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

[Scarlett Johansson]

Actually wasn't Gaider a consultant for Veilguard?

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

That's Mark Darrah.

Ugh, I feel a degree of self disgust that I know way too much about this game than I should.

Despite apparently not too pleased that he wasn't handed the key to the Bioware palatial halls, Gaider nonetheless played attack pit bull, attacking "chuds" that dare slam the game while admitting later that he doesn't care about that game THAT much and he has no intention of playing it.

These people all blindly run defense for each other like this is some kind of partisan political issue, and it's pretty silly.

 

[Weltraumfürst]

Despite apparently not too pleased that he wasn't handed the key to the Bioware palatial halls, Gaider nonetheless played attack pit bull, attacking "chuds" that dare slam the game while admitting later that he doesn't care about that game THAT much and he has no intention of playing it.

He's not working for them anymore, but that doesn't mean that he's not part of their club. I'm guessing he still considers some or even most of their staff to be his pals.

 

[Disc]

That's Mark Darrah.

Ugh, I feel a degree of self disgust that I know way too much about this game than I should.

Despite apparently not too pleased that he wasn't handed the key to the Bioware palatial halls, Gaider nonetheless played attack pit bull, attacking "chuds" that dare slam the game while admitting later that he doesn't care about that game THAT much and he has no intention of playing it.

These people all blindly run defense for each other like this is some kind of partisan political issue, and it's pretty silly.

They have made the act of critiquing things a partisan political issue. They have tried to make people convinced that anyone who'd criticise their games or movies or whatever is a bigot... and that's the one truth they can make a reality just by saying it loud enough.

 

[Lazy Drei]

The truth is that anyone who didn't really care for the ever radicalizing core staff just left Bioware or tuned out and let them do their faggot fanfic.

If there's no pushback to ideas like 'So I'M nON-BinARY' being slammed in your face first thing in an opening dialogue, you know there was no diversity of thought, only diversity of skin colour and genders.

If there was anyone left that at that point who had the balls and would've said: 'Yeah, that sounds really bad' they would be bullied out of the company at that point for wrongthink and they were already so far up their own asses that anything that wasn't part of their ideological stream would be utterly and completely destroyed.

Their own demise came from the fact nobody was left to be critical of the work they were doing due to fear of offending or antagonizing the extremely soft and emotionally feeble employees.

What would likely happen if there came criticism: A says to B: 'this dialogue is bad, please rewrite it' --> B runs to HR to say the only reason A said that was because of homophobia/fascism/transphobia or whatever mumbo jumbo because B can't deal with constructive criticism and takes it personally; A gets reprimanded by HR and never criticizes sloppy or bad work again because he fears his job may be in danger, B keeps cranking out horrible writing and damages the final product, there are many such cases and they fostered this kind of infantile, weak and soft culture themselves.

If you cannot be critical of your own work or listen/accept well intended criticism you will not grow and solve problems, it will fester and get worse.

They deserve one another at BioWare and most of all they deserve to be closed down.

 

[Ishtar]

The problem is no one is going to dare say this, they all believe “I’m non Binary!!!!” is great dialogue and brave social story telling.

The culture at BioWare is uncompletely unsalvageable. None of these people are going to risk professional and personal ostracization even if they may have reservations(which is probably less than you’d think).

I am genuinely surprised the studio is still hanging on. Looks like the people in charge of Mass Effect have convinced EA to give them one last chance.

We shall see how it performs.

 

[ihaveelbows]

Played the first hour I think because the game was given away. It makes no sense from a story perspective. This Rook guy has previous relationships with people that we are thrown into. the Opening sequence is suppose to "make me care" but it's an annoying hallway cutscene with some combat. the combat felt floaty/bland.

and the reason I couldn't play more than an hour..not only is the dialogue shit but the running around banter is insufferable.

 

[Lazy Drei]

The problem is no one is going to dare say this, they all believe “I’m non Binary!!!!” is great dialogue and brave social story telling.

The culture at BioWare is uncompletely unsalvageable. None of these people are going to risk professional and personal ostracization even if they may have reservations(which is probably less than you’d think).

I am genuinely surprised the studio is still hanging on. Looks like the people in charge of Mass Effect have convinced EA to give them one last chance.

We shall see how it performs.

I'm probably an imbecile that I want to believe™, but having fired almost all of their writing staff perhaps, just maybe, they can unfuck the disaster that has been storytelling for the last decade or so.

The second I see any news about 'Say hello to Troony McDickless (They/Them) is now the lead writer...' or something of that sort this little bit of hope will be finally and completely gone, for now, I really do want to believe they have the chance to hire decent writers who prefer good in-game stories over real life politics and self-insert cancer.

Time will tell I guess.

 

[Mola Ram]

I'm probably an imbecile that I want to believe™, but having fired almost all of their writing staff perhaps, just maybe, they can unfuck the disaster that has been storytelling for the last decade or so.

The second I see any news about 'Say hello to Troony McDickless (They/Them) is now the lead writer...' or something of that sort this little bit of hope will be finally and completely gone, for now, I really do want to believe they have the chance to hire decent writers who prefer good in-game stories over real life politics and self-insert cancer.

