as well (I definitely didn’t tear up reading this LC 🙃)

Even for Pom-Pom, as part of the Astral Express, they have been through a lot with many of the Nameless departing to follow their hearts & yet they still choose to remain the conductor even to this day

That takes a lot of dedication & it just reminds me of Acheron’s question “Might I ask if you fear losing these bonds?” because that definitely applies to their situation considering they’ve been around for a long time; I’m sure Pom-Pom misses them very much 😢

*This might be one of the longest threads I’ve written so far but considering how much was going on in the quest, I think I yapped an appropriate amount 😂

*I know not everybody enjoys reading extremely long text but I hope that there are at least a few who will enjoy it

*Also I didn’t know what to title this, I’m not creative enough 😭

*This quest just gave me a lot to think about, there were good parts & iffy parts for me but I did enjoy the story overall; I hope that others were/are able to enjoy it even with how long it took :3

[felassan]

Some snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from a Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he is livestreaming playing Dragon Age II -

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and sort've like, the franchise in general:

A comment in chat asked "What do you think about the recent DA:D leaks?" Mark replied that he doesn't really think that there is much in those leaks.

A comment in chat mentioned the possible 2 companions setup from the leaks. Mark said "honestly, I think the 2 companions is probably better for storytelling than 3, because you're able to have a more consistent banter setup, as opposed to having someone [else] there just hanging on".

Chat asked if he was worried about the quality of writing in DA:D. He replied "I'm not worried about the quality of writing in Dreadwolf at all, no".

Chat asked "What are your thoughts on the Dreadwolf leaks as far as the Dragon Age gameplay moving towards hack'n'slash vs cRPG?" He said that DAII and DA:I are both action RPGs, it's just that what action RPGs are has changed over the last while. He said he thinks DA:D is continuing to try to be an action RPG, and that "I don't think they're trying to be God of War, in spite of what the rumors say. Though if you're making an action RPG these days you have to at least be influenced by God of War. Dragon Age has always had to be, it's always been in this problem of not being able to be itself within EA, so it's always having to change."

Chat asked "Why God of War, and not, say, Dragon's Dogma?" Mark explained that when looking for previous other games as comparison points/inspiration points etc, devs have to be careful not to go too far back into the past (& that Dragon's Dogma is a great game, but from quite a while ago now).

When talking about primer and detonator tactics like grease and fireball, he observed that the series generally has been moving away from this type of tactics. Grease/fireball for instance requires a certain degree of targeting that he thinks is a bit impractical, but things like mana clash are things which could continue to exist.

Red Hawke-style options in terms of metrics are the least picked by players, same as Renegade options in Mass Effect. (while Blue Hawke is likely the most chosen) They're there to simply be there more than they are to be the most-picked choice. There could be an opportunity here for devs to spend less resources in development on evil or mean choices in future, but they still need to be there.

Varric is pretty much the only true non-quantum companion from DA:I. Mark noted that if a character's quantum state isn't dead/not dead but is rather recruited/not recruited, they can always write it such that the character survived. (He also mentioned as an example that Isabela's quantum "collapsed" and was "undone" in DA:I).

He also mentioned that he will probably do livestreams playing DA:D as he has done with DA:O and is doing with DAII, but thinks it's unlikely that he will be done with streaming DA:I by then, so at that point he'll likely set DA:I aside, do DA:D and then come back to DA:I.

On Dragon Age: Absolution:

Chat asked what he thought about Meredith coming back in the show. "I don't have a problem with Meredith coming back because as revealed, it looks like she's basically almost entirely embedded in red lyrium or maybe is some kind of lyrium ghost, so I think it's certainly beyond plausible."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DAII and the previous games in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length:

Regarding DAII's overkill, he said that the goal of DAII is to make the game "look like something", as DA:O doesn't really "look like something". The overpowered, Varric-embellished introduction to the game anchors this

Cassandra's hair isn't supposed to seem light-colored during the Varric interrogation sequence, this was probably a lighting issue

He commented that he feels Varric's voice has changed quite a bit from DAII to DA:I

Mages are super overpowered in DA:O in a very D&D way

DA:O is more difficult on PC than on consoles. He doesn't think this is the case for DAII and DA:I though

DA:O was trying to be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate (at least, that's what was said out loud). But Neverwinter Nights snuck in there a few times as DA:O bounced in and out of Multiplayer. So DA:O has some fingerprints on it which look like NWN. Also, it was originally built using some of its code, which ended up in the engine, Aurora

