Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I wrote him off long ago when he proclaimed everyone attracted to the slender, giant-tittied Sorceress in Dragon's Crown was a pedophile (because she's 16 years old in canon) and wouldn't let go despite people explaining that huge tits are indicative of adulthood.

Is that true? I don't remember that in-game. What's the source for that?

reading the latest news holy shit this game really put the hurt on bioware. a fast tracked panic mode me5 is a recipe for disaster

And I'm glad it is, when the new Mass Effect bombs that'll be it for BioWare and it can finally be put to rest.

 

[IcedBacon]

I think fundamentally, old-school Bioware games were never created for the casual gamer, they've always catered to an already established niche audience.

Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. hardcore D&D audience. Knights of the Old Republic, EU Star Wars audience.

With the Dragon age, and Mass effect era, they were able to essentially copy the settings themselves, but without the licensing issues, and take that core audience with them. However, with the Dragon age: and Mass effect era, fundamental changes were being made to appeal to a wider audience, stuff like the "dialogue wheel, simplified skill trees, streamlined gameplay".

The telemetry data from this era changed the direction the company went. They started to cut content, because they wanted reduce production costs. They didn't want to make content that 90% of casual players weren't going to see. The focus became the casual gamer, not the niche RPG audience.

The fatal mistake of the company was to abandon their base, and chase market trends for higher profits.

With regards to political stuff, Bioware has always had elements of proto-woke hippie crap, but 2007-12 it started to become increasingly decadent. As soon as we got to the 2014-19 Inquisition, Andromeda, Anthem era Bioware was in full blown decline, politics started to take over. This era picked up a lot of casual female fans who were attracted to the romance simulator aspects of Inquisition.

 

[Grapefruit Soda]

I honestly don't know how Bioware fucked up this badly, they had some of the best creative talent, and produced some of the most successful story driven games in history, but 2011 onward, they've constantly shit the bed.

If they spent more time mentoring the next generation, instead of hiring unskilled, talentless political hacks they'd actually have potential to work with, but It seems like they only wanted employees that stroked their egos, and fed into the bullshit delusions they held. The political hires, and their associated brain rot have doomed the company.

For the past 14 years they've consistently made terrible, creative, design, and narrative choices, but It's more than that, for every failure, or slip up they've refused to acknowledge, or take responsibility WHY. They fundamentally don't understand their audience, or their fans. Yes you fucking idiots, the entire time, the vast majority of your fans were straight, white males. The reason your studio was successful, was because you catered to the tastes, and storytelling archetypes, that men found appealing.

It's really not difficult to sell to men, sexy BPD girls, blood, violence, skimpy outfits. The fact that a company like Larian, can reuse the formula they CREATED, and make millions shows how utterly moronic, and incompetent they've become.

It's the same reasons spinal tap is a loved movie by musicians, the "rockstar" mentality is utter poison to making a good product. The "Rockstar" doesn't care about outside perception, it's there way or no way, which can be endearing to start, but the moment inertia starts to take effect, the product itself suffers immensely. When the "Rockstar" leaves, and starts his own thing, those products usually fall flat, and the "Rockstar" can learn some humility, and if they do, the make a much better product on the next chance.

Biowares absolute lack of a strong studio head, and retard staff who have undue ego have led to disaster after disaster for the games they make, and a smaller team at Bioware will be able to make a much, much better product than a 250 person studio full of therapy sessions and coffee breaks. That or they disappear, which is also deserved.

 

[Foltest]

In other words, KCD2 is just as bad as Veilguard,

Anyone who say that KCD2 will be as bad as Veilguard is a moron.

 

[Snekposter]

I don’t mind RPing a totally ruthless bastard for its own sake. But the entire system does need to be reworked.

That's a common BioWare problem. Jade Empire is no different, with Open Hand and Closed Fist presented to the player as choosing between mercy and tough love, yet going down the Closed Fist path just turns you into a psychopath. While that is indeed accurate to Chinese history and culture, I doubt BioWare intended it to be that way.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Anyone who say that KCD2 will be as bad as Veilguard is a moron.

