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

[Ishtar]

DAI apparently did far better than all ME games combined?

I was genuinely surprised at that.

As for Synthesis-given the epilogue I think its pretty clear its the "best" ending as far as enthusiasm goes. (EDI's voice is just so joyous).

I like Synthesis personally but I can understand why people dislike it.

The thing about Masked Empire is Celene is willing to break faith to win, and she lies to Briala to keep her around(both because she's useful and affection)-with Briala dealing with the Dalish and Solas' agents. I remember actually liking Gaspard-even if the narrative really doesn't want you to like him.

Its definitely lesbian romance-but that's what most DA fans(and writers) get ga ga for anyway.

 

[Tanner Glass]

In what conceivable way did mass effect out sell Dragon Age? Origins outsold 1 and 2 combined. 3 was the only Mass Effect game that sold well, but was still heavily outsold by Inquisition.

DA was always by far the more popular and better selling franchise.

It depends on where you get your numbers, but it looks like the best selling bioware games are

Mass Effect 3 > Dragon Age Inquisiton > Mass Effect 2 > Mass Effect Andromeda > then the list gets murky, but Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 > KOTOR1 > Dragon Age Origins > Mass Effect 1 > Anthem in there somewhere.

Box Sales are tough because they're never usually explicitly stated and most sites try and extrapolate from a few data points and not an exact science.

Additionally - Box Sales are a very rough metric that aren't fully known (to us). Even if we knew, there are still tons of variables.
- How much was the game purchased for. Games often go on sale after a year or two, so if it's something like DA that hits a few years later, you're getting $20-30 instead of $60 which is noted by companies.
- How "invested" is the audience for the game (aka, milkable). There was much more DLC in Mass Effect then Dragon Age, presumable because the ME audience was buying it more frequently.
- Cost of Creation - how many people are working on it and for how long? How often can you reuse assets. Mass Effect kept a lot of the same characters, weapons, armor, locations, enemies, etc which helped to keep costs down. I don't see a lot of DA being able to be used in DA2, and not much from DA2 moving into DA:I. There was a new Mass Effect hitting every 2.5 years and DLC inbetween the whole time, in essence.
- In the same vein, merchandise. Mass Effect sells, seemingly, tons of merchandise. Maybe it's anecdotal but I see a ton of N7 shirts, backpacks, jackets etc out in the wild and I've never seen a single piece of discernable Dragon Age merch. This is almost certainly why Marketing liked Mass Effect more - because it was much more marketable.
- Promotional considerations. How many promotional doors did it open? Did video card companies want to bundle keys? Did other channels reach out for promotions (aka limited time events). Did any part of the game go viral?
- Internal considerations. A big factor was likely "did this add users to Origin (the EA launcher)" but a mix of all of the above.

My feeling is by most metrics Mass Effect was the better game. Mass Effect was also easier to market as it was grounded in many more "real world" elements than Dragon Age and while Dragon Age Inquisiton may have outsold Mass Effect 3 - it's super close. But Mass Effect as a series was a much more consistent seller, although it's possible Andromeda and Veilguard did some real damage to any hype a new Mass Effect would generate. My feeling is also Dragon Age 2 really fucked up the DA franchise badly and is the kind of mistake that should be studied.

 

[Mola Ram]

In the same vein, merchandise. Mass Effect sells, seemingly, tons of merchandise. Maybe it's anecdotal but I see a ton of N7 shirts, backpacks, jackets etc out in the wild and I've never seen a single piece of discernable Dragon Age merch. This is almost certainly why Marketing liked Mass Effect more - because it was much more marketable.

Whoever designed the N7 logo should have gotten a million dollars, but I doubt they got more than a pat on the back. That was solid gold.

My feeling is also Dragon Age 2 really fucked up the DA franchise badly and is the kind of mistake that should be studied.

It's the kind of mistake that will never be learned from, because there's a good argument to be made that replacing a player-created character with Hawke was the biggest factor in derailing Dragon Age ... and that was done precisely because N7 in the person of Commander Shepard was such a marketing gold mine.

 

[BigBadBastich]

Box Sales are tough because they're never usually explicitly stated and most sites try and extrapolate from a few data points and not an exact science.