In the MET, because it's a trilogy and Shepard is the PC in each game, every single choice you made still mattered going forwards, whereas with DA, a lot of the more personal choices can be washed away game to game. That's an advantage in terms of responding to choices (as devs can set aside what they want to set aside, whereas ME3 was really bogged down by the weight of 2 games of previous choices)

On Flemeth's appearance in DAII, as a voice actor Kate was really "chewing the scenery" there and allowed to do so (to chew the scenery means to play a role in a very energetic, emotional or dramatic way); it got too expensive with Orange is the New Black to keep Kate in a big role going fowards

The slave statues at the entrance to Kirkwall are huge and probably magic

He mentioned that he thought Freddie Prinze Jr. was awesome as he was one of the most active voice actors that they had in terms of talking about his experience and how much he loved it

A comment in chat said "I just wish we had black stones in Kirkwall. any reason they made the stone white in this media only? books, animation, and codex say it's a pitch black stone city" and he explained that this is because black is almost incredibly hard to do in this engine, and that pitch black is not a good choice for level art in a video game

Chat asked "Do you feel DAII was too narratively ambitious at the start?" and Mark replied "Yeah probably, the writers have always had some difficulty keeping their ambitions in check"

Chat asked "Was it known since DA:O what Flemeth's story was?" and he replied that he thinks they always knew Flemeth was Mythal, but can't remember for sure

DAII is the most character-focused game, partially because during its development everything else had to get stripped away, but also because it laid the seeds of the devs finally admitting what BioWare are about

Chat asked "Was it ever discussed, bringing a Warden Hawke sibling to Nightmare in DA:I?" He said that he thinks it was discussed but the problem of bringing in the Warden sibling is that only one of them is alive, so they would have been dealing with quantum. They already were dealing with quantum, so they could have brought them, but only a small group of people would have the attachment to each character, because half of people would care about one and half about the other

Chat asked "Was DA:O or DA:I considered more of a success by BioWare?" DA:I sold better and has more awards, but it's hard to be down on DA:O as it was the first game and set up the IP

He feels that in a weird way, DA kind of ends up being in a similar weird place as Star Wars, in that the trilogy a fan likes best is often the one they saw when they were a child. There are people for whom Clone Wars is the pinnacle of SW, and people for whom the prequels are. Similarly, with DA, the one a player got introduced to first is often their favorite one

Mark mentioned that they probably switched to Welsh accents for Dalish elves in DAII because they liked how the accent sounded. The dwarves were always intended to sound American

Were he to remaster DA:I he'd like to push the Power requirements down a bit, so that players can go through the gates to the main storyline pieces quicker

He discussed a bit around remakes vs remasters in the context of things that have aged badly (in terms of what's politically/socially acceptable now and what isn't, compared to back then) and said that if you remake a game, you have to re-address those issue, whereas with a remaster you get away with not doing so

If they were to remake/remaster DAII they would probably only do it because they were remaking/remastering DA:O

A comment in chat said "hear me out, a VR remake of DA:O" and he replied that VR still remains pretty niche, and that making VR work well requires a certain smoothness that is missing from DA:O

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[source]

[fantasyinvader]

I have come to a conclusion.

Flower is meant to be a Lawful Stupid route.

I'm sure someone would try to argue that's not the case, that the player rejects Rhea's order to execute Edelgard and therefore it can't be Law. I disagree, as to unlock that choice the player had already ditched their duties as a teacher in order to accompany Edelgard to Enbarr, an event which is framed as “changing the story” which would in turn imply that Byleth canonically would not do such a thing.

The thing is though, Edelgard is the player's lord character and while the Japanese script might start off trying to make her look the most “good” from the onset, the leader that the game doesn't throw up red flags when picking a House and instead tries to act is simply a teenage girl, she has just been revealed to be the Flame Emperor. She was beind the assassination attempt on the students that started the game, was aiding the folks who used the likes ofLonato and Miklan, she provided resources to kidnap Flayn and use her blood for experiments, experiments that turned people into monsters or drove them into a murderous frenzy, and she was talking with the person who kill Jeralt and was sacrificed in an attempt to kill Byleth.

Yet the player decides to continue supporting their Lord character. And then when you play her route, the game throws out all these bits about how she uses information campaigns in order to get people to her side while she's manipulating TWSITD. Hubert of all people contradicts the backstory she told you, while Hanneman reveals she's still using Crest Beasts. The game bluntly says that this is a war of conquest and your first target is a neutral nation that didn't align with the Church, with Edelgard sparing any of the so called corrupt nobility that submit to her while allowing them to keep their positions. The original text even calls your route the Animal Path, implying that you're hurting people out of ignorance and will lose reason as a result. This happens after an event where she lies to her entire army, blaming the Church for what TWSITD in response to Edelgard's own actions, and that was after she kept said army in the dark about attacking Arianrhod. And this of course leads to an ending where Edelgard consolidates power and character endings unique tot he route where the darker elements of her rule are alluded to. She can admit she's been walking the path of supremacy in her S support, but shortly after that her and Byleth go off to supposedly live happily ever after with Byleth even referring to Edelgard as a word for a god. The game can even make the event where you swear to support her titled Path of Thorns, implying sin, but players still continue on.

