#they have to know better than to do that at this point. bioware has made missteps before but it's 2024

[arlathen]

the more i look at it the less i think that's felassan. if for no other reason than. no mythal vallaslin.

but also those are clearly dreadlocks so i'm hoping it also isn't solas. we loved the concept art where solas was. importantly. Not White. please do not make white guy dreads canon bioware.

[felassan]

New today from IGN: 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Devs Reveal New Info About Each of the Companions (and Solas and Varric, Too)'

It turns out The Veilguard really is the friends we made along the way.

Intro:

"Friendships, romantic relationships, and everything in between have always been an integral part of not just the Dragon Age series, but of BioWare in general. From Mass Effect’s Garrus Vakarian to Dragon Age’s Varric Tethras, the characters – and how they get along with the player – are inseparable from titles from the studio. But, perhaps more than any other BioWare game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is leaning in heavily on this idea, as it’s already easy to see from the marketing material. For one, the name changed from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf back in June, with BioWare general manager Gary McKay telling us at the time that it was out of a desire to shift the focus to a “really deep and compelling group of companions.” That would be followed by a first official trailer at Summer Game Fest that put the focus squarely on seven new companions that will be tagging along with the player character, Rook, in The Veilguard. With all that in mind, it’s little surprise to hear game director Corinne Busche talk about how these companions aren’t just central to the story of The Veilguard, but the gameplay and combat as well. “Building a relationship with companions has always been a staple of Dragon Age, but this time around, that relationship translates into how well you work together as a team,” Busche tells IGN. “It is how you're actually going to level up your companions, by getting to know them better. That's how you're going to unlock skill points. So when you look at all of the various abilities the companions have, there's inherent combos and synergies and roles that they'll have on the battlefield.” She uses the example of Neve, the mysterious detective mage who has a wildly useful special ability to slow time in combat. “But if I really get the opportunity to know her,” Busche explains, “whether it's platonic or romantic, I'm going to help be able to shape her skills and augment those abilities that work really well with my own personal build, so our sense of teamwork really deepens.” During our time with the game, IGN got to see some of this in action; unsurprisingly, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has an approval/disapproval system, with pop-up text on the side of the screen indicating whether or not a companion liked what Rook just did or said. But something new in this Dragon Age: even just completing a quest with a companion in your party increases your “bond” with them, whether they agree with how you handled things or not. Your relationship, Busche says, isn’t necessarily about “how much they like you, but how well you get to know them.” “This is about a found family,” Busche tells us. “That is, they have the same goals, different complications in their life, but they're all giving everything they have to defend Thedas. You're going to get to know them really well. You're going to develop trust, understanding. That doesn't mean you're always going to agree.” But, we’ll have plenty more to say about the game systems and combat later. With Busche, we had the opportunity to really dive into the seven companions at the center of The Veilguard and what they’re all about. Here’s what she had to say about each one:"

"DAVRIN Busche: “When we were thinking about Davrin, how we were going to develop him as a character, we had to think about, 'How is he going to show up on the battlefield?' And it was unique because he has this, I guess you could say, companion of his own, the griffon Assan. That makes him, as a companion, very unique, because Assan shows up on the battlefield. So we had to think about how that integrates into his abilities, where Davrin as a Grey Warden is capable on his own, but also, when does he call upon Assan and what does that look like? What happens if you're indoors?... And indeed, when you're doing some of Davrin's content, just seeing Assan gliding through the environments, you really get a sense that they care and they're protective about each other. “…When we think about Davrin and his being the representative of the Grey Wardens within the team of The Veilguard, it was an opportunity for us to really go back to some of those roots that we know our fans, our players, deeply care about. Dragon Age: Origins, of course, was so Grey Warden-forward. We want to evoke those memories, those connections that our players have. And I absolutely love when you're journeying with Davrin, not only his aesthetic, how he carries himself as a Warden, but how he interacts with his fellow Wardens. The little wrinkle of, 'Hey, there actually are some griffons remaining in Thedas,' how he learns as a Warden to train and interact with these griffons that, to our knowledge, haven't existed for quite some time, it's a learning experience on a lost art of the Grey Wardens that is really unique to Davrin's character.”"

"HARDING Busche: “To talk about Harding as a companion, I guess I'd have to go back to Inquisition. Of course, Harding showed up. She was your scout on the field. There was a light romance with her, and I think one of the things that the team didn't quite expect is how much Harding would catch on in Inquisition. Players fell in love with her, and we heard them. They wanted a deeper romance, they wanted more engagement with Harding. So for the team, I felt like it was kind of a no-brainer for us to bring back Harding, and we also wanted to reestablish that connection to the Inquisition in the world of Thedas, which occurred 10 years ago, the events of Inquisition. “Harding serves as our proxy back to those events, and you get to learn about what's happened with the Inquisition since, so she presents some really lovely opportunities for us. I will say, personality-wise and her role on the battlefield, she is among my favorites. When you see her leap into the air, unleashing these devastating attacks with her bow and arrow, I just can't get enough of her.”"

"TAASH Busche: “Taash, in the creation of their arc, is one of our more complex characters. It's a journey along their arc that is about introspection. 'Where do I belong in the world? What are my boundaries? What do I fight for? How do I become at peace with who I am?' So I love the juxtaposition, actually, between Taash's personal journey and this imposing literal dragon slayer, that sort of hard exterior and really gentle interior. It makes Taash a really special companion for me.” (When asked which companion had the steamiest romance): “I'll just speak for me personally, but at the culmination of the romance arcs, I'd have to say Taash. When I got to that scene and saw the finished version of that cinematic, I was hollering. Hollering.”"

"EMMRICH Busche: “The thing about Emmrich that is going to surprise our fans the most is his relationship with necromancy. I really love that we kind of turned the idea of a necromancer on its head here, where you think of them as these conjurers of evil, the certain malice when you hear the term 'necromancer,' but it couldn't be farther from the truth for Emmrich. There is a reverence about the dead. He has a unique relationship with death. You get to explore how he ended up in the Mourn Watch. Death has shaped this character in all aspects of his life, and we frequently refer to him as our gentleman necromancer. I think his proper, kind nature stems from that respect that he's learned about this cycle of life and death throughout his life. “Manfred is like a son to Emmrich. He very much has an affinity for this wisp, this life force that he's given a second chance through this skeletal body, and in many ways, it's the story of a parent raising a child. Emmrich, he needs to teach Manfred and help him along to develop as a character of their own, things like learning new skills, how to assist The Veilguard. Some of our most charming moments are in dealing with Manfred, and I must say I absolutely love the interactions. They just have me rolling whenever Manfred steals the show. “…In my last playthrough, I romanced Emmrich. What I also loved is as I'm synergizing with him as we're doing combos, just having him refer to me as ‘my dear’ on the battlefield. ‘Well done, my dear!’ It just fills me with joy every time.”"

"LUCANIS Busche: “The character that went through the most changes [throughout development] without a doubt was Lucanis. Lucanis is very complex. He's an assassin. He is very skilled in the art of death. The Antivan Crows, they pursue these contracts with a certain level of dispassion, but also, Lucanis is a romantic, and he's dealing with some internal struggles. He's been through a lot of trauma. He's relearning how to trust. And all of those elements come together with a richness, but it creates a lot of complexity in how we tell that story. So I'd say Lucanis is the first one that comes to my mind in terms of the thought that's gone into it, where we've had to make adjustments to really cover all facets of his character.”"

"NEVE Busche: “Neve is our confident noir detective. I love to bring her onto the battlefield because she's just so incredibly capable. She's our ice mage, so really big on controlling the battlefield, and that's actually a good metaphor to her arc. She wants to fight for change. She wants to fight for a better Minrathous, and she's going to use all the tools at her disposal to try and reshape Minrathous into a better place for all. She's very much a Shadow Dragon. This is among the mantra of the Shadow Dragons. They operate from the shadows, fighting for a better Minrathous. So as this accomplished ice mage, she's fierce. She's not going to shy away from any challenge, whether it's taking down darkspawn or dealing with the Magisterium in Minrathous.”"

"BELLARA Busche: “Oh, my dear, sweet Bellara. I relate to Bellara a lot. She is joyous. She's been through a lot, but she remains curious, optimistic. She's kind of a geek. She really likes her fiction. She fangirls over Neve a little bit. She's just so relatable, and I think that's what our players will find and fall in love with when they get to meet Bellara, is just how much you'll recognize some of those patterns and sensibilities that she holds, but don't let it fool you. She is also a Veil Jumper. She's very comfortable in elven ruins. I frequently bring her with me in my party. I like to play rogue. I like to play the Veil Jumper, or the Veil Ranger. Bellara's a fantastic companion to set up that spec with electric vulnerabilities, so I love her both on and off the battlefield.”"

Bonus rounds:

"SOLAS Okay okay, so Solas isn’t technically one of your core companions who will travel with you, but given his place in the Dragon Age story, we still had to ask about his relationship with Rook. Here’s what Busche had to say: Busche: “Rook's relationship with Solas is a complicated one. Everyone has seen, at this point, the gameplay reveal and the opening moments of the game, so you'll know things got shaken up pretty radically for Solas already. He's trapped. He's basically communicating with you as an advisor, and I absolutely love that idea of, ‘He's your lifeline right now, but can you trust him?’ And those touch points with him, ‘Do I take his advice or not? Can he be trusted? Is he going to betray me?’ All the while giving you this information that you absolutely need in order to be successful. “It creates an interesting stage for us, where, I think our fans will agree, Solas is very complicated. He firmly believes he's doing the right thing, and some of our fans will agree that he's trying to do the right thing. Others will not, and this creates a stage for you, the player, where you get to lean into those tendencies of your own as you're taking advice from Solas throughout parts of the game. I think those really interesting debates about, ‘Was he ever redeemable? Can he be trusted? Was he wrong all along?’ You're really going to be able to dive in deep on that.”"

"VARRIC Varric, while a part of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and a series mainstay, isn’t part of your core companions either. But, as fans can see in the trailers, he’s still very much in The Veilguard, so we asked Dragon Age creative director John Epler about how he’s changed since we last saw him in Inquisition: Epler: “Since the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, he has spent the time, just briefly, obviously, [serving as] Viscount of Kirkwall. I mean, anybody who knows much about Varric knows how well a job where he sits around and tells people what to do is going to sit with him. He has been participating in the hunt for Solas. And I think for Varric in particular, that's a very difficult thing for him to do because Solas is his friend. Solas is somebody that he grew close to over the events of Inquisition. They adventure together, they work together. “And now knowing who Solas really is, that eats at Varric. Because Varric always sees, Varric believes he can always make somebody do the right thing. Varric believes he is the most convincing, charismatic, because he cares about people. And he has this belief that as long as I get a chance to talk to Solas, I'm going to be able to turn him. But as he's seeing what Solas' ritual is doing to the world around him, as he experienced in the comics, Dragon Age: The Missing, that eats at him a little bit. That's challenging his world view of him as always being the best judge of people, being able to see that somebody is able to be redeemed. And he's starting to question a little bit, ‘am I right or am I being a fool by believing in Solas?’ ”"

[source]

[fenxshiral]

Yeah, I'm trying to give this game a fair shot, but so far I'm not impressed. So far, the game in a vacuum isn't bad. The problem is that *by bioware standards* this is bad. Not gonna spoil anything, btw.

