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

Things likely changed since then...and to be fair, ending slides had always been unreliable in Dragon Age games.

If they want to set up the two Evanuris that came out of the Fade as central antagonists, I could understand why they'd reveal them early.
There was an indication of someone else being an important character and likely foe in last year's teaser, and one of the elven 'gods' was a likely bet given what he said.

Ha!  I'm forever see my local HOA as a Venatori cult! 🤣

The thing is that mythical focus group holy grail money printing "modern audiences" that mainstream media chases might not really be the majority here big publishers should go for. This group might not even exist, at least not as a homogeneous group that likes a checklist of things like a brainwashed hive mind. Hence all the backlash they get for almost every game they put out these days.

BG3 is proof that all you need to do to succeed is make a great game and suddenly EVERYONE wants to play it, even people who were not even the target audience. That is how quality products work. You try to just make a really good game for passionate gamers and you will reap in the glory of actually making games for gamers and not shareholders. It's really not rocket science. It's just not what EA and Ubisoft care about. So they don't let their studios make great games. And worse, they hire people who push that shit willingly. They want the BIG money and BIG money sadly means MTX riddled generic MP games. Hell, shitty mobile games make the most money and AAA games have become the big budget version of that.

Sadly fast food sells more than really good restaurant food. Because it's inoffensive and tastes OK to everyone and has a lot of addictive fat and sugar in it. This is what AAA gaming has become. It's not great but it kills the boredom for a while, gives the brain a dopamine rush until people move on to the next crappy burger.

And it's not even the fault of these greedy corporations that the majority of people don't care about quality products. Games, food, appliances. It's the same for everything. Cheap instant gratification is the weakness of humankind.

It's when something like BG3 comes along that people remember how awesome a quality product actually is. And those who have always cared for quality are rejoicing and kind of shaming the rest to play "something good" for a change. So then there is the ripple effect of popularity at work too.

BG3 is proof that deep down everyone likes a quality product. That there is a thing called talent and passion and people usually recognize it. Not everyone is talented though. I would argue that no matter the industry the majority of people are not great at their jobs. So it's not like you can just grow talent like mushrooms. Those who have talent will get frustrated and leave if their workplace does not allow them to be creative and so eventually all the great people leave a company. And those who are left don't know how bad they are. This is what I see going on with gaming too. All the talent is doing indie and AA these days. Good AAA games are few.

Yes, current mainstream media is a cancer of virtue signaling by people who don't have the talent to actually create something amazing. Pushing an agenda has become the substitute for talent. It's so easy to be offended but really difficult to create something meaningful. And that is ruining art.
Somehow those unhinged activists have become feared by corporations and politicians because they are really loud. But I don't think the majority of people back them up. And that's why there is so much backlash against trying to please these "modern audiences". They are NOT the majority at all. Yet somehow everyone bows to them just so they shut up.

I believe what we're currently seeing is taking a good thing, tolerance and inclusivity, and turning it into an alienating moral superiority shit flinging contest. And like always when you point fingers and accuse everyone of being the bad guy, people push back and HATE you for it. Nobody wants to be talked down to. So instead of tolerance this breeds people who now hate women and gay people for doing this to them.
And sadly this culture war is being fought on our screens and publishers are the kind of greedy cowards who stand with the activists because the last thing they want is being called names. This is considered bad for business. So everyone gets awareness training in order to not get run over by the mob. Play it safe even if you get yelled at by the other crowd now for ruining entertainment. Real shitshow.

How much DAV is a victim of the "modern audiences" approach we'll see. The game does look kid friendly and inoffensive so far but this might be deceiving. We could still get dark twisted shit. They wouldn't show this though. The game needs a broad appeal in the promos. Fast food marketing.

Oops sorry for the wall of text rambling...

First post here, just to agree with the above. Very well written, thank you.

"BG3 is an unrealistic standard! it's impossible for that to be replicated! After all, all they do is iterate and improve, and keep their staff around long term to preserve institutional knowledge! Literally no one else can do this!"

Ironically, I do think EA might’ve pushed BioWare in replicating BG3 in some ways, if the timing of the shift to SP matched BG3’s release, for its financial success. 

I think at last one big reason for the shift to SP go Veilguard was the success of Fallen Order alongside other SP games like GOW and Horizon.

Yes, I meant the SP shift was due FO, GOW and Horizon. Had the timing of BG3 release matched the timing of when EA/Bioware shifted back to SP, it’s quite possible that the former could’ve influenced DA’s development in some way. 

I'm not a fan of the playersexual romances to be honest, I vastly prefer having characters of different orientations like in Mass Effect and Cyberpunk (or other DA games for that matter).

In games such as BG3, Fallout or Skyrim it can work, but here I don't find it the right way to go.

I'm not sure, in that game it just worked, maybe because BG3 is its own thing

I am still puzzled by the whole "unrealistic" terminology. IMO, it is a matter of attitude. It is not that hard to give each goblin in the camp or a druid in the grove a name with a face and have a line of dialogue. It gives an enemy or ally, depending on your choice, a personality besides generic type aka "pride demon" or whatever so that the player feels something while helping or murdering them. It gives unparalleled immersion, of course provided that there is a lovingly created world to immerse yourself into. Alas, if the world is perceived by running through cutscenes as fast as you can to skewer or gun down some faceless unimportant enemies, there will be no immersion and no feeling whatsoever apart from "exploring the landscape for collectibles", which surely will be randomly placed in abundance.

It is not a question of resources or talent, which Bioware and EA must have in greater numbers over Larian but rather a question of love and care, which seems to be lacking for the former corporate entities. I would not call it soulless or such but it comes fairly close.

dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Tevinter_Nights

A fairly middling anthology. Very poorly-edited. A few of the stories are gems, but the rest are just OK or unbelievably bad.

Well, we can't kill Solas' elven followers, because they're not really all that evil. Only bad cults like the Venatori can be killed en masse. We wouldn't want to be too morally ambigious.