Your loyalty to Edelgard is not meant to be a good thing, as it's supposed to the people suffering. Even in Confucianism, the virtue of loyalty is not blind obedience but doing your best for them. Your best would have been getting Edelgard to open her goddamn eyes and see the world for what it really is, failing that stopping her instead of enabling her to be a monster as she is not a virtuous leader.

This is not a route where people are acting smart. They might believe they're doing the right thing, but that's either due to ignorance or even self-delusion. Even with the translation issues, it's still there. Hell, the only reason why people began looking into the translation was they were convinced that Edelgard wasn't meant to come off as badly as she did in the English version, that because her voice was cuter that meant she was nicer as well.

And even with the devs confirming stuff... people still believe they're fighting for the right cause by supporting Edelgard.

[misc-obeyme]

Can we talk about Solomon...? Tbh in the OG obey me game i never found him interesting, that is until Nightbringer came out. He feels much more fleshed out here, and i think it's cute that both Solomon and MC share a living space together as if they're married.

I also find it very interesting that Solomon is based on the REAL King Solomon of Israel. There's so much lore surrounding him, and i find it kinda sad that the devs don't use it to their full potential to the plot. Of course, they make references here and there, plus his pacts with Barbatos and asmodeus, but i feel like they could do much more?

Can we talk about how biblical lore, King Solomon, also had (foreign) 700 wives and 300 concubines, and his greatest sin was in building temples for the gods that his wives worshipped Young Solomon is a playboy xD even though i'm sure he married all of those women for power, so it's more likely not out of love but more political expediency? and apparently, "his wives turned his heart after other gods” (Kings 11:4), and thus, he built shrines to the gods of their religions. In the biblical account of his reign, God tells Solomon he will punish him for his apostasy by breaking up his kingdom after his death. Seeing how Solomon is still alive in the Obey me universe, that would mean he had to witness his kingdom being split into two kingdoms (The people revolted against heavy taxes levied by Solomon and his son, Rehoboam). He also probably had to watch many people he truly cared about pass away. (Do you remember that one Gif in the OG Obey me that he was crying in front of a grave??)

BUT, as I mentioned before, since he had many wives, naturally, he had children as well. The documented children of his were Rehoboam, Menelik I, Taphath, and Basemath.

So maybe the reason why the devs didn't mention this might be because fans might get jealous? Seeing how many were upset when Thirteen (the first female character) was announced because they were threatened that she might be stealing the boys, I can see why they didn't include that information.

-Angsty Anon

It does seem like more people are enjoying Solomon since Nightbringer! In fact, the fic I wrote about Solomon shortly after NB came out was the first time one of my fics really took off - it got so many notes in the first day or so and I was so confused lol.

Anyway, I personally started to really enjoy Solomon's character in season three of the OG, but they definitely made him more prominent in NB! And of course I loved that he and MC were living together... it was so cute, nearly all my Solomon centered fics after that are about them in Cocytus Hall.

As for the Biblical lore, I can guarantee you it had everything to do with not wanting any of the love interests to have had any wives in their past. Of course, they don't explicitly say as much, so I think you could headcanon that Solomon still had all his 700 wives and 300 concubines.

I also think they don't go too heavy on the Biblical stuff for the reason of not wanting to offend people who actually believe in this as a religion. I think there's probably only so much you can really use if you want it to stay somewhat neutral in that regard.

By only loosely basing Solomon on the real King Solomon, they give themselves the space to do whatever they want with his character. They're not as bound by the source material. So they only pick and choose the parts they want to include.

I think they do this for the entire story, honestly, not just Solomon. For instance, who is Diavolo even supposed to be? I always thought he was supposed to be kind of a stand in for "the Devil" you know?

But anyway, I digress.

I think they kind of completely rewrote Solomon's past. Considering how he was said to be locked up in a basement as a child, after which he was brought to the Fountain of Knowledge by Barbatos... so when was he actually King? Perhaps after that? And maybe it was then that he would have had all the wives and such?

I definitely remember that particular gif... I made everybody upset when I suggested that it was MC's grave he was crying at lol. Sorry, guys.