Dialogue is very… not good. It feels stilted, forced. Like dialogue written by a DM who’s new to DnD, or a college creative writing student writing a story they don't care about. This does not feel like dialogue written by Bioware, it feels like dialogue written by a new studio stocked with inexperience writers, or by a studio that’s never made a story driven game before. I wouldn’t necessarily classify the writing as *bad* so much as it’s amateurish. I know that most of the writing team is completely new for Veilguard, as most of the old guard has left or been let go from Bioware - but unfortunately it really shows. While I had my problems with DA2 and Inquisition, dialogue in the previous three games was tight and flowed naturally. It felt like dialogue written by seasoned pros who really knew how to make characters feel natural. This feels off in the way that only rushed or amateur writing can feel off. And it’s not an issue with voice acting - even though that isn’t the greatest either in some parts (but that’s another discussion) - it’s very much an issue with the quality of the writing. People accept things they shouldn’t, they question things they shouldn’t. This is dialogue written by people who don’t take the time (or don’t care) to think about how characters will think, feel or react. It’s dialogue written for the purpose of getting from point A to point B rather than to actually engage with the story and the world.  Again, not necessarily *bad* but it’s certainly not good. Maybe this is early game woes and the story struggles to get off the ground. I’ll revisit this later if the dialogue quality changes or stays the same.  

Character introductions are very lazy. So far every single character introduction has been the character popping out of nowhere to destroy something or to just Be there. It’s very lazy writing and I expect better of a studio with the pedigree of Bioware. I would accept this quality of writing from a new studio, but not a studio like Bioware that has shown they can do *much* better. It’s also very rushed. I don’t get to explore an area before the game goes “HERES A NEW CHARACTER WE WON’T DESCRIBE ENOUGH ABOUT FOR YOU TO CARE ABOUT THEM OKAY BYE.” So far the game has been cutscene simulator that has combat and dialogue tacked onto it. And not in a good way.

This is the quality of writing I’d expect from a Bethesda game, not a Bioware game. Again, not bad in a vacuum, but by Bioware standards, this quality of writing is atrocious. And to be completely honest - after the absolute dumpster fires that were Anthem and Andomeda, they really can't afford to release a game with 10+ years of hype behind it and have it be anything less than spectacular.

I really hope this game gets better in quality. Because so far, it's worse than inquisition in many respects and while Inquisition was better than DA2 it was still inferior to Origins in many ways.

I desperately want to give this game a fair shake because I've been enamored with this series ever since I first played Origins back in 2009. So we'll see.

[dalishious]

My Five Biggest Fears for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is highly anticipated by BioWare fans. At one point, I would consider myself to be excited for it too, however, unfortunately the long wait with zero information about the game has only wrecked my personal anticipation. Will my hype return once we actually start to get some regular news about the game? Most likely. But until that time comes, all I find myself doing is just… worrying.

These are the five biggest things I worry about.

5. Big, beautiful maps of nothing

In both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda, most of the open world maps are very… empty. Instead of creating an adventurous feeling of excitement to explore, it just makes travelling those maps a tedious task. Games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or the new Baldur’s Gate 3 have open maps too, but those developers actually made use of their space with level designs. Skyrim is full of caves, ruins, etc. content to stumble upon. So is BG3, as well as introducing new dynamics to a fight depending on which direction you approach the encounter from. These games prove an understanding of how to best equip an open world concept that BioWare has only executed in a few maps across both their most recent RPGs. I do not want to see Dragon Age: Dreadwolf be yet another case of luscious forests where developers spent far too much time making look visually beautiful, and not enough time actually filling with game content.

4. Shoddy attempts at retcon

For those of you who don’t know what “retcon” means, it is short for “retroactive continuity”, and refers to the phenomenon of fiction introducing new information that is inconsistent with past information. The purpose is to revise old material. Dragon Age: Inquisition had more than one attempts at retcon that were terribly executed. For example, the player is told not once, not twice, but three different times—as if repeating it enough will erase all the extensive lore up to that point saying otherwise—that the Dalish get rid of their mages if they have “too many”. This is despite the previous games and extended materials showing that the Dalish practically revere their mages.

Now, not all retcons are bad. For example, in Marvel Comics, the superhero Karma’s real name was recently retconned to be Xuân Cao Mạnh, a real Vietnamese name, after spending years and years with the made-up Vietnamese name, Xi'an Coy Man. This is an example of how retons can be used for a good purpose, like fixing a long-lasting mistake. But what exactly is the mistake in saying the Dalish are good people who don’t hate mages like most of Thedas? That was just a cheap, transparent excuse to villainize both elves and mages further.

Cheap, transparent excuses like that make me lose faith in BioWare’s writing. It concerns me with what other lore they view as needing “correcting” in order to reinforce their idea of Grey Morality™ where it doesn’t belong.

3. Imposter characters

One of the biggest grievances I had with Dragon Age: Inquisition, was how the Hawke written in that game was in no way the same Hawke I played in Dragon Age II. I understand that it would be impossible to capture the exact customized character, but the Hawke in DA:I was placed into the game with an anti-blood magic agenda, and wouldn’t shut up about it. This is hilarious, considering how many players chose to make their Hawke a blood mage personally!

With this in mind, I am terrified that my Inquisitor, who will very likely make an appearance in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, will be used for whatever new agenda needs to be pushed. I better not hear a single anti-Dalish comment from my Lavellan, is all I’m saying.

2. Whitewashing ahoy

For all the talk about #diversity values, BioWare has a very extensive criminal record when it comes to whitewashing their own characters. Almost every single one of their most prominent visibly non-white characters have had their skin lightened or completely washed out, as well as ethnic features erased, at some point or another. This is why I cannot share any excitement or desire for existing characters to make a return; the fear that we’ll have to see Zevran next looking like Chris Hemsworth next haunts me too much.

But this particular fear runs even deeper than individual characters. Why? Because we know that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be taking place in northern Thedas, which up to this point has been consistently depicted as having largely non-white demographics. I’m not saying there are no white people in Tevinter, Antiva, etc., but I am saying that if I see the same mix of 80% pale tones and 20% “everyone else” we’ve gotten from the last three games, I will absolutely flip shit. White characters should be in the minority for a change. Otherwise, what is the point of shifting focus away from the dominantly white countries in the first place?

1. This will end of the Dragon Age franchise

Is this the most likely to happen of all fears? No; it is probably the least. But after the pathetic failure that was Anthem and the lacklustre response to Mass Effect: Andromeda, I would not be surprised if BioWare is on thin ice in EA’s eyes. (Which is ironic, considering the demands made by EA to chase after multiplayer fads and micro-transactions are what got BioWare into such a mess in the first place.) Electronic Arts is a garbage company run by garbage people. That much has been proven time and again. The executives behind BioWare itself aren’t clean, either. Unfortunately it will be average employee that suffers the most punishment and blame if the game does not meet the likely very high standards set out for it. In some ways, they are almost set up to fail.

It’s not fair, and there’s not we can really do about it, because the gaming industry is run by selfish idiots. It’s because of this that if events come to pass that the Dragon Age franchise was put “on hold indefinitely” so BioWare can work on clunking out an Anthem sequel, I would be very upset, but not very surprised.

-----

Times are really tough for me, and all my patron supporters are greatly appreciated! If you like my work, please consider becoming one yourself, and I'll be forever grateful!

[briarfox13]

So after 80+ hours I've finally finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard! And boy do I have some thoughts (it's going to be a long post, sorry)

SPOILERS AHEAD

Firstly what an incredible journey from start to finish, I laughed, rejoiced and cried along the way. I loved it so much! The main story was engaging, and some of the side quests are the best Bioware has ever made.

However, I do have some criticisms with the writing and some lore. The beginning feels rushed, I wish we had more time before shit hit the fan. The faction backgrounds sound awesome and I wish we'd played those as a prologue and met Varric through those rather that tiny scene we got.

And I do wish the game was darker in some aspects. It felt weird that as an Elf I could just wander around Minrathous without a single problem, even the Venatori didn't comment on my race? Which felt off. Never thought I'd say this, but I miss the dark political plot points that the other games had (Looking at DA II here).

Expect The Blight, that was incredible, disgusting was just what I wanted to see.

I also don't like the concept of Ancient Elvhen magic being like advanced tech? I'm not fond of that. I play DA for the fantasy not the sci-fi. But that's a minor nit-pick.

But damn, Act 3? That was an explosive, incredible set of quests, and those twists broke my heart 😭 IYKYK

Honestly though, it's hands down one of the prettiest game I've played since probably Metro Exodus.

The environments, the lights and atmosphere is top notch; I know it wont happen but I'd kill for an Origins remaster with this engine (and combat system). The combat is my favourite so far.

Music is pretty but kind of unremarkable, Trevor Morris' Inquisition music was a 100% times better and more memorable, they should have stuck with him.

No offence to Mr. Zimmer but all his music sounds the same to me 🙈

The Grey Wardens, my babies are back ❤️ They've been my favourite faction in gaming since Origins and I'm so happy to finally play another Warden.

The reactivity was just amazing, I felt so connected to the plot by playing as one, especially with the Blight plotlines. Declaring for the Wardens at the end made me cry 😭 In War, Victory!!

And finally some good Grey warden armour!! XD I hated DA II and DAI's armour for them with a passion XD

Emmrich my love 💚

While I think it's too short (please Bioware add more romance content, I'm begging 🥺) I haven't loved a Bioware romance like this since Garrus'. (Sorry Alistair I still love you but, you're now joint second with Emmrich)

His romance was so sweet and charming, it felt so real. And so beautifully written; as someone who finds necromancy and death in religion fascinating but the reality of death terrifying, Emmrich was perfect for me.

I just adore it so much, I'm way too attached to him and my Rook 💚🥹 And obviously Manfred my son

To let you all in on a secret, even before I booted up Origins for the first time (2015) I was originally a Solas girlie (thanks to the internet) and now just under 10 years later I am so happy to have a happy ending to his and Zephyr's story 🥹❤️

I wish they interacted more with each other, and we'd got more about Solas' love for the Inky but ultimately I am happy with what we got. After all it wasn't entirely their story.

But, what I am not happy about is the Inky's personality. I respect it's kind of a soft reboot, but only 3 choices and none of them about how the Inky was like? Zephyr would never in a million years work with Morrigan (even with her Mythal fragment). It just didn't feel quite like my girl (even though I was happy to see her).

I do wish we'd got a couple more choices when making the Inky to make them feel more ours than slightly generic.

So finally, I will say that personally I adore this game, it's not perfect by any mile but I had fun, and that's important to me. It might even be joint top with Origins as my favourite DA game!

I've always been a Mass Effect girlie, but Dragon Age is important to me too. And I'm so happy to finally see a new DA release that has somewhat succeeded.

Now I'm done, do expect Tabitha spam! I'll make sure to tag them with spoilers for those who haven't finished/played!