Box sales for ME were definitely higher than DAO because DAO plays much differently on consoles than it does on PC. Not to mention the console version had some bugs and other minor issues like the game crashing if you overwrote saves, something also present on PC unless you fix it yourself.

My feeling is also Dragon Age 2 really fucked up the DA franchise badly and is the kind of mistake that should be studied.

I’m sure its been said in previous DA or gaming threads here but Origins took 5-6 years to make and was a labor of love and a homage to the old CRPG games Bioware worked on and had admiration for. The Origin system itself as extensive as it was, was unheard of back in 2009. Then you have EA. EA saw a literal jawdropping success from Origins and wasnt going to wait 5-6 years for a DA2. They pushed them to crap out a sequel in a year and then interfered with Mass Effect too.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Dragon Age 2 is a really sad story. It was basically pushed in front of a bus because EA needed a slot to fill to make their shareholders happy.

From Gamesradar article, the video is here (trigger warning: dude is very hard on the eyes)

Another snippet, also from Darrah, this time from Game Informer:

Also from the same article:

And... it's fucking EA's fault that the red lyrium came to be and completely ruined the agency of an otherwise fabulous, even sympathetic villain:

If Dragon Age 2 truly were Gaider's favorite, I can certainly understand his festering hatred for EA and their hold on BioWare.

 

[Heckler1]

If Dragon Age 2 truly were Gaider's favorite, I can certainly understand his festering hatred for EA and their hold on BioWare.

Honestly, it's also my favorite. I like that it is a smaller, more contained story than DAO, and Hawke having spiderman tiers of tragedy happening to them is entertaining. I also really liked the companion dynamics in 2, where some of them just fucking hate each other in a way that feels real. There is a lack of environments , a lot of back tracking, and the combat is a weird middle stage between Origins and Inquisition. I just can't help but still love the game, even though its obvious BioEA learned all the wrong lessons from it when they decided to make Inquisition.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Honestly, it's also my favorite. I like that it is a smaller, more contained story than DAO, and Hawke having spiderman tiers of tragedy happening to them is entertaining. I also really liked the companion dynamics in 2, where some of them just fucking hate each other in a way that feels real. There is a lack of environments , a lot of back tracking, and the combat is a weird middle stage between Origins and Inquisition. I just can't help but still love the game, even though its obvious BioEA learned all the wrong lessons from it when they decided to make Inquisition.

The worst thing about DA2 is that for the first two Acts, you can see what they were going for. It's a Rags-to-Riches story, but Hawke loses their entire family in the process. Fuck, the Arishok is one of the better characters in that game, and his total screen time is maybe 15 minutes, not counting his Boss Fight.

Act 3 I swear was a rough draft that they ran out of time to properly flesh out - the single biggest criticism DA2 has, that it was shat out while they were still making Origins Expansions meant there was no time to properly flesh out much of the game. The Mage-Templar plotline felt shoehorned in, where if you were like me and actively didn't pay attention to Anders or his Quests it felt like it came out of nowhere. Yes the tension was there, but that was a par of the setting and lore, likely not helped by Kirkwall apparently being built on a hellmouth....

 

[StacticShock]

If Dragon Age 2 truly were Gaider's favorite, I can certainly understand his festering hatred for EA and their hold on BioWare.

Mage/Templar argument was flawed from the get go though, extreme measures scenarios only work with proper exposure and DA2 don't let it cook enough for you to even consider the ideal of der faggot destroying a chantry temple with red lyrium, you can literally see that on many playthroughs of regular people, they always side against mages whenever the shit blows up even if meredith goes pants on head retarded because of the red lyrium, it doesn't diminish the templar side at all because people are not exposed to the possibility of considering a terrorist attack on the chantry as a desperate measure, especailly since hawke doesn't get much shit if he/she is a mage.

Fuck, the Arishok is one of the better characters in that game, and his total screen time is maybe 15 minutes, not counting his Boss Fight.

Arishok is the true and honest qunari, iron faggot should be killable alongside dorian and sera and traash needs the briar rose treatment whenever you pirate that trashheap of a game.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Arishok is the true and honest qunari, iron faggot should be killable alongside dorian and sera and traash needs the briar rose treatment whenever you pirate that trashheap of a game.

Iron Faggot dies in Trespasser as long as you make the correct choice during his quest and get the tranny killed.

