The Dragon Age The Veilguard Skepticism Thread [Tagged Spoilers]

Krems was mostly fine. I mean it was a super predictable addition because nowadays it's another checkbox you apparently have to tick. The trans character introduction in MEA was awful, so was the asari pronouns insanity. That was pure cringe modern day politics inserted where it didn't belong. Since MEA is more recent I will base my concerns on that game even if the team was different. But the vibe I get from DAV is more MEA than DAI so far.

The top surgery scars scream virtue signalling but I don't particularly care about that because it doesn't affect anything. It's just an optional body mod that a handful of players can identify with. So that is cool for them and doesn't impact my enjoyment at all.

I care if it's badly implemented virtue signalling where the narrative gets bent and retconned and doesn't fit the universe it's in. Like, in a sci-fi universe nobody should be talking about trans people and body mods because it's just so ordinary there and people can turn themselves into anything they want and others can't even tell. What you were born is completely irrelevant in certain futuristic settings.

What I always liked about BioWare's fictional worlds before MEA (but already having hints of preachiness in DAI tbh) is that they were just inclusive in the way that nobody talked about it. Sexual discrimination is not a thing in their games. That is how it should be. Characters should just be any sexuality and it shouldn't matter. That is what the real world should be like too. It should be ordinary. I always had the opinion that the best way to do inclusivity is to not make a big deal of it. Because it's not a big deal.

But the moment the media gets preachy about it it annoys me. I don't want to be "educated". I don't need that. I don't care about people's sexuality. I just want to watch or read or play a good story with cool characters doing cool things. And I'll romance characters based on how much I like them, even if I have a preference for straight romances. I'll happily switch if the straight options are unappealing. Because it's about personality for me (and looks to some degree, I won't lie). If a trans companion is amazing I might romance them as long as the romance isn't about that. It's not appealing to me as a subject in any romance constellation. But I know to some people it's an important topic so that's just what I personally want from my escapism.

I think most of Inquisitions sales came from console IIRC.

To an almost absurd point, and they were heavily skewed to the PS4.

It was an actual conversation on BSN Prime when they were promoting the weekly DAIMP challenge targets.  Old gen consoles were combined and by far the lowest.  Then PC, then a big jump to XB1 and another big jump to PS4.

Makes sense that people who have played Inquisition would keep to their preferred platform for DAVe.

IIRC, and I might not (it's been awhile since I played DAI), in that convo where Bull explains why he doesn't when the Qun to conquer the south he says that the Qun has no problem with trans people. Even though, two games ago, Sten had to disassociate a female warden from her womenhood to be able to see her as a warrior, as the gender roles in the Qun were that strict.

Gotcha, for some reason I thought this was all about Krem being a Qun convert when he is not... It was a bit hard to follow the conversation in here. Some posts seem to have been removed for some reason?

Since this is the skepticism thread... I'm not sold on the graphics.

Maybe it's just the lighting for the stuff I've seen, but so far the game looks a bit worse than BG3. It shouldn't.

DAV didn't get mocap right? It always makes a huge difference. The Uncharted games from a decade ago still have better facial animations than most games today because of really good mocap. BG3 while really good looks worse too. And then there's TLOU that has facial animations so lifelike it's magical.

BioWare has never had good facial animations. It's not something I even expect. So that detail is a handwaved by me. Would it be more immersive if they had decent mocap? Hell, yeah! But bad animations never stopped me from getting emotionally invested in their games before.

Huh, I thought they did mocap...that would actually explain a lot.  I'm thinking back to Inquisition and I think the cutscene facial animations of companions were plenty expressive.  What's changed?

Super off topic but yeahhh, Philippa is not a nice person. After reading the books it's even difficult to pick Triss. Triss is a lot less annoying and dumb and backstabbing in the games though so I can't blame people for picking her over Yen. Yennefer just protects her kind heart really well as a necessity given the people she deals with. Philippa is a cold bitch!And in the game she's not even particularly sexy imo. And her voice is really off putting and old sounding. Always bothered me.

Neve looks good in her casual outfit without that awful hat to me. It's that flat bored voice that puts me off. Really liked her in that short story, and when I get round to playing this game I plan on romancing her with male Rook.

Harding looks average to me but miles better than in DAI where she had a potato head. Love her voice actress though. Liara stole my heart in ME3 and I almost dumped Kaidan for her. We'll see if Harding does the same.

Philippa is hot but the hottest babe in Witcher is Iorveth.