And to my non DA followers, I'm very sorry about my current hyper-fixation (blame the ADHD) but bear with me! I have some tasty Halo art pieces cooking in the background 👀

[translucio]

more veilguard thoughts! minor spoilers below cut

stuff im liking:

still having fun with combat

level design has been good, tons to explore, solid puzzles. beautiful environments. im liking how distinct and lived in the big cities are feeling.

i am liking lucanis more than i expected.....i know Everyone is simping over him but.. i might have to as well and romance him instead of bellara 🙈

im liking how bite sized the codex entries are. makes it easy to read them all on pickup whereas in inquisition sometimes it was like godddd i want the lore but i dont wanna read five pages right now

petting cats and dogs! i love the haptic purring, that's a really good way to do it (i would honestly love to see that polished even further with variations + meowing/whining/sniffing/licking sounds thru the controller but hey, it's a tiny part of the game and what they have is fine)

the resource economy is feeling pretty decent to me, im motivated to seek out collectables, i buy stuff from vendors often, i understand the upgrade system enough to inform my decisions. it feels very god of war or ghost of tsushima. so my only worry is that i might just get bored of it after many hours as i did in those games (which, i think the solution to that is for the level design to keep things interesting and satisfying enough that theyre rewarding even without the collectibles. so we'll see)

stuff im not really liking

overall plot so far feels Just Okay. but i felt that way about 2 and inquisition too lol

it is actually starting to really bum me out that you can't talk to people at will. like, the lack of dialogue choices in it, for a bioware game, is troubling to me. these settings and characters are interesting and filling me with many questions! i want to be able to dive deeper into them, but i just cant. you just get barks for all the world npcs. and the lack of choices really makes rook feel more like a prewritten/predestined character rather than one that's really yours to characterize. i realize it's a lot of writing and voice acting $$ to have that many dialogues, but that's one of the main selling points for bioware games for me... and it feels weird that other games are now doing it better than dragon age.

similarly the lack of continuity of choices from previous games makes me sad.

i still haven't gotten all that far, but i am several hours in at this point, and i gotta say i am kinda missing side quests a bit... related to the point about lacking world dialogue, but the world is feeling a little bit underwhelming in terms of the character and lore context/depth that i find myself wanting. which was a big problem for me in inquisition as well. like sure, there are collectables and hidden paths and puzzles to navigate through, and those are absolutely a huge improvement over inquisition's. but those don't give life and flavor and narrative depth to the environment the way that having meaningful interactions with npcs does. the barks are nice, but they leave me wanting significantly more in terms of interaction and depth.

im gonna keep comparing it to god of war (2018 - haven't played ragnarok yet) since that's really the closest thing its reminding me of. and while i loved god of war, i did feel like its world was very lonely. it made up for it with its extremely honed in narrative focus on the journey of the two established characters, and the quality of its writing and voice acting both for their dialogues and the few quests with other characters. it's not a game about the setting or how it shapes the characters that live there, it's about a grieving father and son who happen to be gods.

whereas dragon age IS about its world almost as much as it is about its characters. and with such a rich setting with three prior entries to build on, it seems kind of a shame to let players explore all these places we've heard about but not meaningfully interact with the characters there outside of Big Epic Story Moments or companion-focused quests, especially when you could in the previous games.

anyway.... much to think about... still enjoying it, still have more thoughts as i keep playing

[basket-of-cats-and-witches]

Dragon Age OCs

This will be an extensive post so obviously I'm going to put it under a read more and also tag it with spoilers... because not everyone has finished Veilguard!

That being said, I've put everything in order of most recent game to the earliest, that way if you're only interested in what weird shit I'm cooking for Veilguard, it'll be right there at the top.

EDIT: this got long. This post is Veilguard only. I'll put Origins and Dragon Age 2 in a different one.

This is mostly for my own personal reference as I continue to write banter and fanfiction, but I like posting it where people can see it if they get curious. This is all subject to change, as OCs can (and should) change as their writers do. That's progress and growth, babey.

Maybe someday I'll even include screenshots of my OCs. Dragon Age Origins my crusty beloved.

Don't care about this post but you're curious about the OC template I made? Just scroll to the bottom of the post!

Anyways, onto OC rambling!

Veilguard

Lanalath De Riva (he/they)

My currently canon playthrough. Not my current playthrough, just my canon Rook atm. This might change with time.

🐦‍⬛Stats🐦‍⬛

Age: 29

Race: Elf, non-Dalish

Faction: Antivan Crows my beloved

Class: Sword and Orb mage.

Specialization: Spellblade, lightning and fire focused. This was nuts to run, and I did it by accident.

Romance: Lucanis the disaster that you are

Birthplace: Seheron

Brief backstory:

Ngl this one was a hassle to work out. Originally Lana was a Lords of Fortune named Monarch, only I did a full playthrough and then realized Lana fit the Crows far better. And then I changed their entire backstory bc it no longer fit 😭

So Lana is, as you read, from Seheron originally. This is partially due to The Iron Bull's influence, I hyperfixated pretty hard during Inquisition.

Lana's one of many in that shitshow of a war-torn nation, probably made exceptionally worse now that the Antaam's separated from the Qun. Bioware give us more world politics and lore.

Their story is pretty straight to the point, and very DA2 and DAO inspired. In the endless war between Tevinter and the Qunari, some magister decided that a feral elf child from Seheron would make an excellent gift, and kidnapped them. Lana (a la Anders vibes) stubbornly refused to give their birthname, and was renamed by another elven slave aboard the ship.

This slaver ship got sunk before it could make it to port, and Lana was one of the ones that survived.

Through sheer luck, they made it to Antiva, and barely scraping by, made it to sixteen years of age.

And then a young Viago fell out of a window directly on top of them trying to escape someone inevitably trying to kill him, and a friendship was formed.

Lana stayed glued to his side since then, being his loyal shadow, until the Crows gave up trying to separate the two and just recruited Lana instead.

Viago's "canonically" (via datamined information) 32ish, so there's only a three year difference, making them have an incredibly strong rapport.

As a result of their childhood, Lana speaks fluent Qunlat and Antivan, and a handful of Tevene. This means the Crows send them to deal with the Antaam when needs must.

What happens if Lana doesn't become Rook/doesn't romance Lucanis:

It takes an incredibly long time, but Teia and Viago eventually get Lana into their bed (and into their hearts). Lana remains Viago's shadow, and helps Taash guide those who choose to split from the Antaam into better lives. Also helps deal with the sudden influx of Tal-Vashoth in Antiva. Even after the Antaam, you know population statistics are going to drastically change.

Other OCs Lana knows: Kaarash-Taar (later documented), Ghil'danan (later documented), Wren (later documented), and Riesel (later documented).

Ghil'danan Ingellvar (he/him, ftm)

My favorite punching bag. Idk why I love traumatizing him specifically so much, but I do. I've written considerably more for him than I have my other OCs, and I'm almost done with my playthrough of him. And by almost I mean like. Post the two dragon fight.

🪲Stats🪲

Age: 32

Race: Elf, alienage

Faction: Mourn Watch! My favorite goths.

Class: Warrior, sword and shield

Specialization: Reaper. It made sense for Mourn Watch. Surprisingly, not my favorite, though the death tornado is cool.

Romance: Emmrich, my beloved. I keep wanting to spell it "Emmerich". Old classy goth x Grungepunk goth energy. Sorry, dad.

Birthplace: Denerim! *Rubs hands together evilly*

Backstory:

I'll...try and keep this one short. I've been hyperfixating on him lately so his stuff's gotten out of control.

Ghil was born in the Denerim alienage, pre-blight. Raised briefly by his mother, he wasn't born Ghil'danan, it was the name he took later on.

Ghil's father was out of the picture from the start. His mother shared stories of his father growing up, so he's aware neither of them wanted to part, but there was a lot of baggage and kids learn young not to press on things that make their parents cry later.

Fast forward to the events of DA:O.

Ghil is more or less raised with Shanni as a sort of sister figure. Events begin steamrolling, his mother is one of the elves sold to Tevinter by Loghain (when I catch you Loghain Loghain when I catch you), and he's witness to all the horror of The Wedding. Those of you who played City Elf origin know what I'm talking about.

Ghil develops a hatred of Shems (he gets better, but those scars run deep, and I don't blame him), and things get dicey with Shanni. I'm tiptoeing around it because origins was very direct with Shanni's alcoholism.

The blight hits, the Alienage gets overrun, and Ghil flees. He loses Shanni in the chaos, and gets temporarily picked up and thrown into a tree by the overhead Archdemon, therefore cementing his fear of dragons and heights.

He obviously survives the fall, and runs past a human girl pinned in place by an ogre that was killed by a piece of fallen rubble.

He hesitates. Remembers that his mother would have wanted him to be kind to those in need, and with a LOT of effort, saves the girl.

They flee the city together. He learns her name is Wren, an orphan. Ghil is twelve as of the fall of Denerim. Wren is seven.

I'm not gonna get into the more mary sue aspects of Ghil's personality, but needless to say, it turns out Wren has the blight, Ghil willingly makes a deal with a spirit to transfer his brand spanking new magic to her to postpone her blighted condition, and they make it into Nevarra by sneaking through the Orlesian border. This is not easy, but they're children so it's easy...er. Easier.

Mourn Watch goes "hey that's some interesting magic you've got there" and takes Wren in who's like "hey fuck you take my brother too" and they're like "these two are definitely not related but okay"

And then they attend schooling together, until a few years later when Wren's condition begins to worsen again, because it's the BLIGHT, and she gets recruited into the Wardens.

This is where Wren and Ghil's paths split. More later on Wren. For now, my punching bag.

With Ghil's genius, fierce sister out of the way, he gets bullied RELENTLESSLY. Ghil's a smart cookie, but his grades begin to drop and he fully introverts.

Then, Hezenkoss takes him in as her student. Sort of. He's technically her student, but moreso she wanted a henchman to narrate at, and he got stuck doing a lot of manual labor.

Hezenkoss gets him trained up as a Reaper, especially as he shoots up like a weed and becomes The Second Tallest Elf Ever (I'm looking at you, Halsin Baldurs Gate 3), and transitions. Hezenkoss doesn't notice. He's not her Archnemesis Emmrich, so she doesn't care.

She also doesn't notice when he anonymously tips off the Mourn Watch that she's up to shit. Someone had to be the whistleblower, that's all I'm saying.

And from there, he graduates into a proper member of the Mourn Watch.

After a chance encounter with Professor Volkarin in the Memorial Gardens (with the tissue box, a la Clue), Volkarin comforts a grieving eighteen year old who has incredibly complicated feelings about the death of Shanni and being completely alone in the Mourn Watch.

Volkarin is unaware that this not only revives passion in the Mourn Watch in the Youth (this is actually pre-transition, oops), but plants the seeds of a budding affection.

Ghil then spends the next fourteen years trying to forget his first crush, fails miserably, wrecks several relationships in the process, and changes completely by getting tattoos and pretty much only ever hanging out with the dead.

And Myrna and Vorgoth.

Then the events of the game happen, and oh no! Guess there are Still Feelings for Volkarin, and now Ghil is helpless to fall head over heels in a proper, adult love.

What happens if Ghil isn't Rook/doesn't romance Emmrich?:

Let's be honest. Ghil would always romance Emmrich. But in the course of "never became Rook and Emmrich old man yaoi'd with Strife", it's...hm. A bit sad.

Wren dies in the end (unless she's Rook). So Ghil fully closes off to the living, and spends the rest of his life with the dead. He still has a living friend in Lana, of course (to be explained in Wren's backstory), but that's the most of it. I'd like to hope that Ghil falls in love with someone else. Do I, the writer, think he will? No. Ghil has been spending fourteen years trying to fight his own heart. He's one of those people who wants to move on but just can't. It's the inherent tragedy of his life.

Where the hell is Ghil's dad in all this?:

He's one of the Greater Dead. Literally cannot leave the Necropolis, got the love of his life pregnant and kicked it. Ghil has no idea, and Etheldredd also has no idea that his child is a part of the Mourn Watch.

The Necropolis is vast. Maybe they'll find each other posthumously.

Other OCs Ghil knows:

Lana, Wren (to be documented, but also duh), Riesel (to be documented). Very vaguely Din, a HoF OC, because she was at The Wedding and lived in the same alienage.

Wren (she/they)

She's baby and I love her. Too bad I'm addicted to the inherent tragedy of the plot. I'm not goth for nothing.

🦅Stats🦅

Age: 27

Race: Human!

Faction: Grey Wardens, my favorite narrative punching bag. Or Bioware's, besides the elves.

Class: Mage, whackin' stick staff.

Specialization: Death Caller! I haven't played it yet but I plan to for her playthrough. Seemed appropriate.

Romance: Undecided. Maybe Bellara, because Neve's already planned for someone else and I managed to make Harding disapprove of me A LOT in the beginning of my Wren Run.

Taash is also definitely on the table. As I said, undecided.

Birthplace: Denerim! Same as Ghil.

Backstory:

The majority of Wren's early childhood can be referenced in Ghil's long-winded backstory. So this'll hopefully be shorter.

Wren was the illicit bastard of a Chantry sister and a Templar. Thus, she got dropped off on the orphanage's steps and summarily forgotten.

Despite this, Wren had a pretty happy childhood! Sure there was the occasional haunting and blood magic and slew of murders in Denerim, but that's pretty normal.

...right?

She knows who her father is, simply because his conscience is more guilty than her mother's. Her father stopped by to check up on the orphanage regularly on his circuit, and she often got cheap gifts from a father who was rarely there.

Still, she dreamed of being a Templar when she grew up.