Time will tell I guess.

The problem is that you need writers who not only will put aside their personal bullshit -- or at least limit themselves to expressing it in a way that doesn't overwhelm or detract from the story -- but who are capable of fixing the considerable mess Mass Effect 3 left behind in such a way that players will still care about the game. I don't know if this is even possible. Mass Effect 3's ending painted any potential sequel into an awful corner. Whatever its problems, that ending was intended as a definitive conclusion, and there aren't many ways to pick up the story in a way that isn't horribly contrived. Andromeda was one way to do it -- fuck off to part of the universe where the Reapers have no sway -- and you could possibly use Andromeda's time jump of 600 years to make Shepard's story part of the distant past (with long lived characters like Liara and Grunt possibly returning). But doing another Shepard story after that ending? I can't imagine anyone writing for BioWare who could make it work.

 

[Lazy Drei]

The problem is that you need writers who not only will put aside their personal bullshit -- or at least limit themselves to expressing it in a way that doesn't overwhelm or detract from the story -- but who are capable of fixing the considerable mess Mass Effect 3 left behind in such a way that players will still care about the game. I don't know if this is even possible. Mass Effect 3's ending painted any potential sequel into an awful corner. Whatever its problems, that ending was intended as a definitive conclusion, and there aren't many ways to pick up the story in a way that isn't horribly contrived. Andromeda was one way to do it -- fuck off to part of the universe where the Reapers have no sway -- and you could possibly use Andromeda's time jump of 600 years to make Shepard's story part of the distant past (with long lived characters like Liara and Grunt possibly returning). But doing another Shepard story after that ending? I can't imagine anyone writing for BioWare who could make it work.

I don't think it's an easy job in any case.

But I'm 100% sure if you get onboard passionate writers who can move past sniffing their own farts and canonizing their fanfics unlike the previous writers, it should be possible.

IIRC the canon ending was destruction of the reapers, if I am to pull something out of my ass just this instant an interesting plot would be an advanced race from another galaxy having caught wind of the Reaper cycle millenia ago and only just arrived to check it out and commencing another first contact war with the existing species.

 

[Ishtar]

Ultimately they are going to just end up canonizing the destroy ending(and even then, using contrivance to get EDI and the geth back).

Probably with the justification that Destroy is the most popular ending, and such they won’t bother with the others(which is fair as Control and Synthesis basically change the setting irrevocably in far more dramatic ways that you can’t really write around).

That or…they’ll find some sort of bizarre and stupid contrivance that “reconciles” all endings while committing to none of them.

That isn’t even including the fact there are other choices in Mass Effect:

How many squad mates are left?
Who was romanced?
Did you cure the genophage?
If you sabotaged it, who was in charge of the Krogan?
Did you save the Rachni?
Which virmire survivor lives(or did they both die?)
Geth or Quarians?
That isn’t even getting into potential DLC related choices-everything from Ann Bryson, to Brooks, to if Balak is still around or not, and other things that only people who played the trilogy will remember.

Ultimately a ME4 is just going to have to ignore or definitively canonize a lot of choices, and I doubt the game will allow any imported saves. Which will further sour people on the game.

That isn’t even getting into the fact that ME4 is likely headed for a late 2027 or early 2028 release date. A decade and a half after the OG trilogy ended, and still 6-7 years after the legendary edition.

So the game has to appeal to both the casual gamer market, that may not even remember Mass Effect and long time fans. Given the gap in time, I expect some sort of time jump or some other narrative contrivance to get players up to speed.

And as stated-that isn’t even getting into the fact that any sequel will inevitably be extremely contrived(or at the very least, it will be an extremely tall order to convince audiences it isn’t). As ME3’s ending whatever one thinks about it, was intended to be definitive and final.

It’s like trying to shoot a bullseye a thousand yards away with a BB gun in pitch blackness. You can do it, but the odds against you are so high the remote chance is really not worth considering.

This game is going to fail. And that’s before any trans insanity is shoved into a trailer.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

But isn't the Destroy Ending and having a big war score shows up a Shepard breathing again?

 

[Chuckwagon]

Ultimately they are going to just end up canonizing the destroy ending(and even then, using contrivance to get EDI and the geth back).

Probably with the justification that Destroy is the most popular ending, and such they won’t bother with the others(which is fair as Control and Synthesis basically change the setting irrevocably in far more dramatic ways that you can’t really write around).

That or…they’ll find some sort of bizarre and stupid contrivance that “reconciles” all endings while committing to none of them.

Ah, following up an ending that rips off those of Deus Ex with the Deus Ex: Invisible War approach of trying (poorly) to mash all of said endings together in the sequel regardless of how little sense it made for the resulting world. How fitting, that was a series- and company-killing disaster then too. And given how much worse Bioware's reputation and those of its IPs have gotten compared to Ion Storm/Deus Ex's over a much longer stretch of time, I think they'll have less of a chance at being revived about a decade after dropping their final bomb.