 

[StacticShock]

As for Synthesis-given the epilogue I think its pretty clear its the "best" ending as far as enthusiasm goes. (EDI's voice is just so joyous).
I like Synthesis personally but I can understand why people dislike it.

It's the kind of mistake that will never be learned from, because there's a good argument to be made that replacing a player-created character with Hawke was the biggest factor in derailing Dragon Age ... and that was done precisely because N7 in the person of Commander Shepard was such a marketing gold mine.

some writers are incapable of understanding how to swap character focus in a concise way especially if they are faggots, for as much as i might laugh at gears of war, they kind of aged the main characters of the previous games and had the conflict be about new characters somewhat related to the old ones in order to slowly swap the focus of the main characters, it's why gears fans don't bitch *that* much about lore, DAO also trips a bit on that but it does more like TES where the hero you played in the last game vanishes from the tale and becomes nonimportant but it commits the error of keeping nodding back to it without letting the guy rest, unlike TES where in oblivion they say the morrowind protag fucked off never to be seen and in skyrim where the oblivion protag shows up briefly and then leaves after what he had to do is done, they literally close the page in your face but in DA2/DAI? nope, they don't stop fucking mentioning the warden.

also ME is about shepard, MEA tried to go outside shep and they fucking failed miserably, ME4 hints at being about liara going after shepard because killing shepard with the two retarded endings is... guess what? retarded. also guess what will happen? it will fucking fail because it's not about shepard even if they play it in the same way as mario is missing but in this case is "Mass Effect 4: Shepard is Missing", nothing is stopping a casual player from figuring that shit out in the same way they figured out for andromeda, i have zero faith in the current hacks that fester bioware because they have shown to be utterly incompetent and incapable of understanding that you don't make these abrupt changes and expect everyone to eat it up, both from the fact that A - they don't care about the lore and B - they won't play the older games in order to understand that ME4 should have been about shepard, not some other character and MEA should have never been about the ryders right after the milky way got royally fucked even if they try to dismiss it.

i think it's worth mentioning Half Life while i'm rambling, with HL:A they fucked up the lore to force alyx being a protagonist but alyx herself is a shit character that was a token companion during the annoying companion games era, valve tried so hard to get the players to like alyx if you hear the commentaries of EP's to a point they literally admitted to having focused on propping up alyx in hopes to get players to like her even though she is a massive fucking hindrance to gordon, especially on EP2 but when you look at what laidaw wanted to do for EP3 which was to make alyx a main character everything clicks in the most retarded way you can think because it's the same jump from FNV to FO4, that is going from a silent protag to a voiced one... by the way i won't mention HLA tanking because it isn't lore related, it's because VR is shit.
there's also Dead Space lore and how they make it as a dual protagonist shit that some people don't like it to this day since it takes the focus away from isaac

and to finish, fans always want more of the same but they aren't stupid, retarded? yes, but not stupid and you need writers that have the skill to maintain consistency and enough consistency can appease even to casual/tourists as it happened with ME1 to ME2 story wise, gameplay wise it was a terrible change.

Iron Faggot dies in Trespasser as long as you make the correct choice during his quest and get the tranny killed.

good to know, sadly dorian and sera still live.
it's the same as traynor and james in ME3 and it fucking sucks since you can't snuff the rainbows.

 

[Ishtar]

The mage Templar stuff is set up from the get go though. Anders love him or hate him is integral to the plot for that reason.

(Though part of DA2’s problem is it assumes the audience is uniformly interested in Anders which isn’t always the case).

It was always going to come down to Hawke, Anders, Meredith and Elthina(and Orsino) as the central players-Meredith and Orsino after all are on the Home Screen when you start the game.

I suspect act three would have had more set up for the cancelled Exalted March DLC(without which Sebastian’s character feels much more extraneous)-and done more to integrate the plot with the various side quests you run.

Mage/Templar argument was flawed from the get go though, extreme measures scenarios only work with proper exposure and DA2 don't let it cook enough for you to even consider the ideal of der faggot destroying a chantry temple with red lyrium, you can literally see that on many playthroughs of regular people, they always side against mages whenever the shit blows up even if meredith goes pants on head retarded because of the red lyrium, it doesn't diminish the templar side at all because people are not exposed to the possibility of considering a terrorist attack on the chantry as a desperate measure, especailly since hawke doesn't get much shit if he/she is a mage.