Flash forward, Denerim, the Blight, everyone dies, and she finds a brother in Ghil'danan.

For a while, Wren remains one of the top students in the Mourn Watch. She grows up, attends lectures by Volkarin who becomes a mentor figure to her, and perfects her magecraft.

And then, her blight symptoms get worse.

Wren collapses on her way to class, and is found by a Grey Warden, who offers to recruit her and stay the Blight's hand a while longer.

She agrees. (This is where her particular backstory gets a fuckton of content warnings, so I'm going to keep it light. To be blunt, my OCs are often a dumping ground for trauma, and Wren got a lot of the heavier ones. Trigger warning for grooming and abuse. There'll be red text like this when trigger warnings are over.)

Wren is trained specifically by one Warden, the one who saved her. He's an older Weisshaupt veteran who's well-respected, and encourages her as she grows.

And when she turns eighteen, he tells her that due to her young age, it could reflect poorly on him that he made her do the Joining so young. He tells her that if she wants to remain a Grey Warden she'll marry him, and she owes him for it because he saves her life.

And for a few years, this works. She endures a very abusive relationship.

And then, Ghil finds out.

Because of her Warden husband's venerated status, he's hard to bring to justice, so Ghil just takes the swifter path.

He hires a Crow, a young one named Lana De Riva, and although they're reluctant when they find out it's a Warden that's the target, context for the hit makes them agree.

And together, they make it seem like an accident.

Wren's highly conflicted at first, but over time, settles into her new, freed role. She becomes a Warden librarian, for lack of a better term, and finds herself. She still keeps a low profile in the worries that someone will find out what her brother did, but remains relatively at peace even as her Calling slowly creeps closer.

What happens if Wren isn't Rook/doesn't romance anyone?:

Well, Wren's a strong independent nonbinary who don't need no man, but she's also got the constitution of wet paper in a typhoon. So when she's not Rook, she participates in Weisshaupt. While she survives, the aftereffects of adding more blight to her system is what eventually does her in, much to Ghil's grief.

I like to think she becomes a spirit of Kindness or Joy. Or good ol' fashioned Wisdom.

Did the Templar father make it?:

If he did I'd make him kick it at Therinfal Redoubt. But no he doesn't. Wren still has his Templar cloak that he gave her, once. She's got mixed feelings on her father.

OCs that Wren knows: Ghil (duh), and Lana.

In the circumstances where she dies, Lana and Ghil pull a favor with Riesel to get her HoF father to accompany Wren to the Deep Roads, as he's her idol and an uncorrupted part of the Wardens. So technically, she meets Lithe Surana, my DA:O OC and canon HoF.

Kaarash-Taar (he/him)

Finally, a bulwark of maturity and a breath of fresh air in the Trauma Squad. I'm very excited to play Kaarash in a later playthrough. Because I've been focused on the Traumatized Three, I haven't given too much thought to him yet. Just basic sketches of ideas.

🐍Stats🐍

Age: 31

Race: Qunari, Vashoth

Faction: Shadow Dragons

Class: Warrior, two-handed

Specialization: Slayer, I think! Give me back Reaver, Bioware.

Romance: Neve. Honestly bc I'm a gay transman I almost never go for the female LIs, but Neve... she's cool as hell. I wanna see what she's like. Incidentally when I made Kaarash I forgot Neve belonged to the Shadow Dragons factions LMAO

Birthplace: he doesn't know! Most of his young life was spent at sea.

Backstory:

Kaarash-Taar is an orphan, picked up by an old Tal-Vashoth sailor nicknamed Beres.

Beres, who grew up under the Qun, did what any ex-beresaad would do - drag the kid onto his Captain's ship and teach him the ways of the world and the Qun.

Ironically, this happened to be Isabela's ship.

Beres was a part of Isabela's old crew, pre DA2 events. He heavily respected his captain, and expected the same of his adoptive son.

When Isabela's ship was wrecked in the reefs, Beres and his young son survived, being taken aboard a ship while adrift at sea.

This was seen as a miracle, until they learned it was a slaver's ship, and the two were supposed to be cargo.

That didn't go to plan. Years of work as Beresaad and then with Isabela made Beres a wickedly sharp warrior, and Kaarash was much the same way. They managed to corral the slaves, enact a plan to overthrow the slavers, and successfully executed it, taking over the ship.

For the first time, Beres was a captain, and for nearly ten years Kaarash stayed by his father's side.

Later, when it turned out Isabela was alive, Beres joined his crew to hers and went back under her captaincy. But by this point, Kaarash was a young adult and hotblooded, feeling the energy of the revolutions happening around him.

Around this time he separated from them, drifting from place to place, helping refugees and freeing slaves. Around this time, he met Riesel, a young elven woman with an impressive family legacy, and decided to travel together in search of like-minded people.

Eventually, they found it in the Shadow Dragons.

While Beres doesn't necessarily agree with his son's revolutionary actions (he thinks it'll get Kaarash killed), he reluctantly supports his son nonetheless. After all, Kaarash has proven time and time again to be a tactical leader, and as time passed on, cool-headed under pressure.

What if Kaarash doesn't become Rook/doesn't romance anyone?:

He's still fighting with the Shadow Dragons. Maybe he'll romance Hal or something, that guy's fried fish does seem like it's worth being a little gay for.

OCs he knows: Riesel, Lana. Technically he knows Ghil, but like. Distantly. They don't talk, really, but they get along well enough.

Riesel (she/they/doesn't care)

Riesel's actually the oldest in terms of how long she's been in my brain for! I made her back in 2018, when I played Dragon Age Origins for the first time. She was baby then. Now, like many of us who did the math and realized our Wardens' children are grown adults in Veilguard, she's a fully fleshed out OC.

She's also probably the only one I'm not going to do a playthrough for, because....well, maybe. Idk. We'll see.

🐍Stats🐍

Age: 28ish

Race: Elf (non-Dalish)

Faction: Shadow Dragons

Class: Rogue, stabby

Specialization: Duelist! It looks incredibly fun and fits her backstory.

Romance: If she absolutely had to romance someone from the party, it would be Davrin, I think. He's got his shit mostly....together.....and Emmrich's too old for her tastes.

Otherwise she'd romance, idk, the Viper or something. Or Tarquin AND the Viper, which would drive her father to an early Calling.

Birthplace: Amaranthine City. For those of you who played Dragon Age: Awakening, you know where this is going. Probably.

Backstory:

*cracks knuckles excitedly*

Riesel was born to two loving, wonderful elven parents doing their best in an arling that hates elves. Like most of Ferelden. And the rest of Thedas, unless you're Bioware and suddenly pretend that the racism from your last three games doesn't exist.

And then, her parents died in the assault on Amaranthine city.

She was left wandering the rubble, crying loudly and dragging along a stuffed nug, until some tall man in shiny armor came and picked her up and tried to help her locate her family.

And he did, but they were in less than stellar condition, so he said "I guess you're mine now" and swept her away.

His husband, the ex-Crow, was exasperated but too smitten with his new spouse to tell his darling Warden "no".

(but really, Zevran did actually want to take care of her as much as Lithe Surana did.)

And so the pair raised their little girl lovingly. Riesel grew up fluent in Orlesian and Antivan, learned to throw knives, and sneak around so that her fathers didn't know what she was getting into.

(They did, but only interrupted when it was actually dangerous.)

Over time she learned a few rules.

1. Never be a Crow, Marry a Crow, or Hire a Crow. Fuck them Crows.

2. No joining the Grey Wardens. There are no griffons, and it'll make your uncle Alistair really sad.

These truths were ingrained in Riesel, and eventually she grew up to be a relatively responsible and level-headed adult. Who wanted to be a Grey Warden, but wasn't allowed to, so she settled for the next best thing.

The Friends of Red Jenny. This is who she was with before she met her best friend Kaarash-Taar.

Together, they traveled together to try and help people while her dads were away trying to cure the Blight, and eventually the pair joined the Shadow Dragons together, remaining a bombastic dynamic duo.

What happens if she doesn't become Rook/doesn't romance anyone?:

Romance is dead, or will be shortly, if Zevran has anything to say about his precious baby's relationships. Also Riesel doesn't care. Regardless, she's off saving people with the Shadow Dragons and doing things that will definitely send her parents to an early grave.

OCs she knows: Lana, Kaarash-Taar, Ghil, and Wren if Wren goes through the Calling.

TEMPLATE IN CASE YOU WANNA WRITE YOUR OC SHENANIGANS

Name:

Age:

Race:

Faction:

Class:

Specialization:

Romance:

Birthplace:

Backstory:

What happens if [pronouns] doesn't become Rook/doesn't romance someone?:

Other OCs they have connections to:

-----------------

Anyway, that's it for this humongous OC dump! I hope you enjoyed, and if you use the template, feel free to tag me in it! I love hearing about people's OCs.

Have a good night, and happy Dragon Age!

[three--rings]

So it's time for my "alt-right dudebro gamer" Dragon Age opinions.

(Note: I'm a 45 year old womanesque queer person who mostly plays indie and Japanese games.)

(To further my cred I was super excited to meet and hear Karen and Patrick Weekes talk about this game in development at Havencon a couple years ago...it's a small queer con in Austin.)

Dragon Age is my all-time favorite game series. I adored Inquisition, though DA2 has my favorite characters overall.

My opinions about the gameplay reveal are:

The environments and background graphics and effects look awesome.

The character design still bugs me quite a bit. The faces, ESPECIALLY the female faces look Disney/anime/Overwatchy in structure. The textures looks a lot better in game than in that trailer. I miss my Not Particularly Pretty Female Characters. They have sameface now.

There's something off in the lip syncing. Mouth animations looks weird. I can't define it more than that but I noticed it with multiple characters and it through me out.

Varric's hair annoys me SO MUCH. Someone pointed out he looks like Blackwall and now I CANNOT UNSEE.

The structure of the game/quests/whatever looks fine, this reminds me of all the moments running around Haven at the beginning of Inquisition. Some of my least favorite moments, but yanno.

The combat. I'm very worried about the combat.

I am 45 years old and I have arthritis in my hands from gaming and knitting. I gave up knitting to keep gaming. I cannot play some action games. Like Hades, I tried but simply couldn't continue more than an hour because of the pain. And that's with my hands in good shape these days.

Some action games I can play, but only on easy, and sometimes only if I limit my playtime. This is simply a reality I've had to get used to, but it does kill me sometimes.

Do you know how enjoyable it was to pick up Baldur's Gate 3 and be able to put it on a higher difficulty, to be able to actually struggle through combats and have to use tricks and my brain and try and fail and do it again, all without worrying about my hands? Makes me think I need to replay Origins again.

So I'm concerned. The combat in this game is focused on attack type, dodging, parrying, countering (according to bioware)....all stuff that requires quick and frequent button mashing, which is what I can't do. So I'm looking at a game that I can probably only play on easy and maybe even not then? In my favorite game series.

The question we don't really know is how different it will be from Inquisition, and I find it hard to tell from the footage since we can't see what buttons are being pressed. But I'll say that while I love it, Inquisition was the game that first hurt my hands. It made me aware of the problem and made me have to start limiting my activity.

IDK . I just hate the idea that devs have that turn based games can't do well and are inherently not exciting.

Fucking Solas motherfucking killed Bianca! That was the first time in these reveals I've been 100% reacting as a fan. NOT BIANCA!!!! HE MUST DIE!

Oh I did like the Rook in the gameplay and his face looked good. Again I feel like it's the character design and not the engine that is the problem.

As for the plot, it's interesting that Solas has gone from Main Antagonist to Opening Antagonist and I wonder if he's actually going to transition to an ally later in the game to undo whatever the fuck has gone wrong in this clip.

I do still have some worries about the writing. "She's greatest detective ever and she has a lead on Solas." So do you think that lead is the giant glowing thing in the middle of the city spitting out demons? Did you need a great detective?

And basically nothing I've seen so far has super MOVED me, as someone with serious connections to this world and the characters, other than the fucking Bianca moment. I'm hesitantly curious about some of the new companions. And if the griffon thing had come at a moment other than me going WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS? in the trailer I may have been a lot more excited.