 

[Heckler1]

Been trying it out since I got it for free, as a sort of autopsy to see just how bad/good it is. Firstly, Rook feels like the most shell like of the protagonists yet, and all their dialogue is just different flavors of Joss Whedon quips or workshopped safe statements. The problem that Inquisition had also carries through, where no matter your background race, you are the same character no matter what.

Some of the companions are actually pretty good. Neve and Davrin are interesting enough, and I do think the whole mage detective thing is kind of a neat background. Harding and Bellara are kind of interchangeable as awkward nice girls who do the millennial writing thing of talking too much. I do not think Harding should have been a companion, because it is weird to me that she is a) a previously romancable character, and b) she has to be kind of really dumb in this, especially considering she should be more knowledgeable about the world having been in the Inquisition. Lucanis and Emmerich are just newer versions of Dorian and Zevran and if you liked those characters you'll probably like them well enough. Finally there is Taash. Holy shit, what an unlikable piece of shit. She is an asshole to everyone, is weirdly intolerant of everything she doesn't like/understand, and generally feels like someone's self insert OC who no one is allowed to say bad thing about. Her becoming gender neutral isn't even in the forefront of the reasons she sucks, but even that is a souless and robotic parade of scenes that have as much life in them as a cigar store Indian. There are ways to fix the character, but holy dogshit is what they have really bad.

The actual combat and gameplay is a step up from Inquisition, but it is very very parry heavy and if it doesn't click for you, then you are going to have a bad time. The maps are a bit smaller than in Inq, so there is less empty space to have to slough through. In general I would say the basic gameplay is a step up from Inquisition, and some of the boss/harder fights do require you to actually use the tactical feature instead of just spamming attacks until you win or die.

I really don't like what they have done with the returning characters. Isabella, Dorian, and even Varric are pale husks of their former selfs, only showing up for the member beries. However, no character gets done dirtier than Morrigan. Holy fuck, does this game trivialize her entire arc in DA 1. Flemmeth now actually wasn't going to kill her, and the entire fight we with her in DA1 was for no reason because aktually she was good all along.

Speaking of good all along, any faction that should have some sort of moral conundrum about it, is written so that they are actually the heckin good guys. Lords of Fortune are treasure hunters who steal relics? Um, aktually they make sure the stuff they steal is only from meanies and has no cultural value to da elfs before they sell it. Anitvan crows are assassins? Um, they are now freedom fighters who never had child soldiers. Except the Grey Wardens, because fuck the heroes from DA1. They still suck and we will literally do the same plot line from Inq with them. I don't actualy hate the Veil Jumpers in theory, as the idea of people trying to keep an eye on the thing Solas has fucked with is interesting. The Mourne aren't too bad either, and I do like Manfred. Overall the faction thing feels like a remnant of the higher ups wanting a live service game.

The worst thing about the game is how it has made the fantastical mundane. The elven gods are now just old mages, Andraste wasn't real, and dwarfs are just some kind of dream remnant cut off from the fade? Lame. It tries to answer so much stuff in ways that make the world actually boring, and drains the color from the word. It just sucks my dudes.

So the good so far; most of the companions, build choices, and the gameplay is good/fun.
The bad; The terrible world building, returning characters being pimped out, and Taash is awful.

I'm maybe halfway through the game at this point. Who knows what kind of disappointment awaits me.

 

[Ishtar]

Veilguard is heavily sanitized, Lucanis is basically Anders and Zevran without their edge, and Emmerich is old handsome professor guy.

As for Andraste, the elven gods and such-it’s mostly in line up with the hints of earlier games and in particular Trespasser.

The Flemeth stuff is unforgivable though.

 

[Heckler1]

As for Andraste, the elven gods and such-it’s mostly in line up with the hints of earlier games and in particular Trespasser.

I guess it just seems boring to me to know that the deities of the world are just people. I wouldn't mind if it was a bit more ambiguous, but the way Veilguard is they just tell you everything with no nuance. Like, remember how Coryphyus claims to have breached the black city and found the thrones of the god's empty? I liked that because that was just something he told us, but we had no way of knowing if it was true, what actually happened, or what he thought he saw.

 

[StacticShock]

But isn't the Destroy Ending and having a big war score shows up a Shepard breathing again?

added post hatred and shittening on them, if you play a older version of ME3 it won't show shepard breathing.
also i didn't know veilguard was going to be that shit.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

added post hatred and shittening on them, if you play a older version of ME3 it won't show shepard breathing.
also i didn't know veilguard was going to be that shit.

Oh, is from the post-ending free DLC then.
Dear lord.

 

[Mola Ram]

Oh, is from the post-ending free DLC then.
Dear lord.

The "Shepard lives" stinger was always part of the game; it's just that pre-Extended Cut it was very difficult to get because of required EMS. I think pre-Leviathan and Omega it was impossible to get unless you did multiplayer and some phone app.

 

[Ishtar]

You also have to do all the resource acquisition stuff-fly into a system, using the scanning button and acquire war assets.

I want to also say that you have to have played ME2 at least-it makes Geth-Quarian peace possible and Wrex is dead in a ME3 without an import.

If you do everything right and all the grinding-you can get over 7,000 IIRC, but without Leviathan and Omega I don't think 8000 is actually achievable.