Dragon Age News Thread

Iron Bull: Hey, Varric, I was reading your stuff. Where do your bad guys come from?
Varric: Well, some of them come from Tevinter and some are Ben-Hassrath spies, but I like the story where the villain was the man beside you the whole time. The best villains don't see themselves as evil. They're fighting for a good cause and willing to get their hands dirty.

Confirmed! DA4 has scenes

Maybe it will have NPCs and dialogue too!

Mike Laidlaw @ SDCC @mike_Laidlaw
Made it. Ging to hang around the BioWare part of Dark Horse for an hour of anyone wants to say hi!

He's now the Red Jenny of Antiva City.

Speaking as a Solavellan fan, hopefully Varric's "cheesy" tendencies when writing romances prove just as prophetic...

"Paws-itively"

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
When your sensitivity reader calls out something bad you did, appropriate response is, "Oops, didn't know that," and then you make a change.
(This tweet was in regards to a book he's writing - Hrungr)

Austin Dixon‏ @adixonian
I think this explains a lot. Is this really a thing?! Sensitivity reader, I can't even.

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
Austin, wanting to get a gut check from an expert when writing about other cultures or ways of life IS really a thing. Sorry you can't even!
Also, general note: having a sensitivity reader doesn't mean you give up creative freedom. It means you can make informed choices.
Sometimes unfucking something I fucked up is a simple word choice that means NADA to me. Super easy way to make something more readers like!
Sometime's it's trickier or more complex, as changing something messes something else up. Then you pick your poison. What can you live with?
But what's important is: having a sensitivity reader lets me make INFORMED edits. I KNOW whether I'm making choices that'll hurt people.
That doesn't mean I never will. They're still choices. But knowledge is, by and large, better than ignorance.

Holly King‏ @smokesinbed
I think this is a bad way to use such input. Ex: Cutting scene from DA => women said it was rapey. Priority should be story, not feelings.

Patrick Weekes‏ @patrickweekes
It sounds like you disapprove of listening to expert feedback because you heard we once changed something. Hoping I've misunderstood you.

Holly King‏ @smokesinbed
If you write about a sensitive subject and it affects the audience, and then your response is to undo your work, that is tragic.

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
If you write about a sensitive subject, and it affects the audience IN A WAY YOU DIDN'T INTEND AND DON'T LIKE, response is TO CHANGE IT.

Simon‏ @simonjadis
@patrickweekes Have you seen this yet? It's pretty heavy but, um, good job with Bull and Cole.
dragonageconfessions.tumblr.com/post/163224347858/confession-my-big-brother-is-a-special-forces

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
Wow. That's heavy, and I hope I didn't hurt that dude. (I wrote Bull not as having super-PTSD, but a definite post-military hypervigilance.)

Heather‏ @revera_Lavellan
Somehow, whenever people hear you changed stuff they always assume the original was SUPER GOOD! And the damn SJWs forced you to RUIN ART!

Patrick Weekes‏ @patrickweekes
I wasn't sure I should say this, but it needs to be said: all y'all need to really understand that my first drafts are often SUPER SHITTY.
It is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE to rewrite/revise something to death, filing down all the coolness until only mediocrity remains. BUT!
What I see about A ZILLION TIMES AS OFTEN is something that would've benefited from an edit. Edits, revisions, iteration: THEY GOOD.

Susan Arendt @susanarendt
Something I ask my writers is "Is X the fight you want to have with readers?If it is, ok, but if it isn't, change this wording."

Patrick Weekes‏ @patrickweekes
For work-writing, it's, "Am I prepared to justify this choice to a roomful of fans, many of whom are recording me as I answer?"

Eric san Diego‏ @biofanofficial
Want to know what @patrickweekes's thoughts are on having a female qunari companion in #DragonAge? Click the link!

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
I just said it's be cool, man!

...I mean, it would, though.

ʕ୨•̀ᴥ•́ʔ୨ ︵ ¡ǝʇǝd‏ @awesomonster
it'd be cool to smooch a female qunari companion too just fyi

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
Smooching? Is that a thing that happens in our games?

This banter was some excellent foreshadowing, the rest of it, though - was pure meta....

Iron Bull: Yeah, that's great - but where do they come FROM?  Literally.  Sometimes it seems as if they just appear out of thin air.




^^^ that was paraphrasing - I can't remember it exactly, but that was the gist.

This would be too perfect if it happened when Hawke was tagging along.
"Really, Varric?"

I don't know why people refuse to understand the context of the whole "rapey" thing in DAI. It wasn't the intention of the writer to begin with, which is a huge part of the problem. They tried to make it work, but then just decided to scrap it altogether.

It's not like they've never used rape in Dragon Age as a plot device -- there is actual rape, or implied rape in all three games -- but I'll assume they intended to do so on those occasions.

IIRC, some members of the BDSM community applauded Weekes for the way he wrote Bull's romance arc, while others criticised him for the very same reason. Patrick also claimed that he sought councel from BDSM people while writing Bull's romance.