So yeah, call me a hater or whatever. But that trailer reveal CRUSHED me emotionally. I was so depressed the rest of the day Sunday. These are my true reactions to the gameplay footage today. I don't have an agenda, other than I want the game to be good and I want it to do well and my confidence in EA and Bioware is at a very low point.

I've tried to keep a realistic mindset this whole time, but keeping in mind HOW MANY PEOPLE have left Bioware, how few OGs are left, the constant turnover in leads, the game being scrapped and redone like twice from scratch. And the game industry as a whole at this time, I have to be somewhat skeptical in general.

I'm not a skeptic overall, I was both a Cyperpunk 2077 enjoyer (but not apologist) and a Starfield defender and frankly there was a lot less reason to be skeptical of those games before release. So am I going to say "well I've been a Bioware fan since KOTOR 1 released, so I'm gonna hype it up and not point out flaws I see?" No. I'm going to be honest.

I'm not a casual Dragon Age enjoyer. I can't react casually to this stuff.

Will I play the game? Almost definitely, but am I going to wait till the release reviews? Probably.

[3gremlins]

ahhhh i finished it last saturday night (11/9) (this will post from the q so after other q'd things)! it was really enjoyable tbh, i really liked it. it was good (if we don't get another da game, i am fairly satisfied) not perfect but few things are. def stick with it if you're not sure, there's a LOT at the end

spoilers for the end of veilguard- initial notes after the cut, not particularly organized

not me figuring out the varric reveal like 5 minutes before it was actually revealed tho XD tbh i was expecting him to die from the trailers and then he didn't and i was like "oh perhaps they're doing something else with him?" so they got me with the bait and switch and i was properly horrified. good job, you got me bioware. (as an aside, i still don't think varric was a strong enough choice as solas' friend for the intro section, like you never get the impression they are friends in dai at all. varric was stronger friends with anders than he was with solas, despite weird dai retcon about it. I wish they'd centered the narrative around someone else there- cole would have been a good choice? or cole and varric even since that's the most interesting interaction varric has with solas in dai) i'll def have to watch the cutscenes with him in subsequent pts. I kinda wish they'd done a follow up with him somewhere, maybe like the endings in that one fade book you find in trespasser (like at that fade bar with alistair/the warden/hawke/etc, would have been nice). got some solavellan conclusions, more than i expected and it was pretty good all things considered (i would have loved more, but also this was much more than we've gotten from other cameos of previous protagonists).

(is this the most awkward screenshot ever? possibly XD look she loves him so much, she'll even kiss his blight-y mouth and go live with him in the fade) i do wish they'd figured out a way to keep cole in (esp since spirit cole has that sad line about needing to help solas at the end of trespasser) somewhere. it was still pretty good honestly, i cried (this whole game made me cry at various points tho). I do think it could have resolved with them both living outside the fade and just his life being tied to it but i also get them wanting to literally tie up loose ends with this particular narrative.

it feels very mass effect 2ish (esp the end game section), i think most people will like it but i did find the end game section kinda stressful (where you have to pick the right person for things). Also for a dragon age game, usually by the end you have your team so having to break up the team so they live is not necessarily what i want in a DA game (i can appreciate it narratively while disliking it in practice lol) The format is also very mass effect-y in how it doles out companion stuff (esp romance stuff)- it's paced around the plot which is for the most part a good thing (but it also made it hard to tell where you were with things). I definitely like how they utilized the factions better than DAI or DAO tho- even tho only their rank mattered, having the characters in cut scenes and as npcs you can chat with at the end was really nice. I don't know if it's just lucanis' romance or all of them, but i kept thinking i'd missed something b/c of how long they make you wait for private time alone with your partner (the parts we get are really good, don't get me wrong, it just made me wait FOREVER to smooch him or get more than burning looks lol). 100% worth it tho. will romance many more times probably

(aside: getting to have a rook who's got a body like mine and a flat chest and have another character look at them desirously was just gender euphoria really. like okay actually their chest is nicer than mine -i have to do more pushups- but STILL. THANK YOU BIOWARE FOR INCLUDING NON BINARY PEOPLE SO MUCH IN THIS NARRATIVE and integrating us so deeply in all the bits, not just pronouns and basic shit) Like it wasn't even before the first "final" mission but before teh for realskies final mission ish (and i got more dialogue towards the end too). Real Return of the King BUT WAIT there's more vibes with the end (past the point of no return warning). I wish there was a little bit more romance partner time in act 2 even if it was just vibing? I did get a lot of good companion banter about it which i love (i live for banter and the banter in this was so good) i think my biggest note is i didn't feel the music helped it that much? idk i wish they'd just gone with one of their previous composers so it felt more dragon age-y (the zimmer score felt a little generic except when it did reprises of previous dragon age themes). Sometimes it felt too bombastic and sometimes there was not enough, idk, it just didn't have quite the same feel. i did like that they reused the bard music from DAI in the cities, made me smile hearing the sera song esp. i also wish the approval/tone system was a little more like dragon age 2 where you got unique dialogue choices based on which you chose more. Also sometimes the "sassy" answer wasn't that sassy or felt mean, there felt like a little bit of a disconnect between what i would have expected from the choice and what was said. The approval system was a bit weird too - like there were no approvals early on and then suddenly people reacted to things (but it didn't seem to impact their bonds). It felt like that could have used more tweaking or been more obvious anyway. It also felt like it required your character to code switch when talking to different companions since some of them responded to the different tones differently- which felt really weird and a little clunky. I def wished for more of the DA2 style where your companions just accept that you are a fun or kind or straightforward and you can rp that for the whole game.

i really liked the art direction (tho i did sort of miss the persistent splatter gore) and loved all the companions! the story was overall pretty good tho it suffered from a few pacing issues early on (you could sort of tell it had been reworked a little bit and bits were still a bit weird- but tbh all the games suffer from this a bit).

the combat was fun! i wish the targeting was a little better (as i've mentioned) and toward the end of the game, i got some stuttering when a lot of things were hitting rook at once (so it wouldn't register my dodges correctly). I played as rogue rook and it was super fun, glad i went with my actual fave class on my first pt (i always think i should be a mage and then want to be a rogue so im glad i can finally be like no no, i love knives and arrows!) The optional bosses were the most fun/challenging. Finished the game with the poison squad ofc but most of the companions felt reasonably balanced when I had to use certain parties (i'd say the warriors felt the weakest in their skills, have to see how player warrior feels, rogue rook was awesome). i loved that you could refund your skill tree at any point for no cost and also that it explained the bits of the tree (bursty, control, etc) so you could work out your own build for it. I wish the super special rune you get for beating the optional questline wasn't presented as your last ditch effort thing- i got confused by this dialogue and was a little afraid to use it at first (i thought i'd have to use it at a particular time in a fight, but nah it was just a really good rune with a normal cd) Obviously there's still more questions (the "secret" post credits scene) and i kinda wanted a post credit party scene? Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one like we did for bg3 i'm pretty satisfied, already started some more rooks and ready to make some fan art! [im also pretty sure my first pt had the most bugs since i started it on release date and didn't get the starter quest achievements until my 2nd rook, so we'll see how it plays with war rook and mage rook)

[bratgoatswiss]

Apologies for length, have to save the cut for spoilers.

I FINISHED VEILGUARD!

I have. So many thoughts and emotions about it and I'm still processing but I just wanted to counter some of the vitriol I'm seeing from people who are doing the Fandom thing with what I hope are reasonable, normal thoughts. Ha. Haha. Anyway. Mostly spoiler free but there's one small thing and one BIG thing that is that I'll put under the read more.

There was a lot to like about this game. The combat was fun and I think upon a 2nd playthrough it'll be even better. Some of it could get repetitive but its not a big gripe.

The characters were very endearing and felt well fleshed out as people and I enjoyed spending time with them. Most of the side quests were related to your companions in some way and I thought that was clever. Some were more interesting than others.

The writing has been contentious and I can see why. It can get cheesy and predictable in places, but overall I thought it was very similar to DA2. I enjoyed it and thought it reflected some realistic responses to what was happening around you. If you're here for gritty edgelord shit 24/7 go play Dark Souls you weirdo.

I can only speak for the Lucanis romance cause I love an angsty man, but it was perhaps, underpadded. It was slow and sweet and I did like it very much but I could have used some...more you know? I didn't even get to see my own tits and that's tragic.

Solas. I did not romance the egg in DAI. I do not like the egg. I liked how I got to handle the egg. So much. I've seen the Lavellan romance scenes and if there's any uproar from the Sollavellans (one l or 2?) it's because they didn't let you see the 2 of them fuck nasty in high definition for an hour. It's Rooks story now. You're fine. Go write fanfiction.

The lore. Hoo boy. Honestly they really did put everything in a blender and fished out what they liked. Everything is made up and the points don't matter. I don't LOVE that they retconned so much of what was in Origins. Zevran and the Crows especially seems really odd. I THINK the idea is that it's been like 20-30ish years since all that and stuff has changed or information was wrong or inaccurate or whatever? But that seems lazy. I wish they'd addressed it more with SOMETHING. But also there's 3 games worth of lore, not to mention comics and novels and like. I get it. But consistency guys. Add more codex entries or something. This is my biggest gripe. It did not impact my enjoyment too much. I loved what was added.

Spoilers below

That ending was so ABRUPT?! At least with DAI you got a ending party and final scene with your LI but here you get some end cards and voice over? I would have accepted that if we were getting DLC but this?? This is insane! Bioware I am begging on my knees to give us at least a "well we did it!" scene. The ending was epic but the ENDING was a disappointment.

Now. The suicide mission. I spent [redacted] number of hours investing blood, sweat, and tears of friendship into these 7 assholes and there is NO way to save 1 of them?? And you have to choose between Harding and Davrin??? Just those 2?? There should be a way to save them! Don't give me the no matter what crap! I don't want CONSEQUENCES I want FRIENDSHIP. If you could do it in ME2 you should be able to do it here. Also. Can we not have it be 50/50 heroic sacrifice with a black man? Like. I know you can technically choose but like why make it an option. It just feels weird.

So yeah. Initial thoughts and feelings. Overall good with some stuff I really disliked. I will be normal about this eventually.

I'll probably regret sending this out into the world when the sollavellens find me. Oh well.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Sari Sumdac's Age Chart & Sumdac/Vakarian/Shepard (2024)

----------

Credit for Helluva Boss goes to to Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano & SpindleHorse

Credit for Transformers goes to Hasbro & TakaraTomy

Credit Transformers Animated Series goes to Sam Register & Matt Youngberg

Credit for Mass Effect goes to Bioware

-----------------

[Note: Don't Reblog This Without My Permission, As This Drawing Will Only Be Used For Here & Over At The Place Where I Will Be Using It As a Cover For One Of The Future Chapters Of "The Angel In Disguise"...I do have both the names I go by on this drawing even if "Mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune" was what I changed to because of certain reasons that I wont go into right now...and well once again this drawing will be used as a Cover for a future chapter for that story which if I decide to, I might post some chapters of it on here, you know like a Cross-Post...oh and in case the drawing is too small to see properly, please make sure to click on the drawing to make it bigger so it can be viewed a bit more better.]

I do plan to use this as a Cover for a Future Chapter for Falling For The Angel In Disguise…and yeah, some can guess what will be happening to Sari when she turns 24 years old in the story.

(I might of pointed this out before, but I will say it again...