But it could just as easily be a wife he actually loved or one of his sons. (Though how is it he only has four sons when he has 700 wives and 300 concubines?? I don't know anything about Bible stuff lol perhaps these are just the ones with names??)

Anyway, I'm fairly certain that people wouldn't like him to have all those wives and concubines. Maybe one wife could be handled, you know, because she'd obviously have been dead for a long time. But I dunno. People get jealous over the idea that Solomon was Lilith's lover, too. So probably best for the game if they just don't go there at all lol.

I do think it would be interesting if they introduced another demon that he happens to have a pact with. We never see any of the others, but I suppose that's more about a lack of space... it's not like they can add 70 characters... in fact, I take it back I am glad they've kept it to the two we have, no more are needed, thanks!

[someshakespearequote]

Random speculation about Taash and Qunari in general: (no real spoilers, but I talk about Tevinter Nights and some of what we've seen in general previews)

In DAO, Sten was our first look at the Qunari, a simple but deep believer. This was like if you dropped a blue-collar soldier into another country. They'd be giving you the basics of their country's belief system.

In DA2, the Qunari were more alien and antagonistic, and we got to dive into the mind of the Arishok in some places, really seeing how his thought process worked. A commander who has had more time to philosophize but is still a soldier, a different view.

In DAI, we get Bull, who gives us our most sympathetic look at someone grappling with whether to leave the Qun. He's a former soldier broken by his experiences (Trick Weekes compared Seheron to Afghanistan and said that while they didn't give Bull full PTSD (to avoid stepping on the toes of Cullen's arc, I think), Bull does talk in some places about hyperawareness and always knowing where the exits of a building are.) He's cynical and seems to feel that people are just people, and the Qunari philosophy is just rules to make people not kill each other, like the Chantry is supposed to do for humans.

Some people have complained about that, and I'm honestly on the fence. Do I want the Qunari to be more alien and unique, with a really different philosophy, or do I want them to be "just people"? I can see both sides. It reminds me of the arguments that have been circulating about the revised edition of D&D 5e. In the original 5e, you had ability score bonuses locked to certain races, and you had strongly worded suggestions about how to play those races. Yuan-Ti should always be evil. Half-Orcs should probably be evil but at least be chaotic and hot-tempered. In the expansion books to 5e, the devs seemed to listen to feedback and untethered ability scores from race, and in the revised edition, race (now "species") doesn't affect ability scores at all (it's tied to backgrounds, which are like jobs), and the rules make it clear that there's room for a genius scholar half-orc or a softhearted Yuan-Ti. You might have a nation of evil Yuan-Ti, but that stuff wasn't genetic. D&D heard what its players wanted, which was less "Your personality is innately tied to your species," and modified the rules accordingly.

And this feels like Dragon Age doing the same thing. Bull is humanizing the Qunari. Do they still have all the fancy Qunari stuff? Yes, in the same way that humanity in Dragon Age has the Chantry and elves have the elven gods and their stories. But the Qunari who act like Sten or the Arishok did are now over on one side as true believers/hard-liners.

So what are we getting in Veilguard from Taash?

Given that the events of the Tevinter Nights novels set up the Qunari Antaam as breaking away from the Qun and invading the south, it seems likely we'll be fighting them in some places. So these are our hard-liners, although they've broken away from the Qun, so if anything, they're the equivalent of evangelical "Christians" who talk about God's Army destroying the heretics and really just mean "fellow white people" when they say "Christian" -- the Antaam aren't following the Qun anymore. They're just using it as a handy guide to identify members of the in-group. They're Sten or the Arishok with all the tribalism and none of the philosophy (or at least, they are in Tevinter Nights, to the point where one of them gets killed by a Ben-Hassrath for giving Qunari a bad name).

My initial theory was that Taash was going to be the flip side of the Antaam -- the philosophy without the tribalism. It doesn't look like Taash is a formal follower of the Qun, though, which made this initially tough to believe.

She (they? we'll know in a week and a bit!) does have a Qunari name, though, likely something related to "dragon" or "glory", since it looks likely that the name Taash relates to Ataash (glory) or Ataashi (dragon). Taash also wears the arm-ropes, so either those ropes are just terribly comfortable, or Taash still keeps some elements of Qunari tradition. It feels like we can assume this isn't a complete "human with horns", culturally (a vashoth, to use the formal term), like Inquisitor Adaar if you made a Qunari Inquisitor in DAI.

