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

Solas contradicts himself almost every time he talks. Not sure if bug or feature.

Pure contempt.

A TV show is a race now?    

Why does everything needs to be inclusive even if it doesn't make sense? Well the show is written by narcissisticly ncompetent hacks that were hired because of DEI and ideology instead of merit. 

The plague of modern culture surrounding video games.

We have valid complaints, then we have people who are triggered by the sight of a minority and will frantically scour Nexus mods to remove them.

indeed.

Those two things are probably tightly related. If you are dead set on minority hires over white/straight people because of flipped racism and sexism, then you end up with people in positions they have no talent for. Obviously this was/is also the case when nobility/the rich/anybody in power let their incompetent offspring run the kingdom/company/country. If you get the job because of something other than talent, you get shit results. Getting hired for your skin color, gender or sexuality is always bad. It was bad when men were hired over women, when white people were hired over black people. And it's just as bad when it's the other way round.

And so we end up with "adaptations" by people who are resentful of the source material and try to change it into their warped new utopia where everyone is pansexual or at the very least not straight. Probably because of some fucked up payback for all the horrible treatment of gay people in the past and sadly also present.
But fighting bigotry with more bigotry doesn't help anybody.

The DAV writers have shown plenty of contempt or at the very least dismissal of the older games and their fans too over the past few months. So I expect the game to be on The Witcher adaptation level at this point. And apparently this is also true for people who worked on those older games. That's the bizarre part. I guess the brainwashing is very effective. I remember reports about cliques and bullying at BioWare in the past. Dissenting opinions seem to have been driven away.

This is no longer the BioWare I used to love. Even if you ignore all the identity politics, THE selling point of BioWare games were choices that carry over. It's what set them apart. What got people so emotionally invested. The continuity was also the reason I always loved Mass Effect more than DA. It was a continuous story with characters I grew to love like real friends. NOW we have a continuous story too with Solas, a direct sequel about an overarching major storyline and they decide that's the right moment to ditch all your past choices but 3 related to Solas.
That's like Bethesda making Starfield, killing their main selling point, exploration of a handcrafted map, and then being surprised the game was badly received and lacking all the magic...

I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of imported choices was time constraints development hell. I believe Starfield isn't the game they wanted to make either but couldn't pull off something better after all the time already spent on s bad concept, so they needed to release SOMETHING. But whatever the reason, the result is depressing and lacking what made their games so special in the past.

I really hope it's not as bad as it looks. I'm sure some people will love DAV because it's still some sort of DA game. Just as MEA has its fans. But I personally don't think it will be a good game based on everything we've learned so far. I haven't even clicked on the more spoilery narrative stuff. The tone of their PR, the 3 choices thing and the Bellara introduction was enough to convince me this is yet another train wreck.

Sorry for the rant.

Oh God, those mods. Wonder how long it'll take for some arsehole to turn Davrin white like they did with Wyll.

Playing devil's advocate to some degree but the elves in Veilguard have been turned more human by giving them human ethnicities. I prefer the Elder Scrolls take, elves come in flavours of snow white, grey skinned & red eyed, golden & tall and cannibalistic with some occasional antlers. DA had something like this going on with Abelas and his colleagues looking somewhat more otherworldly.

In defense of the writers (I can't believe I am saying this), Solas is being entirely consistent. As Reznore says, he constantly contradicts himself because he is a master of equivocation, that is lying by omission.

So he says he abhors blood magic this time round but ought to have added the qualifier "when it is used to control the mind of others", since that is actually the context in which these words are being spoken. He objects to the idea that Rook suggests that he is there through Solas' use of blood magic on his mind.

Back in DAI, he said he didn't object to blood magic in principle but didn't use it himself because it interfered with his connection to the Fade. That didn't rule out him using it in the future if he didn't have to take that into consideration.

So, don't be surprised if Solas should be shown to have used blood magic in the past or is willing to use it in the future.

That said, since Weakes suggested they did not think it appropriate that the hero of the game should use it, perhaps they were trying to distance Solas from its use in DAV by the antagonists, particularly if they are trying to present Solas as some sort of tragic hero figure to new players.