This is literally the worst and most pompous video youve made. Youre literally just strawmaning to discredit anyone who doesnt share your opinion, it's delusional. Imagine thinking you have the most important and correct opinion because youre old, lmao. Youre incredibly biased because of criticism youre getting from other fans, but how are you twisting this into people like you being marginalized? When your narrative is dominant in online discussion? Your videos have good like dislike ratio, any video that speaks positively about the game, any poisitive review is dislike bombed, the game is review bombed, and every positive video gets negative comments from people who havent played the game. Honestly this sounds like crybullying to me. And even as you portray yourself as some sort of victim, you cant help but disrespect any other viewpoint or people who enjoy the game. Your comments are out of touch and lack self-awareness. Youre just making assumptions with no evidence because your narrative only makes sense if theyre true, but that's illogical. Youre as much a "tourist" as they are. Assuming that people who liked the old games dont like this one is wrong as it's factually untrue. It varies just as it varies among "modern" fans. And who the hell do you think you are to tell people theyre enjoying video games wrong? No one values each aspect of games equally, how do you know youre not undervaluing many elements of the games? Again, you have no self-awareness and youre delusional. You were never the "core audience" , there isnt a single developer of Bioware, BG2/DAO who would agree with the nonsense you spewed in this video. You also direspect all developers as you seem to think they have no agency or thoughts of their own apparently. Youre not a tourist, youre just annoying old man who thinks a studio should exclusively cater to.
Of course I am biased; that is the human condition. IF no one from back then would agree with my takes, I wonder why there was no real world politics in any of those games...really gets the noggin joggin, doesn't it? Hope you enjoyed your hate watch!
His assessment is 100% correct. I too have been playing RPGs since the 90s at the age of 7 and this game is not a good RPG if it even can be called one. Then the real life current day politics ruin it even further. All the developers at Bioware today are not the ones that made DAO or DAI. They are a bunch of idiots that were promoted or hired for their ideologies not their abilities or talent. Maybe you just have bad taste in games.
Wow. @Valyrael, there are chemists around that can help if you've lost your precription. You need to keep taking those meds, even if you feel really super right now. Running into traffic won't end well.
What I learned: 1) never trust mainstream journalism 2) what you love will eventually fall in the hands of people that don't care or respect the history if the IP 3) regardless of where you stand in the cultural war, our games should be kept out it for all people sake 4) marvel-ization of writing is a blight that can't die soon enough 5) developers in big studios aren't gamers themselves anymore
I don't think it's "Marvelization", I think it's just really bad writing. Look at what they did with The Acolyte. That writing was atrocious. Look at what they did to The Witcher TV show, where all you had to do was translate the source material, and they f'ed it up. There is still good stuff, but there is also so much bad writing.
All true, I can bet you right no most if not all of the devs of current Bioware have not played Origins, let alone any left that have worked on that game.
The bigger the company or corp the more McDonald's they become it's human nature there's a point where greed and money matters more than the actual quality. It's a social structural problem people don't do things for passion and love anymore so cities end up being more generic. A society full of robots and zombies who only mimic and not create from the core
1- make instant classic 9/10 first game in a new ip. 2- massively streamline and dumb down elements in original game for sequel, fans hate it. 3- strike balance between second and first game to create one of the studio's best sellers of all time. 4- massively streamline and dumb down the elements that are already dumbed down, trash the art style, and insert companions that talk to you like a toddler- worst in the series.
You left out the fact that the third game destroyed the lore. If you read the lore discussions with the original devs (Dragon Age: Origins) their intention was to create a world where the gods and deities were alway shrouded in mystery (like the real world). They intended to always give just enough credibility to show that the gods may have existed and may have done the things you hear they did... but you were never quite sure. Skip to Dragon Age Inquisition. All religion, deity lore, and spirituality is fake, incorrect, the gods were just misunderstood normal people and we have to kill them. Yea... Say what you want of Inquisition but it was the canary in the coal mine. The start of the destruction of the world building, history, and overall feel of the entire series.
Romance is apart of storytelling. However, if that’s the sole aspect of the storytelling that you care about then you’re better off playing dating sims. This is coming from someone who quite enjoys romance in RPGs but it’s not the end all be all reason I play them.
The issue today, is rather than romance, they have turned it into a fuqfest. Damn, I remember the amount of time it took to romance Morrigan in DAO, you had to earn that shit. Now, everyone just hits on you no matter their gender, and relationship building is pretty worthless now.
@@Dabutlergames You know you don’t have to engage in the romances? Companions will come on to you, yes, but you just have to tell them you’re not interested. Sorry. You’re missing out on so much.
I am astonished to see so many boiled frogs around me. I am talking 30 - 40 something year old guys saying "it is Dragon age, it has always been like this" and as I shake my head in disbelief I am just thinking this could very well be called Forspoken 2. Veilguard has nothing in common with Dragon age as it was conceptualized in Origins.
It's doing my head in how many content creators who have been covering DA lore and news for over 12 years have dogpiled me and gotten really fiery when I dared mention all the retconning in Veilguard too. They KNOW the lore, but they're still proclaiming nothing's changed... even when they're shown the lore entries and ingame footage. It's bizarre!