Did you read my post? It might as well be as bad since it's in the same category of "woke RPGs from studios that sold out" The "Woke Killer" just became straight up woke.
Reading comprehension doesn't seem to be something you lot have.

With the Dragon age, and Mass effect era, they were able to essentially copy the settings themselves, but without the licensing issues, and take that core audience with them. However, with the Dragon age: and Mass effect era, fundamental changes were being made to appeal to a wider audience, stuff like the "dialogue wheel, simplified skill trees, streamlined gameplay".

Mass Effect doesn't get nearly as much hate for popularizing this concept of a "console casual action RPG with 2-3 dialogue choices". Then, the second and third games barely had RPG elements to them at all, they were just action games with skill trees.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Anyone who say that KCD2 will be as bad as Veilguard is a moron.

"The other restaurant only had a few rats running around, not an entire infestation, retard"

 

[regalterry]

They wound up in a bubble and made no effort to see if that bubble reflected the people who would actually buy the fucking game rather than endlessly moon over cosplay and muh representation and cringe-inducing romances.

You're giving them too much credit - as you said, they had the telemetry data, they knew very well who their audience was, they deliberately choose not to make the games for them.

The telemetry data from this era changed the direction the company went. They started to cut content, because they wanted reduce production costs. They didn't want to make content that 90% of casual players weren't going to see. The focus became the casual gamer, not the niche RPG audience.

I'm puzzled how this can be true. Not the "remove choices and consequences because normies only play the game once" bit, but if the goal was to cut costs as much as possible, then why didn't they cut the female protagonist? RPG companies are basically wasting 50% of resources to design, write, voice, animate and code content for a tiny minority of women and troons, who only ever play the game as a woke dating sim.

 

[LazyLizard]

My feelings on ME3’s endings aside(I have defended them here and elsewhere), the biggest problem is very simple.

What is the story?

The reapers were the central antagonists that drove the entire plot.

Without them you have no coherent space opera high stakes story.

i don't even know what they could possibly do in the next game, Shepard took down a race of galaxy destroying monsters that have been around for a billion years, so the next game is either gonna be underwhelming as hell or it's gonna make the reapers seem like less of a threat, either way it's gonna be shit. defeating the reapers is Shepards magnus opus, you can't just keep going after that.

 

[Exit fullscreen button]

i don't even know what they could possibly do in the next game, Shepard took down a race of galaxy destroying monsters that have been around for a billion years, so the next game is either gonna be underwhelming as hell or it's gonna make the reapers seem like less of a threat, either way it's gonna be shit. defeating the reapers is Shepards magnus opus, you can't just keep going after that.

They could always just go back in time and have a game following Shepard's origin story, and his rise through the rank of the Alliance.

Take a page out of DA: O's book and have several wildly different prologues, one for each for combination of pre-service history and psych profile, or, if that's too much just for the psych profiles, and once that's done they all converge into the main story, with occasional references to the prologue.
You could experience Shepard's Total Batarian Death actions on Torfan, or his Total Batarian Slaver Death actions on Elysium, or his holdout against a thresher maw on Akuze, and then focus on the missions which shaped Shep into the galaxy-saving badass of the Mass Effects trilogy.

This, of course, would require a competent studio which wants to deliver a fun game and a good story, both of which are waaaay beyond the capacity of current year Bioware.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

I'd argue that it's forced modern day politics, more specifically left wing politics. While people the right might and have done the same thing, it's never called woke.

They're now trying to make "Woke Right" a thing.

It means Christian. Some Christian Conservatives are opposed to the gooner bait games coming out of Korea and being artificially propped up just because they piss off the left, and that's pissed off the gooners and the right leaning culture warriors who don't want the Christians getting uppity.

 

[IcedBacon]

I'm puzzled how this can be true. Not the "remove choices and consequences because normies only play the game once" bit, but if the goal was to cut costs as much as possible, then why didn't they cut the female protagonist? RPG companies are basically wasting 50% of resources to design, write, voice, animate and code content for a tiny minority of women and troons, who only ever play the game as a woke dating sim.

