Dragon Age The Veilguard Wishlist (Official Thread)

I'm getting real sick of being unable to buy physical copies of pc games and there being no way to install and play them without a digital storefront/app that will inevitably be decommissioned. I'm not interested in most deluxe and collectors editions but if they added a pc physical copy then that would get me to buy it where no fancy little statue or lp record would. Especially if it doesn't recquire connecting online to play every time you install/play it.

 Interesting....,mhhhh
Nevermind...I dont like the App, and I dont want to use it :-D

Also, EA have just had a little indie title release - Jedi...something.  They probably don't want Dreadwolf stealing all the limelight 

Ugh ... crunch time ... There has got to be nothing worse than game crunch in Edmonton in the dead of winter ... 48 straight days with less than eight hours of daylight from Nov 28th to Jan 14th.

So finished Hogwarts Legacy, and as per usual, 'what can DA:D can learn from x video game' thing. Though at this point I think we are dealing with more generalized trends, one good, one fascinating, one discouraging.

Kind of a good one...in Hogwarts Legacy there is the usual modern Transmog system. As much as I dislike such systems on grounds of realism I think it also solves several issues inherent with video game. Hogwarts Legacy had a usual bog standard inventory system which I hate so much...especially since ACV also solved this issue. But then it gets even worse when HL also had a cosmetic only challenge sytem where you could onlock things throughout your journey which weren't gear pieces but you could wear them through the transmog system to cover up the gear. This was redundant, it sucked. But I think it could work for a hub based system like DA was because there has been a lot of controversy in the past where the number of clothing options available when you are at your home base has been limited. Inquisition did add more via a patch later on...but what if they start off that way? What if there are a set of just 'casual gear' you can get in the game that doesen't do much but just adds cosmetcs for you to wear around your base? Could be worth it, as long as there aren't too many, and could help unify the whole system if they also adopt Vahalla's inventory system.

The interesting one here is this one might have snuck up on me but ever since Inquisition games like Vahalla, the Witcher, Legacy, and even AC Odyssey has had much longer and meatier main quests in late. Andromeda was kind of an outlier but also much like the kind of AC OD example its side quests were designed in such a way as many of the 'side quests/ missions/ open world content' tied right back into the main story so were in fact extensions of that main story and thus even the more dreary ones became a little more worth doing. Either way though I think it highly likely that Dreadwolf will be going down this direction and hopefully we get a very different mission structure to Inquisition. The story was fine, but not a lot of it.

Paradoxicallly perhaps Legacy continues the negative trend of Side content being boring, repetitive, check lists, and puzzle fests. Side quests, for me, peaked with AC OD but since then it has all been down hill. And paradoxically this might be because of the above idea where main quests take up a lot more of the resources with larger and smaller quests. Literally many of the quests that probably would've been side quests in the era of the Witcher 3 has been upgraded and baked in to be part of the mandated story...which does make sense in its own way, but does leave the side quests barren. And also this kind of puzzle based side activities could be fun, engaging, and relaxing, but Dreadwolf A. shouldn't have them be repititious. Not like the 75 fade rifts or the 100 plus Merlin trials (not actual numbers) scale that down... a lot. And B. as long as there are actual side quests as well like in Andromeda, the Witcher, or Odyssey which are worth doing, come with their own challenges, choices, and stories, which can also support the main story of the game...or just expand the lore.

Been musing on the ARPG fair of typical stuff they do late and a couple potential thoughts they maybe could do.

On the active dodging front most tend to do a button prompt for a jerk or dance back then either holding it in or double tapping for a full on roll. Well it would be nice on the first prompt to spice it up a little. A duck for instance. More programming and animations plus the execution of such mechanics make it difficult.

Same thing with changing out your melee and ranged (bow) weapons. In AC such a process is instantaneous but do wonder at the realism and perhaps the pc and companions can take a minute to switch, maybe even struggle to do so.

I'm currently playing, off and on, Skyrim trying different mods. I downloaded a mod, the PC Head Tracking and Voice Type, that has the player's head move in the direction of someone speaking. Even when she/he walks passes a character, my character kept their head facing the talker. When listening to two characters, I can move the reticle to one of them causing my character to move his/her head to face the one talking and then the same for the other character when he/she talks. Good mod. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that in the next da game.

discovering the truth is like three quarters of the fun at least for DA. And since most of our other entertainment is future or present obsessed don't really mind Dragon Age being an outlier.

that does highlight the problem. After responding to you was musing on a list of all the unique/ things DA does really well, I feel, that attracts me to the franchise. And team building/ companion characters is certainly high on the list. Probably top of the list followed by role playing then the history and lore aspects.

There's some speculation that the protagonist in DA:D will not be 'The Chosen One' and that they may be just a regular person embroiled in some weighty events.

I hope so, as I'm heartily sick of being' The Chosen One' in video games, special by dint of birth, and special and unique due to pre-ordained destiny rather than any real choice or effort on my behalf.

I want to be just some total nobody, living somewhere in a Tevinter slum, scrounging around for scraps of food, running away and hiding from ruffians who I have no chance of facing down, invisible to all and utterly unimportant in every respect. If I go on to do great things that impact Thedas I want it to be because I was put into a near-impossible situation, worked my ass off to get out of it, and managed to survive and thrive through a combination of pure dumb luck and being pushed to the absolute limit.

I wonder if that will be the case, or if it's going to be yet another: "The fate of the world rests upon you and you alone, you have been chosen to fulfil your epic destiny....blah blah blah..."

Time will tell I guess.

This.

I'd be happy to start out as Private Nobody and maybe rank up to Sergeant Nobody by the end of the story.

What about a mushroom grower?  Varric says they're just as vital.