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

there is a promblem. Think of mythal: you can't kill him , his spirit will always be there.

First, the Inquisitor being there alone isn’t enough since if they’re a NPC what’s the point? It won’t be the player’s character and the interaction, whatever it is, won’t have the same impact. And that’s if they do what you want them to do. Again, being a NPC could ruin them. Just look at all the Revans or Hawkes BioWare got wrong.
Second, nonsense on the Inquisitor being recognized. They went to the ball in Orlais where they’ve been working for months and yet nobody recognized them until introduced. Meanwhile they’ve never been to Tevinter or northern Thedas so barely anybody would even have an inkling of who they are other than having heard stories from the south.

If he did then they would contradict their assertion that they would never do a Leliana on us again. Depending on player choices there are too many outcomes for Fenris from DA2 to accommodate going forward, including the player having killed him in DA2. It is one thing letting him appear in a comic but I'd rather he was kept out of the game. I wasn't happy how they dealt with his absence from the side of my Hawke who romanced him in DAI and even less his attitude to his former companions as expressed in the comic. So if they do bring him back it is going to have to be as part of a side-quest that only occurs if your world state allows for it. The same is true for other companions from previous games. If they include Fenris, then why not Zevran seeing as we know he had a continuing feud with the Crows?

Exactly, which is why anyone from DAI should only be in the background, not a major participant drawing Solas' attention to the new PC.

I agree with you here. It sounds to me like you are not going to know about the threat from the beginning but become aware of it over time and it is only later that the Inquisitor may be re-introduced to the story. That doesn't mean the Inquisitor isn't working behind the scenes, even pulling the strings, but initially the new "Hero" is not aware of it.

I was hoping for Charade in Inquisition. I wouldn't mind seeing her again and there is that link to Hawke, plus the Red Jennies as I believe she was their contact in Tantervale (unless there are two Charades operating in the Freemarches). I think it is possible the Red Jennies may be one of the factions we work with in DA4, probably the Tevinter branch.

The Keep doesn't matter. If Bio needs more options in the Keep, they can add them at any time before release.

I'm not over thrilled by the prospect either. However, they were using the technique as far back as DAO, with cut scenes showing action unknown to our PC, particularly in relation to Zevran. We also already experienced that with Trespasser. It would have been far more interesting had we not already seen what happened with Solas and Flemeth at the end of the main game. We are also still party to more information than the Inquisitor because we know what happened to Flemeth. For people who have read Tevinter Nights, we also know far more than our new PC does about the relevance of the idol (which we already knew was coming back to prominence from that old teaser trailer). So I suppose in some ways it would make more sense for our PC to be brought up to date from the beginning but I doubt that will happen.

Since you brought up Zevran and Trespasser, I think there's a difference between them that allows more suspension of disbelief for the former but not for the latter. In DAO, depending on how you managed your travel after the initial cutscene of Loghain hiring Zevran, you could potentially be immediately ambushed by Zevran (also he's a minor character and you can just kill him without even asking any questions, so his impact is significantly lesser than Solas's). In comparison, we spent about 90% of Trespasser pretending we didn't know Solas was in fact the Dread Wolf instead of just an agent (I kept yelling at the Viddasala that I knew more than she did).

Obviously, the more entries there are in a series the harder it gets to pretend you learn everything at the same pace as the PC, as you mentioned with Tevinter Nights. That's why the secrecy surrounding major plot points and characters that have a significant impact on the story needs to be managed carefully because of this. I'd be fine going about my regular business with a new PC for 30 minutes - 1 hour in the beginning of the game to set up the story and setting, but the new PC needs to learn everything we know (and is relevant to the plot) pretty fast. I don't want a repeat of Trespasser's way of revealing Solas' true nature.

Since the game actually does let the Inquisitor figure this out for herself if the evidence is collected, they should have given us this dialogue option. Along with one right before going to the final ruins area, since the Inquisitor could know that Solas is in absolutely no danger. (We'd need to make clear that the Inquisitor doesn't have enough time left to just wait for Solas to exterminate the qunari.)

What always puzzled me is how the Viddasala knew as much as she did. Solas claimed that it was one of his agents who guided Corypheus to the orb, presumably to keep himself one step removed, so how did she figure that one out? Whilst Solas had always been with us and was possibly working for someone, why would she automatically assume that he was an agent of an elven god and Fen'Harel was actually real rather than simply an elven myth?

I've come to the conclusion that my personal greatest skepticism about DA4 is that I care less and less for where the lore is heading.

To me, it looks like a boring mish-mash of ancient elves and Rule of Cool. I've always found pretty much everything about Dragon Age elves rather tedious, and now all this stuff about "Lords of Fortune" (soldiers of fortune with a nicer outfit maybe?), "Executors" and that picture of the girl with the magical bow (why does a magic missile need a magic bowstring to propel it? Who knows, but it looks cool!) just feel like mediocre fan fiction to me. Oh look, another ancient evil ready to destroy the world, it's almost like there's a queue somewhere and we have no idea how long it is.

Writers: Next. World annihilation?
Antagonist #1: Yes.
Writers: Good. Out of the door. Line on the left. One cataclysm each. Next. World annilihation?
Antagonist #2: Yes.
...

But least we'll have romance and drama along the way, according to their teasers. Yay, I guess.