"Falling For The Angel In Disguise" is for Mature Audience Readers Only, which means there be 18+ moments in certain chapters, even though some parts are still technically not fully detailed, even the whole Semi-Ship going on with Swindle x Adult-Sari...and originally Sari wasn't plan to be the main heroine of the story, but ideas change and the original heroine has a different part to play in that story now.)

also I have a new idea on who could truly be Sari's Human Bio-Parents, and well the whole idea can be added in a future Chapter, where the "Good" Doctor Scalpel will look over Sari's DNA and CNA again, and while it does show that she still Megatron's daughter through her CNA side…on her DNA side, it will show that Marissa Faireborn isn't the Mother after all, and it turns out that Sari's Human Mother is Jane Shepard (which is only in a Crossover-Fanon Timeline.)

and Scalpel also finds out about Isaac Sumdac's Other Brother who is his younger twin brother who's name is Ivaan Sumdac who turns out to be Sari's True Human Bio-Father, as he is a 100% match…

so yeah, I tried to make Ivaan as the "Hot Twin", ya know like Stanford "Ford" Pines from Gravity Falls by Alex Hirsch.

and the reason why Ivaan is going to be Sari's Bio-Dad in that Crossover Story, is because he wasn't wearing gloves.

so in a Fanon Timeline, Isaac isn't a only child and might have more than just two siblings, but only one of his siblings is Isaac's twin brother.

it might make sense that Ratchet was made to be Sari's Godfather by either Isaac Sumdac or Ivaan Sumdac, because both Uncle/"Adoptive Father" & Father would know that Sari has a much longer lifespan than them and will likely have the lifespan as other Cybertronians, even if she is half-human.

so knowing they might not live as long to be in her life forever and it being possible they might go before she becomes a young woman, they could have Ratchet be her Godfather…

even though in "Falling For The Angel In Disguise", Sari is a woman now...well womech when you count her being half-cybertronian.

so if anything were to happen to Isaac or Ivaan when Sari was still very young and before she becomes adult…

Ratchet will get Sari, but if anything were to happen to him, then Sari could end up going to one of her Moms, either Jane Shepard or Megatron. XD

also the reason why Sari at Ages 14 to 15 years old is not smiling in this drawing, it's because of her Autobot Friends.

and yeah in "Falling For The Angel Disguise" Sari is given another chance to be a kid again in a Flashback, where she loses only half of her upgrade, so being back to being 8 years old in the type of Flashback…

Sari's robot form is suppose to be much smaller and femling size in the flashback, so since she loses half of her upgrade some where in the past in the story, that meant she got to grow up a bit more and not skip through most of it.

at the moment Sari is 23 years old, but I will have her become 24 years old later on in the story.

the plan is that Sari will still use a type of Imp-Succubus Hybrid Disguise, from when she is still alive as a Half-Human & Half-Cybertronian, to when she becomes a type of Cybertronian-Angel.

Sari doesn't just have a Cybertronian Spark, the idea is that she has a hybrid spark that is half of Earth and half of Cybertron.

her angel wings are energy based, and yeah I'm still going to have Sari's blood type be O RH D Negative. (same as my blood type…) which would also mean that Sari is a Princess, which her being Megatron's Daughter, that would make her the Princess of The Decepticon Empire.

Scalpel could have Team Chaar (that is Strika, Blackout, Cyclonus, Oil-Slick and Spittor) as Sari's "Royal Bodyguards"…. and I want to say, that since Sari wasn't legally adopted by Isaac Sumdac, that means any human or cybertronian can legally adopt her as their daughter.

Porter C. Powell might be a power hungry jerk who tried to take over Sumdac's Company…who I wouldn't be surprised if his Sinner form ends up being a Anthropomorphic Pig with how Greedy he can be.

but Powell might have a good point, Isaac didn't make sure to give Sari some form of proper papers to show she in fact exist, even if he does a bit better than Greg Universe even if both of them are Gray-Parents…

it doesn't excuse him from not making sure she was taking to a Hospital after she was born in his secret lab, that Megatron was in. even if Isaac Sumdac and Greg Universe are still good dads in their own way, but that doesn't mean they are 100% good dads, like they both can be in between being good and bad dads…

which is why they would fall under the Gray-Parenting rank…and even if Isaac knows Sari is half-Cybertronian, he would still view her as still being human and wouldn't say "Sari, your Cybertronian.

your not like other kids!" even when Steven Universe does return, and I hope it does if some info is true…

I hope Greg doesn't just throw the whole "Steven, Your a Gem, your not like other kids." card….I mean yes Steven is Half-Gem, but he is also Half-Human.

I still love Steven Universe Future, and I think Steven had the right to be upset with Greg in one of the episodes, and yeah Greg's parents might had some problems, but there could be more to it than meets the eye…and both Greg and Steven's Grandparents, could both be in the wrong, like Steven's Grandparents not explaining to Greg why they couldn't give him everything he wanted or how they always made him meatloaf…

which maybe having meatloaf once in a while might be okay, but if ya want to spice things up, put some mustard on it and eat it with some other food, like fries.

plus it could still be possible one of or both of Greg's parents had problems with very loud sounds that would hurt them, and Greg could have had a habit with turning the volume of his music up way too loud.

even if one can like to listen to their favorite music really loud, if you have someone either a friend or family who gets hurt by the very loud sound and is in the same room as you, it is best to turn the volume down for their sake.

if I had to guess, it could be Greg's Mom who would get hurt by Greg turning his music too loud, and it would have to be Greg's Dad to tell him or at least try to, to stop it but Greg ends up ignore him and what he tries to tell him. even if Greg might seem like the perfect Dad, but he isn't, I mean he can be perfect in other ways as a Dad, but at the same time he isn't 100% a perfect Dad, maybe around a 95% but not any higher than that…

Greg along with Sumdac, would be Gray-Parents, even if Isaac did some stuff right when being Sari's Father, he might make some mistakes along the way.

like if your a Mom, and you leave your baby who can still walk, end up being watched by your own Mother who is the baby's Grandmother, and the baby ends up getting hurt under the said Grandmother's watch…

and well, I think I had worse than that time when my Grandmother was watching me, but I ended up hurting my hand...

one of the other times I got hurt when I was a baby, was when me and my big brother were playing alone, and I ended up having to go to the hospital cause I got a bad cut close to some corner of my right eye....not sure if I brought that up on here either, but one of the fanfics I'm reading reminds me of it...I love the story, and even if there are still some differences that reminds me of my life, I think I can relate to one of the characters from it a little bit because they remind me of some parts of my life even if the parts of their life is still very VERY super different from my own....and well, maybe I will go into more detail in another post.

I still think if I was born a twin, chances would be I would be the younger twin who would be more like Stocking Anarchy, and my older twin sister would be like Panty Anarchy...

plus we would both be Defective Earth Angels, who don't exactly work 100% like other Earth Angels and know there is something seriously messed up with the Patriarchy because of that whole Toxic-Masculine thing...

Toxic-Feminine is still a problem too, but it isn't as dangerous or as high as the Toxic-Masculine that has been around for like many centuries...

I think I want to have Sari be a type of Gaea Follower instead of being a full on follower of Primus.

you know, some Female Transformer who is suppose to be in the Earth, plus if Gaea was part of both TFA and Earthspark, she would be Omni-Mom to both Sari, Dinobots, Wreck-Gar, Soundwave (who I'm still going to view as a separate one from the Cybertron-Born Soundwave who will be known as Soundwave Sr. and by his other name Soundblaster.), Constructicons and Sumdac's Robots.

Gaea could be known as Mom-2 to The Terrans: Twitch, Thrash, Jawbreaker, Nightshade and Hashtag.

I mean, when you think about it, Primus is kind of a terrible Omni-Dad in the TFA Timeline...it's not like he tries to stop the Autobots from misusing the living metal in Cybertron, or stop them from taking over still inhabited organic worlds that they end up Cyber-forming for Cybertronian life...and the Autobots have more planets than the Decepticons, if that doesn't tell you something is up...

another reason why Primus wasn't in the Transformers Animated Show, because a certain someone who was working on the show with the others, didn't like him...but no matter if ya like him or not, and no matter if he is kind of a terrible dad, he is still a important character in the Transformers Multiverse.

if Adult-Sari was helping her Autobot Friends Fight Megatron and his Decepticons all while a type of Ethereal Smaller Avatars of Primus, Gaea and Unicron are watching...

Sari who already knows that the Autobots who are much higher rank and run Cybertron and who don't tell the Autobots of lower-rank about them Cyber-forming organic worlds that already have organic life on them (and that is why the whole Optimus, Sentinel and Elita-1 were not allowed on organic worlds, because they would of found out the truth...) and the fact that the Autobots have more planets than the Decepticons because the Autobots make sure to push them back and keep them in The Decepticon's Territory...

Sari could figure out that both sides are in the Gray, and the Decepticons could be better if they tried a different path to try to stop the corruption on Cybetron, which I believe is thanks to Megazarak who disguised himself as Ultra Magnus...

one of the other problems Sari could see, can have to do with Primus.

and Sari could stop fighting whichever Decepticon she was fighting and walk over to where Primus, Unicron and Gaea are.

then Sari could point to Primus while yelling out

"Your a Terrible Dad, Primus!!!"

Primus could be shocked, Unicron could snort from trying to hold back his laugh, and Gaea could be all like "That's My Girl!" as she is so proud of Sari for speaking up like that.

plus if you think about it, in theory Sari could be technically a Demi-Goddess, and the reason why Megatron was possibly able to have Sari in that secret lab was probably The Cybertronian Goddess Gaea's doing...even though Megatron may have been in a stasis coma at the time and there was a 50 Stellar Cycles limit on how long Megatron could be separate from his body...you know like Zim and the rest of the Irkens and their Pak, of course their time limit isn't as long as Cybertronians...

plus in a Crossover Fanon Timeline with Transformers, Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss...

since Isaac Sumdac (and Ivaan Sumdac before he goes missing.) was using Megatron and reverse engineer his technology by taking some of the parts from Megatron's head, all while Megatron was still in his stasis-coma and still technically alive...

that might end up sending Professor Isaac Sumdac to Hell...

like picture his shock when he realizes he is in Pentagram City and not in Heaven, even if he still has some good points from his life...

but the whole taking parts from a still living being, even one like Megatron, still ends up making the bad points higher than the good points....even the points where Isaac Sumdac takes credit for Soundwave's creation, yeah Powell made the Sound-Wave copies, but Professor Sumdac wasn't the one who designed Soundwave.

if Isaac did have a twin brother, it could of been his twin brother who I'm still going to call "Ivaan" who found Megatron, NOT Isaac.

the brothers could of built their robotic empire together, and Ivaan was the one who was against taking parts from Megatron's head and wanted to find a humane way to reverse engineer the technology, by making a scanner that would scan the robot head and tell what is inside it and how it works.

Isaac however, goes against his brother's wishes and takes some parts from the robot head anyway, and that is why Megatron's head looks the way it does while in Sumdac's Secret Lab.

and not everyone has to agree with it, but how could Sari's protoform baby self absorb any of Isaac's DNA when he was wearing gloves...?

the reason why the Maximals and Predacons from Beast Wars were possibly able to get some samples of DNA for their disguises, might have to do with there was nothing preventing the access to the DNA needed for those disguises, the T-Rex Skeleton that Predacon Megatron, was easy for the scanners to pick up and scan, even the other lifeforms that were still very much alive.

Isaac may have got a shock and was out cold because of it, but it could be possible that if he did have a twin brother called Ivaan, he would of found his brother out cold on the floor and saw the protoform, and while not wearing gloves himself, ends up touching the liquid metal body and it ends up absorbing his DNA.

so yeah, it is also a Fan-Headcanon Theory I have...

that Isaac Sumdac has a twin brother who ends up going missing under mysterious reasons, possibly when Sari was 1 or 2 years old.

and Isaac is really Sari's Uncle, while Ivaan (Isaac's twin brother) is her true biological human father.

and in a Crossover with Mass Effect, Ivaan could be Jane Shepard's Ex-Husband, and she was with Ivaan Sumdac when they found Isaac on the floor and unconscious, and Jane wasn't wearing gloves either and both her and Ivaan touched the protoform sparkling at the same time and then Sari came to be...and well like Isaac, the two end up getting a shock as well and go unconscious, but they could wake up much sooner than Isaac did because they both got half of the shock, like the shock that was given to Isaac, was instead split between the two of them, so they were only out for a short while and woke up before Isaac did.

also I have a theory that the Cybertron from the Beast Wars Cartoon, is really a Future version of Earth, which could explain the Organic Core and the Fossils in Beast Machines.

that Cybertron is "Cybertron II" and it was Earth.

not everyone has to agree about that theory, but it could be possible that the Cybertron from that universe and timeline is in fact Earth having been Cyber-formed and some Humans had been lucky to leave and went to another galaxy and called a new Planet home that was similar to their original world...

anyway there is another Crossover drawing that has Adult Future Sari in it, along with some other characters as well...