Eh...we hear a lot about templar abuses-a "Mage underground" a "tranquil solution" ambient dialogue in the gallows-suggesting tranquil mages are being raped or kept as sex slaves, and so on.

That doesn't undercut the pro templar side-but there's a passionate pro Anders fandom for a reason-namely DA2 sets up why this happens rather well.

 

[Waifuchu]

ironbull does betray you in tresspasser, there's your gay villain

I would agree, but I'd bet a good stack of cash that none of the Bioware writers would consider that to be "villainous." Really, you're the bad guy in that scenario, for sacrificing his found family, one of whom is a very stunning and brave pooner.

Bioware is certainly aware that their fanbase has always considered companion permadeaths to be a non-option. Outside of horrible bigoted wrongthinkers like the people in this thread, who proudly brags about cutting Zevran's neck, or siding with the Geth so Tali dies, or killing Wrex? Those are the bad options. I'd bet a few bucks that Weekes saw people actually choosing to sacrifice Bull's diverse mercenaries and made it so doing that will cause the BDSM spy to backstab you in the DLC to cement that sacrificing the mercenaries is the bad option, so don't even consider it!

 

[BigBadBastich]

Bioware is certainly aware that their fanbase has always considered companion permadeaths to be a non-option. Outside of horrible bigoted wrongthinkers like the people in this thread, who proudly brags about cutting Zevran's neck, or siding with the Geth so Tali dies, or killing Wrex? Those are the bad options. I'd bet a few bucks that Weekes saw people actually choosing to sacrifice Bull's diverse mercenaries and made it so doing that will cause the BDSM spy to backstab you in the DLC to cement that sacrificing the mercenaries is the bad option, so don't even consider it!

I'd argue the Zevran one is alot more logical because he just tried to kill you by having hired assassins lay traps and ambush you. Even after his attempt at winning you over, you have 0 reason to trust him because he could easily cut your throat in your sleep or bail. But from a metagaming stance, very few people kill him either because they think its interesting to bring a morally questionable party member or they want to hear what he has to say. The others like murdering Wrex on Virmire or selling out Alistair for Loghain or way more outlandish because they can be avoided with dialogue or reek of actual sociopathy, even by roleplaying standards. Also there is a special place in Hell for anyone killing Tali, inarguably the best ME girl.

 

[LazyLizard]

I'd argue the Zevran one is alot more logical because he just tried to kill you by having hired assassins lay traps and ambush you. Even after his attempt at winning you over, you have 0 reason to trust him because he could easily cut your throat in your sleep or bail. But from a metagaming stance, very few people kill him either because they think its interesting to bring a morally questionable party member or they want to hear what he has to say. The others like murdering Wrex on Virmire or selling out Alistair for Loghain or way more outlandish because they can be avoided with dialogue or reek of actual sociopathy, even by roleplaying standards. Also there is a special place in Hell for anyone killing Tali, inarguably the best ME girl.

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killing Wrex makes sense, if you get rid of him you can use the korgans without curing the genophage in 3 but i would never betray Tali, she is best girl.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Man, Wrex is very good as a character.
But i prefer Grunt.

 

[Waifuchu]

I'd argue the Zevran one is alot more logical because he just tried to kill you by having hired assassins lay traps and ambush you. Even after his attempt at winning you over, you have 0 reason to trust him because he could easily cut your throat in your sleep or bail. But from a metagaming stance, very few people kill him either because they think its interesting to bring a morally questionable party member or they want to hear what he has to say.

Sure, but the vast majority of people are willing to make choices which are, in-universe, very dubious, because as players, they know that Zevran is a party member who only backstabs you if you actively refuse to gain approval with him. I certainly hired him every playthrough, even if I didn't intend to field him much.


That's my point. Sure, these are role-playing games, but there are certain decisions that the playerbase, even the normies who don't interact with the cancerous "fan community", unilaterally consider to be the wrong decisions that are 100% unacceptable outside of dedicated "evil runs". Most decisions that involve party member deaths fall under that umbrella, with the only general exceptions being Jacob (he's mean to Thane, and he's boring, and he cheats on you if you're one of the three people in the world who romanced him!) and DA2 Anders.

