Dragon Age The Veilguard Criticism Thread (formerly Skepticism Thread) [Spoilers]

Increasingly it's things like early access though. Preorder a deluxe copy and get the game 5 days early *looks at Ubisoft*

It's extremely rare nowadays that I have time to play a game at release. My schedule changed this week which freed up October 31 - November 4. But for the longest time this was going to be a very busy time in my life, and the earliest I would've been able to play Veilguard was the end of November. So there was never any point. 

The last game I preordered may well have been DA:I. And I was still in university at the time. 

Spoilers about Harding

The Gods of writing have abandoned us...Now there is no hope.  Taash and Harding scene:

Taash spoilers

Where are the f****** Lucerni? We had an entire game building the faction up and we've heard nothing of their existence? This writing, man 

I might be proven completely wrong once the game is out and we get to explore it ourselves, but for now I honestly get the feeling the makers of this game don't understand anything about Tavintor, and have made it into the Star Wars galactic empire in fantasy land

I also don't typically watch reviews because I don't play/buy a lot of games. What I do play and buy is stuff that I am already interested in and, more often than not, has already been out for a while. I had Deadfire on my Steam wishlist for years before I finally bought it on GOG last year. Bioware games were mostly the only outlier and I am either fully in on before launch (ME3, DAI, even MEA at the time) or fully against (Anthem, I had no interest in a live service game so I didn't bother learning anything about it outside of this). I used to watch Zero Punctuation but only for entertainment, not to actually form an opinion on whether I should try a game or not. I watched reviews now because I'm on the fence in a way that I've never been with a Bioware game.

As I mentioned above, I don't buy or play a lot of games and usually it's games that have already been out for a while. I agree preorders are pointless in a digital space so I restrict myself to stuff I really already enjoy or I'm super excited about. The games I preodered in the past few years are:
1. ME3 - I played ME1 and ME2 for the first time in 2011 in a wait and see summer to keep my mind occupied and because I really enjoyed DA a lot before I played ME and thought to give these games a chance as well. I had also played KOTOR in highschool and enjoyed it, despite not finishing it at the time, so I had some pretty good Bioware history to inform my possible enjoyment of ME. The ending was disappointing but not to the point of me regretting the preorder because I still had fun with a good portion of the game anyway.
2. DAI - I was already fully in on, despite some of the disappointment of DA2 but, just like ME3, not to the point of that disappointment coloring my perception of the next game, especially when I generally liked what I saw in the marketing.
3. MEA - the only iffy thing I had from the marketing of this one was that the combat looked like it was going to be a mess. Ironically, the combat was one of the highlights for me, in the end.
4. FFXIV Endwalker & Dawntrail - I preordered Endwalker after having immense amounts of fun with the expansions I played previously and trusted I was going to enjoy that one as well. I preordered Dawntrail for the same reason + the early access. Endwalker's launch was rough because of the huge population of players and the servers not being able to keep up in the first few weeks, so having a few days to play early with a smaller population seemed reasonable. FFXIV doesn't charge extra for early access, I have to make that clear. You get early access only if you preorder but you pay the same amount as someone who buys on launch or doesn't wait until a sale. It turns out I needn't have worried because the population wasn't actually an issue with Dawntrail so that's a reason for me to consider preordering that won't be viable for the next expansion and that's when I'll have to reconsider if I still do it or not, but that's about 2 years away.
5. BG3 - I had heaps of fun with DOS2 and was already anticipating BG3. I knew from some of the stuff I saw from people who played the EA that I was going to enjoy this game and I also preordered it only a day before launch because of the free Deluxe upgrade.

The only game from that list that I actively regret preordering and even paying full price on is MEA. I had some stuff I wasn't fully in on from the marketing of that game so now I'm applying the lessons I learned then. Will love to have my caution proven false, though. I've recently found Cohh Carnage on Twitch and he seems to be a generally well spoken person who is fair in critiquing what doesn't work and how it could be improved, while also giving due accolades to the good stuff, so I think I'll watch him play a bit of DAV.

These people... Clearly you're talking about the self-righteous activist devs preaching (quacking/waddling) their gender studies onto gamers and then silencing our RPG characters into coercive forced agreement? And when gamers call them out on their literal attempted brainwash, they cry and rage tweet how unfair it all is. Please.

I agree with you.

I think there are both valid and more annoying elements.

I don't mind 'Deluxe Editions', though I struggle to think of any game's 'deluxe' or 'gold' or 'ultimate' edition that are objectively worth it.
Is the additional cost of Veilguard's Deluxe Edition 'worth it' for the extra 'skins, essentially'?
I'd say 'no'. Though I have a copy, I recognise it's a premier edition only for completionist fans and personally I'm fine with that.

The 'early access' becomes more divisive because it literally divides players from each other. (Ubisoft being an obvious culprit)
Adding microtransactions and other features to single-player games isn't great either (Ubisoft again).
I'm rather partial to a little Assassin's Creed, but I find Ubisoft's strategies consumer-unfriendly.
Having reached that point that I no longer buy their over-priced games or editions.
I do subscribe to Ubisoft+ on launch day, enjoy and complete the top price edition for no more money.
Then un-subscribe again before the month is out, which on Xbox is trivially easy to do.

I think Veilguard has been considerably more consumer-friendly, but that's a debate best reserved for a different thread.

Reminds me of MEA, when they're talking about the N7 father's death right after it happened and Sara/Scott has an idiotic half smile. At least Shepard's infamous We'll Bang OK idiotic smile during the Miranda romance (you know which one) made sense within the context