My best guess at trying to figure out the little contradictions from what we've seen so far is that Taash is a first- or second-generation immigrant -- someone who left the Qun young or was raised by someone who left the Qun before Taash was born. (That also fits with Rivain, which had a peaceful, even friendly, relationship with the Qunari, at least before the Antaam broke off and attacked.) If Taash's story is an immigrant story, then that lets us look at the Qun in a new way -- someone who left (or was born having already left) the Qun formally, but who (unlike Bull) still keeps many of the cultural traditions while living in a new country.

Maybe Taash begrudgingly keeps a few of the Qunari traditions taught by family, but doesn't don't think much of them?

Maybe Taash was raised with no Qunari traditions but has grown more interested in exploring Qunari heritage as an adult (while not being willing to actually join the Qun)?

Whatever it is, and I'm confident that it's going to be something in that neighborhood, I hope it gives us a new way to look at the Qun and make Thedas a little more complex. (And also that however it does that works with a fun cool character exploration of Taash!)

Or possibly I have just smashed my keyboard a whole bunch while making no sense whatsoever, which wouldn't be the first time I had thoughts that made sense in my head but not here.

[therealeagal]

Hades

You know, I've mentioned before that I don't care for certain genres of video games. It's because I'm a scrub who hates losing and a fake gamer who likes games that are easy, and in neither case have I the patience to Git Gud.

On the other hand, I've also mentioned that I am endlessly fascinated by Greek mythology because I'm a nerd. It's always interesting, if a bit over-exposed. How about a game about mythology other than the bloody Greeks and the Norse? I'm lookin' at you, Kratos.

I guess there was that one Hinduism game some years ago. What was it again? The dude with the multiple arms and the giant planet sized dude who tries to crush the hero with his finger. I think it started with an N...ok I found it. Asura's Wrath. I was way off.

Didn't get enough credit if you ask me.

If one were to make a game based on mythology, perhaps there's something from Africa that would make for an interesting concept. I don't know, I'm just spitballing. Preferably one that doesn't involve freaking Anansi, because he's overexposed too.

ANYWAY.

So I picked up Hades on the strength of being a nerd, not because I had a sudden change of heart viz a viz rogue-likes.

Cast in the role of protagonist, one Zagreus, son of Hades and (so he formerly believed) Nyx, respectively the god of the Underworld and the goddess of the night.

But some how that I forget, young Zaggy discovered that Nyx is not truly his mother. His true mother is actually named Persephone and that's a whole thing, but suffice it to say, she left the underworld at some point because reasons and hasn't been seen since.

Anyway, so then young Zaggy must fight his way out of the underworld in search of his mother. Along the way, he receives help from several of the gods who reside upon Mount Olympus, who are his uncles and assorted cousins as well as his grandmother (who doesn't know she's his grandmother. It's a very top secret hush hush sort of thing), Demeter.

Then middle middle middle, everyone lives happily ever after. Except not really because they're doing a sequel, but I'm sure that game will have everyone living happily ever after. Except for the Titans, I guess, but fuck them anyway.

====

So anyway, as to the gameplay, I was prepared for a slog, and mightily did I toil until - while searching the settings for the volume controls (it's a very loud game) I discovered a nifty little option in the settings menu called God Mode. Fake gamer that I am, I naturally took the opportunity to activate it, providing 20% damage reduction, which reduction would grow incrementally 'pon my inevitable death, capped at 80% and rarely did I turn it back off.

It really does make a world of difference. What once promised to be an unbearable slog was now instead an enjoyable game.

The deaths I still suffer on occasion (on account of being a fake gamer) still manage to advance the story 9 times out of 10, and always manage to entertain and at no point do I feel overwhelmed or frustrated by needless difficulty that the devs refuse to accomodate. Well, except when using the bow. I know it's supposed to be the strongest weapon, but I'm more of a button mash kinda gamer. Perils of being a filthy casual, I guess. Gimme Excalibur any day of the week.

The only thing missing is a sword beam and a Japanese highschooler who wants to be a hero.

That's a reference by the way. It shows that I am very clever. But it's an anime reference, which cancels out the cleverness and instead shows that I'm a jackass.

P.S. If you are offended by my use of God Mode, which invalidates everything that you - as a REAL gamer - went through to Git Gud, then please remember that I warned you several times throughout this post that I am both a filthy casual and a fake gamer, so... well, I won't tell you to eat all of the shit and then die, because I am a nice person, but I will think it. Really hard.

P.P.S. This is totally unrelated, but WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE WAY THAT POSTS ARE MADE? I HATE THIS FORMAT (is that the right word?). WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE OLD WAY!? NEW IS BAD! CHANGE IS SCARY! ARGNOEHAOAFEHJKHSGDGSHGJKDHGJKDGHDK!