I will post it up in a little bit, right after I eat some powder doughnuts and check out some fan art on here. :)

[lyriumheart]

like idk i think bioware has been trying too hard to cling to their previous legacy of the older bg games, when dragon age just isn't a crpg or even turn based.

shoehorning in mechanics like that made dao honestly a nightmare to play. da2 was a bit better, but you still had to go in and smack the ai repeatedly with if/or conditions or grab them when they did something stupid. at least in dai you didn't have to babysit everyone. from the start, if they wanted that kind of thing in the game, it should have been turn based.

but it's not. and it's genuinely a much, MUCH better idea to just divest of the remnants of their older works and try something more fitting to the action-rpg style that they've been leaning into- and YES, action rpg based gameplay is always going to be easier to market than something turn based. ea are not out of touch for that, bg3 was kind of a phenomenon and introduced a lot of people who didn't know much about that kind of playstyle to it. a lot of the people who played bg3 have never played the older bg games.

it's not stupid to not jump on the turn based band wagon, when the games have been deviating from that old influence for a while now. like there's no point in going back to turn based strategy stuff, because there's a lot of games getting attention that are like that now, and bioware hasn't done that for a long time, since way before they made me3 and me:a. they'd be competing directly with bg3 specifically and, considering the popularity of bg3, and how da has already been compared to bg3 and bg3 being hailed as 'better', they'd just be ground into the dust. it doesn't make sense to start doing strategy and turn based mechanics just because bg3 got popular.

it really is a good idea to just move away from that kind of thing and work with something else, let's all be honest here.

[felassan]

I was sent a link to a ‘chat with Mark Darrah' interview video that I hadn’t seen before. [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when listening, but it still has interesting insights and things in there.

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some brief notes and a few transcribed quotes of interest from the video.

Mark ofc was in charge of DA:O, DAII, & DA:I, then, quote, “then a bunch of malarkey happened” and he ended up in charge of Anthem in 2017 in its final ~16 months

In AAA games narrative is a certain thing that was very much defined in a lot of ways by BioWare

There’s a BioWare story in Anthem (though certainly not its best), if you just ignore everything else

The average gamer puts way too much stock into what engine is used to make a game

Mark is pretty sure that the guts of Neverwinter Nights is underneath the Witcher engine

Moving DA from Aurora to Eclipse to Frostbite (engines) opened up more possibility spaces

Frostbite stagnated because it essentially was the engine everyone had to use at EA

Before DA:I, there was a game at BioWare internally codenamed “Blackfoot”. It was going to be a multiplayer DA game and was using Frostbite before DA:O, during the time of DAII’s late development but before DA:I started development. It never shipped as it got eaten by DA:I

For the MET, Casey was originally trying to make a Star Control-type game but cinematic. Echoes of this can be seen in ME1. But ME the IP itself wants to be a space opera. Ultimately the cinematic experience side of it won out

And some specific quotes:

“Something that I noticed is that, sometimes, if your studio is hiring only your biggest fans, which I saw at BioWare sometimes, those people are in some ways, they’re almost more, they have more zealotry towards the ‘old way’ of doing things than – that’s right, that [from a fandom point of view] is all they know. And they don’t necessarily know that this was awful or that ‘there could have been a better way, we just didn’t see it until later’. All they know is, ‘this is what you did, and you made this thing I love, so we have to do that too’, and, so that’s a danger that could happen is, you get the, you know the monkeys and the bananas, like, ‘I don’t even know why we’re doing this anymore, but I know we’ve always done it.’”

-

“The biggest reason to consolidate on an engine is for the ability to share more work within your studio. In theory.” “The problem that often happens is that you end up with not nearly as much sharing as you would imagine. FIFA doesn’t share anything with DA. And in BioWare’s case it’s even worse than that, there’s very little sharing between DA:I and ME:A, and between ME:A and Anthem. A lot of troubles ME:A and Anthem had is [because of] not building upon the foundations of DA:I.”

-

“My great frustration of BioWare from around 2013 to basically today [2022], there wasn’t a building upon the past.” “30% of DA:I’s tech budget was spent on tooling. On ME:A they didn’t build upon the tools that were laid by DA:I, partially because they started before DA:I shipped, but also for ‘Not Build Here’ reasons. They spent 10-15% approximately of their budget on tools. Anthem didn’t build on either of these foundations and they spent about less than 10% of their budget on tools. So it was like they were going backwards, respecting the engine less and less as they went forward, resulting in more and more struggles happening.” “I have the most sarcastic PowerPoint presentation ever which compares those two games, which are treated as if they’re widely different things. They’re pretty much exactly the same game, from the perspective of any external observer. ME is more like DA than it is like anything else. So it’s ridiculous. The answer is hubris, is the answer.”

-

On endings and the future:

“I think you have to do something [about the endings]. ME was always conceived as being a trilogy, but I think what you actually end up with with ME1-3, if you kind’ve just stick them together into one ridiculously big game, that’s why it, in some ways, the complaints about the original ME3 ending are so hilarious because in a way, the game ME3 is the ending for this entire huge game, which isn’t awesome, because you know, the last Hobbit movie is also stupid because it’s all ending. So, that’s not necessarily the best, but that’s essentially what you have. So because it was intended as a trilogy, it, to some kind of degree it kind of takes its ball and goes home at the end, where its like, ‘I’m gonna render the possibility of a direct sequel to this sooo nearly impossible that it’s ludicrous’. It could be that, so we know that the Mass Relays are down, that’s also true, but, like, we have potentially, everyone’s a cyborg, potentially there are no robots, potentially, potentially, potentially, it’s bananas. But interestingly, if you look at ME1, ME2 and ME3 as a single game, and then you look at DA:O, DA:O was always, was originally envisioned as a standalone game. There was never even a consideration for a sequel made for that. If you look at DA:O and then look at what it does at its ending, so the ending of the game itself is fairly tight, it’s like, well you definitely have to kill the Arch Demon, and you’ve ended the Blight, but then you go through the end credits stuff, the epilogue screens. And it’s like, maybe there’s a civil war happening in Orzammar, maybe there are werewolves spreading across this entire part of Ferelden, maybe there are no werewolves at all. Like it’s similar. Now what DA, the way that DA approached the solution to that was to canonize some of those choices, but for the most part just move away, far enough physically, so it’s like, okay, well maybe there are werewolves down south there, that’s not my problem, I got my own problems. Or it moves through time, which is one of the reasons why DA2 moves through so much time is, it gives distance from DA:O. One of the major reasons why ME:A is literally hundreds of years in the future and in another galaxy, it’s like, okay, well, something happened, [shrug], we can react if we want to but we don’t have to worry about the consequences. DA has had the same problem that ME had, just to a lesser degree. DA:O did such a great job of building up the Warden that people are really attached to that and they keep wanting to see the Warden come back. People are never gonna let go of Shepard. DA, new player characters every time because it allows things to be done, but there are costs to that, if you don’t have nearly the [same] attachment. I mean, there’s a reason why every single Zelda game starts with you as Link getting bonked on the head. They’ve essentially solved the problem, reset button, either you have amnesia or you’re like the great-great-great-great-grandson. So it’s like, maybe there’s a way that they can do something like that, but Zelda’s jumped through a lot of hoops that probably a modern game can’t be allowed to do. You’re “Link”, so maybe there’s a way that you can be Shepard but, but Shepard, you can be “Shepard”, maybe there’s a way you can do that, but yeah, it’ll be interesting, it’s definitely a problem that they have. Because certainly, Ryder from ME:A is not the same character, nor could any character from a single game compete with a character from three games. Maybe the approach is, you canonize the choices from MET and you say, ‘and the choice we’re making is, Shepard made it, and you���re Shepard. [shrug]”

-

“I think there is a lot of DNA of its older games still at BioWare, but you’re right. Every game needs to be a game in its moment. It needs to be appropriate to the time and space of what’s going on. So, I get it, you kind of just want to feel the thing you felt when you played ME2 or feel the thing you felt when you played DA:O.” “If suddenly you got an ME2 again magically appearing out of the ether, I don’t think it would be received the same way. The industry isn’t in the same place. BioWare needs to set a new bar.” “The sad truth is, the older you get, the less relevant a part of the buying demographic you are. So the reality is, I mean ME:A had a shaky launch unfortunately, but it’s a lot of peoples’ favorite ME. Mostof those people who it is their favorite ME are younger people because it targets, you know, it’s got a younger PC, it’s got a stronger, more. I mean, the MET is very much, Shepard is a hero from action movies from the 80s and 90s, for millennials. He’s stoic. Whereas Ryder is definitely, he’s much more a protagonist from a CW show. The reality is is that, sorry, but they’re not trying to make it for you anymore.”

[source and full watch link where you can check it out]

[wishbonegame]

Hi I have more misc questions:

Who are your favorite characters?

How many quests are in the game? Can you get to them all in one playthrough, or do you have to do multiple playthroughs?

What's Nikki's favorite dog breed?

What is the name of Tobias' cat?

Has Tobias always been this cranky?

And finally: how are all the adult characters so attractive??

Ooh, these are some fun ones!

Regarding favorites: It's honestly hard to say what my own favorite is at this point! I've been working on the game so long that my interest has cooled somewhat on some of my original favorites, and some characters who I had initially conceived of as "just filling an NPC role" wound up being a lot more fun than expected.

Sheriff Pilgrim was my original favorite (especially when he's interacting with Jack!) and I do still enjoy him, but I've found I enjoy writing for Sonny and Vincent quite a bit, too. Mike is also fun... and Morgan... and a bunch of others, depending on what mood I'm in. Our main writer @kwillow enjoys Mayor North and Em.

One of the nice things about Wishbone is that we have a similar writing approach to Bioware RPGs, where each character is somebody's baby. To make writing practical, we do have to write for whatever character needs writing for sometimes, but we do also have someone who's sort of the "captain" of each character (or at least major characters).

Regarding quests: The final quest count won't be known until later in development, but I've "stubbed out" quest log code for all planned quests so far, and the end of the quest log looks like this:

There are roughly 40 quests of various types fully implemented right now, so a bit less than half of planned quests have been implemented! That 109 number covers all the character quests, story quests, and other major quests, but I might add a few very small quests to add interest to slower portions of the game. It'll depend on how playtesting goes!

You won't be able to do every quest in a single playthrough because the story does split into Outlaw path and Lawful path eventually. Once you've made certain pivotal story choices, some characters will consider you to be on the enemy team and will no longer be willing to trust you (or, possibly, even talk to you at all!), and some story moments will force you to pick one of two characters to work with.

So you'll need a minimum of two playthroughs to do everything! Certain quests might also have more than one ending, depending on how you solve the task and who you work with. The game might not be as branchy as Fallout New Vegas or Baldur's Gate 3, but it is pretty dense!

Regarding Nikki's dog opinions:

She likes all dogs, really! She can go on at length about the pros and cons and various uses and quirks of any breed. She also thinks mutts are interesting. But she is most interested in "wilder" looking breeds, like her cattledog, Sirius!

Regarding Tobias's cat:

His name is Mr. Grumpus. Like his owner, he has permanent Resting Surly Cowboy face. He can often be found sleeping on the counter in the general store or wandering around town, though most townspeople know better than to bug him. He's not the friendliest to strangers!