In DAI, the decision to sacrifice the mercenaries to maintain an alliance with the Qunari is totally in-line with morally ambiguous choices you could make in previous games, like whether you destroy the Anvil or give it to the Dwarves... Only for the DLC to retroactively decree that making that choice will result in Iron Bull betraying you and dying, thereby making it, in the eyes of the general playerbase, the wrong choice.

In a vacuum, I wouldn't really attribute any writer motives to the DLC doing that, but since this is "Trick" Weekes, a self-satisfied man with no integrity, I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. He made that call in the DLC so killing off the pooner and her snarky compatriots becomes the totally indefensible wrong choice in the eyes of apolitical players.

 

[Ishtar]

Iron Bull's entire story is about his conflicted allegiances-he's been far from the Qun for too long, so much so that Gatt tells him flat out his superiors are concerned and already half think he has defected.

When you side with the Qun over the chargers-its basically telling IB "welp I guess the Qun is what matters-greater good right"-so he recommits himself to the Qun. Because the damn inquisitor has just demonstrated they believe in Qunari logic-sacrificing individual life and desire for the greater whole.

DAI is largely about identity and deception(among other things)-for Iron Bull, that's expressed in, "who am I, Hissrad or Iron Bull"-"Ben Hassrath agent or mercenary captain who loves womanizing and drinking"

By killing the chargers-you remove any loyalty or affiliation Bull has with anyone outside the Qun-so he rededicates himself to the Qun and his betrayal is absolutely telegraphed. Because its either his identity as Iron Bull and affection for the found family-that makes up the Iron Bull identity, or he is "Hissrad" after all.

I mean he tells you that he went back for "re education" after 8 years in Seheron-(basically Thedas' Vietnam/Afghanistan). So if there was nothing pulling him away from the Qun-he is going to recommit himself to it.

Its genuinely baffling that I understood this in just one playthrough but you people don't.

 

[Mola Ram]

Iron Bull's entire story is about his conflicted allegiances-he's been far from the Qun for too long, so much so that Gatt tells him flat out his superiors are concerned and already half think he has defected.

When you side with the Qun over the chargers-its basically telling IB "welp I guess the Qun is what matters-greater good right"-so he recommits himself to the Qun. Because the damn inquisitor has just demonstrated they believe in Qunari logic-sacrificing individual life and desire for the greater whole.

DAI is largely about identity and deception(among other things)-for Iron Bull, that's expressed in, "who am I, Hissrad or Iron Bull"-"Ben Hassrath agent or mercenary captain who loves womanizing and drinking"

By killing the chargers-you remove any loyalty or affiliation Bull has with anyone outside the Qun-so he rededicates himself to the Qun and his betrayal is absolutely telegraphed.

I mean he tells you that he went back for "re education" after 8 years in Seheron-(basically Thedas' Vietnam/Afghanistan).

Its genuinely baffling that I understood this in just one playthrough but you people don't.

The problem with Iron Bull's storyline isn't that Tricksy, Tricksy Weekes decided to kill him out of spite in the DLC; it's that the conclusion of that storyline and any consequences for which choice you make is not present in the base game. While I do believe a few things were invented for the DLC (chiefly Sera maturing a little and becoming substantially less obnoxious), I doubt Iron Bull's fate was one of them. Things were bound to end badly if you guided him back to the Qun.

 

[Ishtar]

Uh no? The Viddasala commands him to stop the Inquisitor. He knows he's likely going to die in the attempt-but he's cleared of any doubt or hesitation. Its not written as spite at all.

Also Trespasser is actually the conclusion of the game-blame that on DAI's rushed development.

 

[Mola Ram]

Uh no? The Viddasala commands him to stop the Inquisitor. He knows he's likely going to die in the attempt-but he's cleared of any doubt or hesitation. Its not written as spite at all.

Also Trespasser is actually the conclusion of the game-blame that on DAI's rushed development.

I was agreeing with you.

This:

In a vacuum, I wouldn't really attribute any writer motives to the DLC doing that, but since this is "Trick" Weekes, a self-satisfied man with no integrity, I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. He made that call in the DLC so killing off the pooner and her snarky compatriots becomes the totally indefensible wrong choice in the eyes of apolitical players.

... is what I was referring to.