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

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

New Q&A happened on the bioware discord, confirming that you can't even control the other party members during battle. When your character goes down, you either reload or a party member can revive you if they're spec'd to do so.

Other bullshit that came up:

• Here Lies The Abyss choice doesn't matter, so we won't see Hawke or Alistair.
• Game is shipping without photo mode. I rarely use it but I'm shocked a game is coming out in 2024 without it.
• You can be non-binary (thank Patrick Twinks!)
• Andrew "Corinne" Busche is asexual and wants to add asexuals into future games.
• Classic spells like fireball/cone of cold are gone.
• Companions are pansexual not playersexual, which is not much better. No word on a camp STD mechanic.
• Blood mage specialization gone. After three games of blood mage being the one thing people would want you dead for, finally we go to Tevinter and they take away the one specialization that would be acceptable there.
• Writers love writing party banter so expect a lot more of it. If you want to know the quality, rewatch the trailer.

 

[Sailor Swift]

Other bullshit that came up:

• Here Lies The Abyss choice doesn't matter, so we won't see Hawke or Alistair.
• Game is shipping without photo mode. I rarely use it but I'm shocked a game is coming out in 2024 without it.
• You can be non-binary (thank Patrick Twinks!)
• Andrew "Corinne" Busche is asexual and wants to add asexuals into future games.
• Classic spells like fireball/cone of cold are gone.
• Companions are pansexual not playersexual, which is not much better. No word on a camp STD mechanic.
• Blood mage specialization gone. After three games of blood mage being the one thing people would want you dead for, finally we go to Tevinter and they take away the one specialization that would be acceptable there.
• Writers love writing party banter so expect a lot more of it. If you want to know the quality, rewatch the trailer.

Mages get three specializations: necromancer, combat, and elemental. No duel wielding abilities for warriors, only for rogues.

Advanced combat tactics will rely on weaknesses/resistances, and party synergies. Party members will have abilities unique to them, and you'll have to hope the AI is good enough that they work together.

But hey. At least we can pet the griffon.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

So much for depth. Then again, perhaps the depth applies to the number of pronouns you can pick from for your character, because that's so very important.

 

[Overly Serious]

That was one of the worst trailers I have ever seen. Not for anything technical but for the sheer inappropriateness of the tone. From the cheesy character intros to the pretty-boy qunari to that terrible, terrible song choice. Or even having a song at all.

This was an attempt at doing a League of Legends style trailer which are typically excellent. There are two things wrong with doing this for Dragon Age. One, it's a completely different tone. Two, they did it really badly on top of that.

Got to love a comment below the trailer though: "The real reason YouTube removed Dislikes".

 

[popnloch ness monster]

pretty-boy qunari

?

 

[Overly Serious]

?

Not actually attractive. But the one modelled on Orlando Bloom as Legolas in the trailer.


Also, the necromancer is plainly modelled on Vincent Price. Good Lord, almost everything design choice in the game shown in this trailer looks bad. Also, is that Harding? I don't remember her being so jocular.

 

[popnloch ness monster]

Not actually attractive. But the one modelled on Orlando Bloom as Legolas in the trailer.
View attachment 6088451

ah, you meant the ugly-girl aka mena baddie qunari

 

[Sailor Swift]

Not actually attractive. But the one modelled on Orlando Bloom as Legolas in the trailer.
View attachment 6088451

Also, the necromancer is plainly modelled on Vincent Price. Good Lord, almost everything design choice in the game shown in this trailer looks bad. Also, is that Harding? I don't remember her being so jocular.

That's not a guy. That's a female Qunari who is nonbinary. Or something.

 

[ChefKiss]

it's just the exact same tone as nuSaints Row, Hyenas, Fairgame$ Concord, all these people think the same and sound the same so they all just make the same ugly annoying shit

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Will the "everyone either has a place and a role in the society or get mindwiped" Qunari even allow one to be a non-binary? Krem is already pushing it.

Of all the species and race to play the LGBTBBQSAUCE game on, the Qunari is really an odd choice. The dark-skinned Rivaini people would be a more obvious choice, given their promiscuity and hedonism.

 

[Sailor Swift]

Will the "everyone either has a place and a role in the society or get mindwiped" Qunari even allow one to be a non-binary? Krem is already pushing it.

Of all the species and race to play the LGBTBBQSAUCE game on, the Qunari is really an odd choice. The dark-skinned Rivaini people would be a more obvious choice, given their promiscuity and hedonism.

They wouldn't, no. The way it was retconned/explained is that if you act a certain way, you're that role, therefore that gender. It was still strict and sexist, but allowed for a degree of "transexuality". But only within their boundaries. I assume nonbinary means you don't have a role therefore you're useless.