It doesn't take 50% more resources to add a female protagonist to a game. The core gameplay is exactly the same, and besides some unique dialogue options, or romance content it's really not that different. Animations (expensive) are copied from female NPCs, so the only real expenses are voice acting (Origins wasn't even voiced), and minor writing changes (cheap).

For Dragon age: Inquisition, they wanted to ONLY have a human protagonist, to save animating costs. After some dick sucking with the EA executives, they were grudging allowed to add Elf, Qunari, Dwarf, etc. EA just doesn't understand how to sell RPGs, or understand their appeal. The whole reason DA:2 was restricted to human, was because something like 80% of players went human.

I want to say female gamers are like 28% of the overall gaming demographic, maybe more depending on the genre, that's honestly quite a bit. Troons on the other hand, are maybe like 1-2% if that... It made zero sense to make content for them business wise.

 

[regalterry]

I want to say female gamers are like 28% of the overall gaming demographic, maybe more depending on the genre

Then you're a fuckwit. Playing Candy Crush on your mobile phone does not make you a gamer.

EDIT: To expand on this, BioWare pandered to the female demographic extensively, for more than a decade, to the detriment of nearly every other group, yet could barely achieve 20% of female costumers (and even that number is heavily skewed by troons).

I wish imbeciles, especially centrist ones, could grasp this simple fact that men and women do not like the same things, and women aren't all that interested in games unless they're one of those heavily autistic unicorns.

 

[Kharash]

i don't even know what they could possibly do in the next game, Shepard took down a race of galaxy destroying monsters that have been around for a billion years, so the next game is either gonna be underwhelming as hell or it's gonna make the reapers seem like less of a threat, either way it's gonna be shit. defeating the reapers is Shepards magnus opus, you can't just keep going after that.

To be fair, the way ME2 bungled the reaper plotline aside. Most people were more than happy just shooting mercs and thugs on omega and other shithole planets. In fact it was the highlight of the series for them.
Contrary to what BioWare believes and does nearly every game, we don't actually need world or galaxy ending stakes to be invested in the story.

 

[Kane Lives]

To be fair, the way ME2 bungled the reaper plotline aside. Most people were more than happy just shooting mercs and thugs on omega and other shithole planets. In fact it was the highlight of the series for them.
Contrary to what BioWare believes and does nearly every game, we don't actually need world or galaxy ending stakes to be invested in the story.

To piggyback off this, I think Bioware, while the pioneer for cRPGs in many ways, has a remarkable inability to write a main story that doesn't involve the world ending in some way.

KOTOR: Sith Empire
Mass Effect: Reapers
Mass Effect 2: Collectors (Reapers in all but name)
Mass Effect 3: Reapers
Dragon Age: Origins: The Blight
Dragon Age 2: Mages vs Templar (The only odd one out tbh)
Dragon Age: Inquisition: The Blight (again)

I dont know enough about Anthem or Trannyguard but it probably involves the world ending again in some way.

It really hamstrings the story potential of anything they touch.

 

[Balr0g]

To piggyback off this, I think Bioware, while the pioneer for cRPGs in many ways, has a remarkable inability to write a main story that doesn't involve the world ending in some way.

I would say the only time it diverged from that was Jade Empire as it only invovled one realm not the entire world. And maybe ME Andromeda. Then again ME pushed it more to a "Reset the galaxy" setting not exactly galaxy ending.
Now there is an idea: set up ME 5 as if the player had lost and play as completly new races and at one point you find Liara's recordings with perhaps a few years before the Reapers show up again

 

[Haftag]

the ones who said FemShep is the BEST PC EVAR

The original "FemShep" was fine. Jennifer Hale is also way more invested in her work than Mark Meer.

defeating the reapers is Shepards magnus opus

Not really, Mass Effect 3 made the reapers look like wimps compared to the collectors. The hype was way higher than what they delivered.