Regarding Tobias's crankiness: He was always serious and standoffish and never the most popular or sociable person. However, it seems that he's gotten more sullen and gloomy since his mother's health started declining and he had to take over managing his family's general store. Being a cashier isn't really the life he dreamed of, and the stress of his family situation is getting to him. But maybe there's hope for things to improve...?

Regarding the characters being attractive: Ah, I'm glad you like 'em! I (and everyone else working on the project) love to design eccentrics and oddballs. I worry sometimes that we've gone too far catering to our own interests, rather than making something a wider audience would enjoy, so it's great to hear that they have appeal beyond our little niche! They're certainly not your typical "romanceable NPC" lineup, but we do hope that they find their target audience of people who want something more unconventional. :)

[8bitsupervillain]

I have some extremely early thoughts to share about Dragon Age the Veilguard. I've only played for an hour, and half of that was spent on character creation, both for the player character Rook, and for my inquisitor from DA: Inquisition.

Character creation:

Good lord the Qunari look worse than ever. Why can't Bioware just pick a style and stick with it? They looked fine in Origins, they looked fine in Inquisition, why you gotta make them look like this in Veilguard?

I like that the game offers to just let you not have the face tattoos for the elves.

Bulge slider, and glute slider. A hehehe a hohoho. No chest slider, but that's kind of a whatever to me.

I like that each history you choose has a canonical surname. I can only assume at some point they'll actually address Rook with the given name at some point.

I don't know how each history (I've forgotten the actual term they use) will factor into Rooks story, but I like that there's six options. More histories would be better, but I like the ones on offer.

Inquisitor creator:

I could have sworn there were more romance options in Inquisition, but it's been nearly a decade since I played that.

Seriously though I don't like the way they made the Qunari look in this game. Maybe I'll warm up to it, but I resent the options available to me for my inquisitor.

I find if funny how all of Inquisition gets boiled down to two choices. Spoilers for Dragon Age Inquisition.

Did you disband the inquisition or hand it over to the chantry? Did you swear revenge against Solas, or vow to help him?

The game itself:

The starting town is reminding me an awful lot of the Magic the Gathering set Murders at Karlov Manor.

You just move the mouse to move the camera. No longer do you have to hold down right click to look around.

Combat seems pretty simple so far. But again I have only played half an hour.

[ferusaurelius]

Mass Effect Universe Meta - 1

I suppose I should call this ‘mass effect critical’ but it’s really more a meditation on the questions that the series poses and the ones it chooses to ignore ... with a focus on ‘choice-based’ narrative, character-driven storylines, and geopolitical philosophy. 

If any of the above annoys you, I’d recommend not hitting the read more. This’ll probably be the first part of a series. xD

This first one is just a meditation on the choice-based narrative implementation in ME as a series. 

I’m sure I’m not saying anything someone else hasn’t already covered, in fairness, probably better or more extensively than I’m doing here ... but this is kinda where I have to begin in order to tackle my other themes.

If you just get annoyed by this sort of navel-gazing, probably best not to proceed past the cut. I’ll totally understand!

So You Want Choice-Based Story In Your AAA-Shooter

Starting with the above: much ink has been spilled on the way that gameplay implicates and frames morality. Back in the day, Mass Effect (2007) on release was stirring up controversy because it let players choose a lesbian relationship with Liara! We’ve come a long way since then. 

In some respects, Mass Effect is a product of its time and also another milestone in BioWare’s narrative portfolio. Which, before Mass Effect, included other games such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Worth noting is that BioWare as a development house has refined its use of morality systems and mechanics over time! We’ve seen everything from lightside/darkside sliders, to paragon/renegade, to the innovation of ‘party approval’ ratings in the Dragon Age franchise. Of note is that once BioWare establishes a canon morality or choice-rating system, those mechanics tend to remain in place or consistent throughout a particular world.

There’s a notable (and expected) departure in Mass Effect: Andromeda because the writers felt like the Paragon/Renegade system was too tied to Commander Shepard, specifically, to be used as a basis for Ryder.

What makes these game narratives so engaging from a player viewpoint will also be necessarily limited by the under-the-hood mechanics of the systems and how they are capable of responding to the player. Without a set of key markers to help the game function and implement narrative choices, and without a highly-structured narrative framework that can accommodate or reflect those choices on-screen in ways that are emotionally resonant, we get ... whatever happened with Starchild.

... but we didn’t get there all at once.

Mass Effect 1: Cosmic Horrors and You

At a very high-level read, Mass Effect 1 sets the scene for the rest of the trilogy to follow and makes very clear the stakes and the plot-related questions it’s going to tackle. In the first five minutes of the game we’re confronted with eldritch horrors from beyond the stars, the return of the geth, AND Saren Arterius killing his friend, Nihlus Kryik!

I kinda knew right about then that the game was not going to be tackling plot questions (and cultures) in ways that were interesting to me, since if they were going to do that ... it would have made more sense for Nihlus to live. I have been (politely, affectionately) boo-boo-the-clown ever since.

While I still loved the aspects of universe exploration and getting to know my human and non-human crewmembers (Ashley, Kaidan, Wrex, Tali, Garrus, and Liara), the shocking moments of Virmire where you -- and I’m pretty sure this isn’t a spoiler at this point -- have to determine who lives and who dies and it’s a scripted loss? 

Narratively powerful because you’ve spent a while getting to know both characters, but problematic from a mechanics standpoint because now you have to maintain a universe that more or less hangs together throughout the game no matter “who” you chose to survive. Death-as-choice becomes a notable proxy in Mass Effect’s storyline for morality and impact.

Mechanically, you’ll also note that a lot of “moral choices” are framed as kill/don’t kill, to various and sundry effects. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the binary choice framework underpinning most of the game’s critical moments.

And rather than be totally critical I’ll just spotlight the one choice I DO remember: with enough paragon points, talking Saren into shooting himself before he gets reanimated as a Reaper abomination.

In fairness, I think it would’ve been nice for that moment not to be gated behind a Paragon points check, since it was a NEAT narrative flourish that I didn’t see structurally repeated in other areas in the game.

As much as I fell in love with the universe, the idea of the Protheans, and what Vigil and Ilos implied about the murky past ... I was less enamored of the Reapers as a universe-ending threat and more intrigued by the internecine conflicts between the various species of the galaxy. Other game-defining options which carried over into ME2 included whether or not to save the Council (cake or death?), who to appoint as humanity’s first Councilor (slightly less death-driven), whether or not to shoot Wrex (also cake or death).

The amount of “save or kill” decisions and the lack of other equivalents (and those that WERE provided being given less narrative weight than the life-or-death elements) clued me in to the design philosophy that what the game and the narrative would most remember about the world state was who was still alive.

On the one hand, the narrative impacts of presence or absence are obvious for the player! We know these decisions are significant. On the other hand, as you’ll see in my description of ME2, this design choice did start to paint the team into a corner.

Mass Effect 2: About That Suicide Mission

Much as I loved the new squadmates for ME2 and the overall pacing of the story, as well as the interim character development for each former squad member, the clue that most of this was going to happen off-screen or not at all was that these developments occurred while Shepard was not present -- conveniently killed by the Collectors.

Again, this was my hint that this story was going to focus on different questions!

Cerberus, who played the role of minor mooks in the first game, were upgraded to a level of influence that would be a conspiracy-theorist’s dream. One of my personal soapbox “dead dove: do not eat” elements is “but the conspiracies were REAL!” So this was honestly my bad.

Favorite moments in this game included getting to know new squad members, reuniting with old characters (including Wrex! and Grunt, who has one of my favorite arcs in the game alongside Garrus). YMMV about which characters and squadmates you connected with the most/least, but we can all agree that The Suicide Mission was Certainly A Choice.

With that said, it’s possible for no-one to survive and to avoid recruiting the new squaddies. Because choices, remember?

Unfortunately this also has the impact of “kill/save” being, once again, the primary impactful narrative game mechanic. 

One can forgive the developers and narrative designers for getting a little tired at this point, because we’re not sure who survived or how much narrative content we’re going to have to adapt to another totally new character in the third act, based on who survives The Suicide Mission. Which does rather put a crimp in the amount of relational development we can presuppose in the third game.

One gets the idea that Liara was the favorite child in part because she is more or less impossible to kill. She will survive all the games no matter what choices you make, unless that choice is getting killed by Harbinger’s laser beam at the very end of ME3 and failing the game.

Small wonder that, in many respects, one of the ways the game develops Liara’s character is actually taking away player choice to avoid having to do an “impactful kill/save” option that would otherwise render her permanently inaccessible to the narrative.

Mass Effect 3: Enter the Starchild

So, what are we to make of the “kill/save” and “presence/absence” dynamic as the most narratively impactful and important? Ironically, these choices have impact only insofar as they determine what resources and relationships your Commander Shepard has access to in the game. The narrative does not so much branch as continue on, with slightly different details, depending on who you saved or recruited.

There will still BE a Tuchanka mission with or without Mordin or Wrex, and you will still conquer the Reaper capital ship alongside Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws (which is a pretty cool moment, let’s be real).

From a narrative design standpoint, these moments are what’s absolutely critical to a functioning storyline -- the character-development bits are secondary, as they must be in a game where the suicide mission can deplete your squad so thoroughly that nobody is left.

I won’t spend too much time on the original choice to lock Javik behind a DLC gate, but that’s another unfortunate choice that limited the baked-in narrative options for the third installment of the game.

Outside of the Commander-Shepard-Driven set pieces on each world, at this point, character relationships were more the icing on the cake than the narrative bedrock, something as a consequence of deciding early in design that killing characters is the clearest way to communicate narrative impact.

However, the other side of this choice, is that killing off characters when you have no narrative attachment to them and no stake in that sacrifice, ends up having progressively less and less impact, even in a AAA-shooter where the whole point is to reduce endless waves of mooks into a fine mist...

... which is where Starchild comes in.

Commander Shepard is locked into a final color-coded narrative choice of who to kill and who to save. That’s the narrative’s way of making sure you know that the choice is important -- because, without that design choice, there’s really no other established way for the game to communicate significance.

Which is a tragedy in and of itself. So many other moments are often significant or meaningful ... and I really think the choice to go with life-and-death as the biggest, baddest, most narratively-supportive element is what essentially painted the team into this final corner.

If You’re So Smart, What Would You Do?

This is easy, since it’s ultimately what BioWare and its narrative designers decided to implement in its next games: party-based approval and relationship systems that operated separately from a Paragon/Renegade personal scale.

Yeah, yeah, a cop-out. I know. Essentially, this is just external evidence that the narrative designers learned from the limitations they encountered in the Mass Effect universe and applied those lessons to their Dragon Age games.

Which again is not to say that I’ve seen concrete evidence of leaning LESS into the “kill/save” dynamic as impactful (remember the Witherfang quest in DA:O?). But it’s the thought that counts!

Branching out to other choices being signaled and framed as impactful is a key to choice-based game design and storytelling being able to incorporate character-driven narrative alongside the raw individual plot.

While this ultimately didn’t happen in Mass Effect, I am interested to see how the mechanics will be implemented in DA4 to detail and interweave other motives and questions into that storyline.

That’s What Fanfiction is For

Watching the canon Mass Effect universe default to “kill/save” decisions as the framing morality structure is pretty much why I write fanfiction designed to fill in and detail out the other blank spaces in background and backstory, and to imagine what other questions might have arisen in a more flexible approach that would not have been possible before the relevant lessons for narrative design were learned in these games.

My motivation as a writer is to expand in areas that were dropped because they wouldn’t make the cut in a AAA-shooter on a protagonist-driven schedule.

For the same reason that narrative significance eluded the final “controversial” ending of the series, I find that there are enough other aspects of character-driven plot and geopolitical philosophy that remain interesting (and implied-if-you-squint by the codex material) to keep me sufficiently occupied for a number of WIP fanfics. ;)

Which, in the end, is more a testament to the strength of the central thesis of the game (what if humanity is the new kid on the block in a galaxy full of advanced alien species?) rather than the questions the narrative ultimately chose to center.

-Ferus, out.