The new companion is probably Tal-Vashoth or just a Kossith who was never part of the Qun. She's associated with the Lords of Fortune (from Rivain) and a dragon hunter. Which...is an interesting choice.

I miss Sten. His banter with Shale was fun.

 

[Overly Serious]

ah, you meant the ugly-girl aka mena baddie qunari

That is a dude's face. They saying that's a girl? Do all Qunari women look male? Wait - you could make a female Inquisitor in DA:3 and whilst a hefty woman, she still had female features. Must be a new thing.

That's not a guy. That's a female Qunari who is nonbinary. Or something.

He's got a man-face. Guy's a dude. Not much of one maybe, but male.

Of all the species and race to play the LGBTBBQSAUCE game on, the Qunari is really an odd choice. The dark-skinned Rivaini people would be a more obvious choice, given their promiscuity and hedonism.

There shouldn't really be any non-binary stuff as that's a very Current Era thing and it just undermines the tone of this being some fantasy world. But yeah, it's an especially weird choice for the Qunari. But a key tenant of Progressivism is that external groups cannot be threatening because that justifies nationalism. So the Qun must be made a misunderstood group, I imagine. A prediction at least.

 

[popnloch ness monster]

That is a dude's face.

No, that is a brown woman's face. Ugly, yes, but distinctly female.
It's M.I.A. without makeup.

 

[Overly Serious]

So in addition to the reveal trailer, I'm now watching the gameplay trailer. The excrutiaing tactical fun I had playing Origins on Nightmare mode is clearly a relic of the past. This looks like Hogwarts: Legacy. Which it was appropriate for, but it's a poor son for the Dragon Age franchise.

 

[Overly Serious]

No, that is a brown woman's face. Ugly, yes, but distinctly female.
It's M.I.A. without makeup.

No, that's a male in any ethnicity. I pulled the pic from the wiki:

Male facial structure. For ethnicity, maybe Turkish, or some Southern European regions. Somewhere in that area maybe. But definitely male.

 

[Sailor Swift]

That is a dude's face. They saying that's a girl? Do all Qunari women look male? Wait - you could make a female Inquisitor in DA:3 and whilst a hefty woman, she still had female features. Must be a new thing.

Spoiler: Remember what they took from us.

Again:

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

But guys! you can fuck dwarfs now! Gaiders rule has been broken!

 

[SIMIΔN]

▪Each companion has 5 core abilities, each with their own skill trees that players can customize (lower cooldowns, add additional effects, etc)

It'd be optimistic to assume this might end up being Morrowind/Tyranny style spell crafting, but maybe there's still someone talented at the studio.

At one point it was literally an Anthem clone, but that was quickly scrapped after Anthem's failure. I wouldn't be surprised if the code is still there, however.

I'm getting a big "Fantasy Mass Effect" vibe from the gameplay preview. It's not Dragon Age but I still enjoyed ME for what it was.

he's an eminently unpleasant character.

So was KoTOR's HK-47 robot assassin, so was BG3's Aunt Ethel, but they made their games better.

asian and black evles now. they just humans with pointy ears.

Yes, even in settings where Dorfs/Pansies have regional variation, they still force human diversity on the remainder. I use the Better Aesthetics mod for BG3 to get rid of most of it.

they've had to do away with the big eyes and nose bridge of DA2 elves

Such a shame, I loved the DA2 designs for Elves and Oxmen. If I wanted to see humans, I'd go outside. It made no sense in DA where elves looked near-identical to humans.

Harding is a love interest.

That explains the glowup.

The problem starts when they get bitchy and eat your boots

I actually failed to romance anyone on my first BG3 run. In DA2 however, kindness is taken as flirting and refusal makes them hate you with in combat consequences. Very bad system.

his dad didn't even have a problem with him being a faggot, he just wanted Dorian to do his duty and continue the whole magic eugenics program

Current_Year is one of the few societies that have forgotten the link between children and having a future.

Andrew "Corinne" Busche is asexual

Eunuchs often are.

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

It's ballsy move to release a shitty half baked RPG after Baldurs Gate 3 raised the bar.

I wonder how many people working on this dumpster fire killed themselves after they loaded up BG3 for the first time.

 

[Nonga Tork]

I find it funny that we have asian and black evles now. they just humans with pointy ears.

Their designs and art were clearly Celtic inspired, and in DA2 they straight up gave them all Welsh or Irish accents. But nah, apparently their are elves of every Earth race. Like, where did the East Asian elves come from? Where is Thedas-East Asia located? At least with humans they explicitly came from somewhere else and so basically any racial group could be justified.