To be fair, the way ME2 bungled the reaper plotline aside. Most people were more than happy just shooting mercs and thugs on omega and other shithole planets. In fact it was the highlight of the series for them.
Contrary to what BioWare believes and does nearly every game, we don't actually need world or galaxy ending stakes to be invested in the story.

I personally like DAII's more urban setting better than that of Origins, despite O being better in almost every narrative aspect. In a more grounded story you can explore a lot more details and sub-plots that just wouldn't work in a world-saving story. Which is why I really like ME2 for its narrative, as it somehow manages to do both.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

They're now trying to make "Woke Right" a thing.

It means Christian. Some Christian Conservatives are opposed to the gooner bait games coming out of Korea and being artificially propped up just because they piss off the left, and that's pissed off the gooners and the right leaning culture warriors who don't want the Christians getting uppity.

Gooner games should be propped up just because they piss off the left, but at the same time they're not healthy either. A real predicament...

Though I've seen Stellar Blade labeled as such when it's not really, the default costume is fine and she doesn't seem explicitly sexualized in the story.

Then you're a fuckwit. Playing Candy Crush on your mobile phone does not make you a gamer.

EDIT: To expand on this, BioWare pandered to the female demographic extensively, for more than a decade, to the detriment of nearly every other group, yet could barely achieve 20% of female costumers (and even that number is heavily skewed by troons).

I wish imbeciles, especially centrist ones, could grasp this simple fact that men and women do not like the same things, and women aren't all that interested in games unless they're one of those heavily autistic unicorns.

They play more than just Candy Crush, a lot of chicks like Sims and Animal Crossing. When it comes to stuff like Black Myth Wukong, Warhammer, Bloodborne, etc they're probably less than 10% of the audience.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Stellar Blade is actually run of the mill oh-so-Korean as far as "sexiness" goes. There are many Korean and Japanese games in various genres that allows one to dress the female characters up in all kinds of provocative and revealing costumes, and a number are far more up there and out there than this game.

It's just that the Resetera, X, and Bluesky tards and the "game journalists" have enforced such a Puritanical uglification of female characters that people take one look at that game like a thirsty person in a desert and lap it all up. It's an otherwise relatively tame game as far as "sexualization" goes, all things considered.

Then again, everything looks NC-17 when you compare it to the man-faces and man-hands of the US games these days.

 

[Trigger Me Timbers]

EA is big enough that they can spread out the costs and attempt to hide them though.

I don't see them admitting their premier woke propaganda was an unmitigated disaster only second to Concord anytime soon.

For once, I don’t think EA is being evil in “yes yes let’s make all the kids gay!!! That’s our evil plan bwahahah ha ha“

I think they’re just not questioning what popular and trusting the game developers to make what’s popular.

“Are you sure audiences like this gay shit?”

“Yer we all do, so gamers will!!! The market research data wouldn’t lie! There maybe some small minority of chuds who don’t like it but who cares! We don’t want their business!”

It's actually confusing. Why would anyone be so fucking retarded that they'd suddenly lean into wokeshit at the exact time wokeshit is literally nuking studios off the planet because everyone hates it?

I mean congratulations, faggot, enjoy your suicide.

You gotta remember that these games are developed over years and because it’s a sequel I’m sure they already had story beats and ideas in the works at the end of the first game development. This was during a time where all this woke stuff was at its Zenith and they were getting push back online for having *gasp* WHITE MEN (TRIGGERED) IN THERE HISTORICAL GAME!!!!
I can imagine they did this woke shit years ago and now it’s too late to change without going deeply over budget.

Maybe it's because I'm not a terminally online xitter poster but am I the only one weirded out by this apparently common practice of begging for jobs on social media?

Lmao it’s only way these people can get a job “I say and think the good things, gib job plox”.

Do you expect them to get hired on their merits? Have you seen the shit they made? Most of them have a CV that is literally just

• Art school.
• Preferred pronouns.
• 15 years at BioWare where we tanked 4 games in a row and refused to change our stance because customers are chuds.