Dragon Age The Joyguard (formerly Hype Train) [Spoilers]

Or even DA2. In fact, I wonder if Dragon Age might have slightly anticipated trends when it comes to inventory UI

The reason people are upset over the Worldstate issue is that you don't go to Bioware games for advanced gameplay and graphical fidelity. I'm sorry, you just don't. You go to a Bioware game for story, lore, and characters.

How do I know this? The three games that advertised gameplay and graphics over story are ME3, Andromeda, and Anthem. What do all three of these games have in common? Massive backlash. When you prove you don't care about the long-running story of your games (or at least don't care about your players' investment in them), when your company is KNOWN for their amazing stories, worlds, and characters, that is a problem.

The fact that the vast majority of their coverage so far has been the combat systems and character builds (something that matters far more to the kind of multiplayer game that is Veilguard's foundation than to the single player game they had to scramble to adapt it into) had me a bit confused, but now I know why. This is another Andromeda situation (where all that mattered from the ME trilogy was Shepard's gender), where its a soft reboot of the franchise, but unlike Andromeda is advertising itself as a continuation of preexisting stories, worldbuilding, characters, and lore.

If that was made clear up front, I would have had less issue. Now I'm eyeing my preorder with likely intent to cancel, and only play this game once it (and its dlc) have been HEAVILY discounted. Yes, I AM petty enough that this creative misstep heavily influences my purchasing decisions.

True, but toxic positivity can be just as harmful as toxic negativity. I would hope threads like these aren't 'solely' for people who want to extol the virtues of a game they're excited for, and being antagonistic towards people with legitimate concern about the state of a game they too are excited for. I'm not one of those right wing grifters who screams "WOKE" at everything left of me, and I AM hopeful that Veilguard will be good, but I still have some serious issues with the creative decisions being made here, like how I have issues with the decisions that lead Hawke to being human exclusive and the constant rushed area reuse in DAII, despite how much I 'do,' in fact, 'like' DAII.

I mean, I think not having more than 3 choices sucks (even though 2 out of those 3 choices could be very important to how we deal with Solas, who I will still view as the main antagonist until he surrenders), but I wasn't aware something happened to the "story, lore, and characters." The game is very much about those three things in massive doses. And as much as I love cameos of past characters and their little character arc pay-offs, they should never outweigh the new set of companions, and the latest conflict, and the NEW choices with in-game consequences you'll have to make in the new DA game. DATV is still an rpg, and all that is still there.

There's no "toxic positivity" here, no one is acting like the game will be flawless and you have to be as excited as we are. If you think you're not going to enjoy the game, definitely cancel and wait for reviews or the inevitable sale. Don't force yourself to 'enjoy' something. That said, this thread is specifically for talking about what you're excited for, yes.

I think toxic positivity is a term used to shut down any positive discourse these days.

You can see it as goodbye post from the hype train.

I'm all for cutting the cord with the choices from past games. The choices mattering in the ME trilogy was a selling point that they had to stick to, but for other games it's just unnecessary. Having choices that have consequences over the scope of the game should be the goal - not over a sprawling franchise.

Here's hoping they do the same with Mass Effect!

To be fair that is more of a mod thing then a thing for any one of us really. Though the slepticism thread does lean into pessimism, and see plenty of critical conversation around here as well. Just 'oh my God I am going to cancel my pre order because of a choice they made that is very subjective' is not exactly the most constructive, is it? 

In better news though the wifey now has November 2nd off with me.  

I could’ve sworn the skepticism thread just had a meltdown several days ago over people not being skeptical enough or challenging their unfounded claims, but perhaps all that got lost in the reactionary sauce from CC controversy.