Great points here. I would like to add that lots of people love to throw around the fact that "each Dragon Age game was radically different from each other", but as a hardcore DA fan I simply don't agree with this statement because I think it's just being used as a marketing tool for Veilguard, specifically to distance itself from the previous games and say that it's "actually not a bad thing because look the previous games did it too!". If you look at DAO, DA2, and DAI, you can very clearly call all of them Dragon Age games, even with the various changes to gameplay and slight tonal shifts they brought. DA2 was as much of a direct sequel to DAO Bioware could make in an extremely short development time, while still trying to fix issues that they had with Origins (such as the symmetrical combat system which caused them a lot of trouble in balancing the game - that's why they went for an asymmetrical combat system in DA2 so they could balance things more easily). They used the same engine as Origins slightly updated, they had a lot of the same abilities, there were very clear choices with consequences, you had companions who could love you or hate you, extremely dark storylines, interesting lore revelations, and I could go on. DAI was in my opinion an almost-perfect marriage between DAO and DA2, with really the only disappointing thing for me being the main story which felt like it had chunks of it missing (which it DID, because the writers were forced to cut out parts of the story due to budget and time reasons). However, even with DA2's lack of character customization (only one race + background) and its more action-focused combat, or Inquisition's more "open-world design" (which was fine, they just didn't have enough time to make enough GOOD quests to populate the areas with), they were still very recognizably Dragon Age games, at least to me as a DA fan since 2010. I greatly enjoyed my time with them (have about 4-5 finished playthroughs of DA2 and ~700 hours of Inquisition). I think the devs are throwing poop at the previous games because, I don't know, very clearly they couldn't even come close to making a game as good as DA2 which until now had been the most contentious game in the series due to its gameplay and reused areas. I would play DA2 any day, it's very fun and the story is amazing. You couldn't PAY me to play Veilguard. I tried to continue my playthrough last night and had to immediately exit the game after 45 minutes - that's as much as I could stomach.
@@spellandshield I will make a few videos critiquing Veilguard, but I also want to make my usual content too, so it'll take a while. But yeah, definitely going to make my own full analysis and critique, and can't wait to watch yours too!
@@btiermutineer I just need to get it over with. I could not finish the game; I made it 60+ hours in but the exhausting combat, boring characters and terrible pacing made it unbearable. I simply could not continue.
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the "all the games have been different from each other" excuse is pretty bs. Each game had pretty dark situations, hard to decide choices, characters with their own demons and characters that could be recognized between each game... I couldn't even tell Varric was Varric in Veilguard without that cheap name pop up saying who it was.
I'm scared I'll get hate... but I'm semi-tourist. I started playing in tabletop rpgs sice I was 11. When I grow up I played many rpgs. But I have to admit I never cared that much about combat, the story and storytelling was the most important. And for me the part of every good story are companions. And I like romances. That's why I always loved Bioware games - they were perfect mix of good story, roleplay and companions. It's funny that in DAV you don't even have good romance and companions - interaction with them is so shallow.
I'm kind of baffled that, even with how large the numbers of people who are 'story and romance' only that bioware hasn't made stuff like dating sims, point and click adventure and dialogue tree-only games. They cram everything into a frankenstein abomination so that it appeals to no one
I'm a bit of a die hard, playing D&D since 1982 and cRPGs since, hell, some ancient dungeon crawlers like Bard's Tale or adventure games like Zork, if those count. I like romance in my games, too, but only when it's done well, as an extension of great character writing. I can't stand how a lot of games treat romances these days, though. So, yeah, I'm with ya, bud, no hate here!
Romance is a big draw for me- particularly in fantasy and sci-fi settings. IMO a well-crafted romance subplot can elevate a story, adding depth to character development and emotional resonance to the overall narrative. However! For romance to be compelling, it needs a strong foundation - A good overall narrative, well-written dialogue, believable character development, and meaningful interactions that make us genuinely care about the character and the world. I’m seeing people celebrate the game’s “worst ending” where everyone dies. How can the devs expect us to fall in love with characters we actually want to see gone? Who is falling for these character models, these creepy looking facial animations, these out of sync lip-syncs and these horrible dialogues? I know, I know, different preferences and such but man...I am so disappointed.
Nah, CDPR still making games for adults and hopefully The Witcher 4 will remain that way. Larian still releasing the games we love. I think we'll see some other new design studios also release games that are like those we love. The big publishers are failing but new ones will rise up.
@@ScytheNoire From what I have hear in regards to CDPR, and how they fully endorse the woke agenda...I really am skeptical about W4. They have earned my trust with their games in the past, but I am still gonna wait until I learn a little more after launch about the game. My days of pre-ordering are long behind me.
I'll say the same about activists. I've come to the conclusion that you can't be activist and storyteller at the same time, because the former can't adopt the perspectives of people different from them, while the latter needs exactly that to make good stories.
@@ScytheNoire Most talent left CDPR, the writer for W4 is a activist. Disaster looms in the horizon for this franchise too. The Warhorse Studios absorved much of the devs leaving CDPR, Kingdom come deliverance 2 will be a treat.
Fans have a chance to just make their own DA though now and in fact it's already happening. DA:O is being remade by fans with the BG3 mod tool which has been jailbroken and allows for basically anything now
I wish the studios that produced the games I loved in the past could figure out that writing is important and not to produce watered down slop that takes no risks.
Nobody reads books anymore. New developers aren't coming in with much experience with storycraft. This probably explains a lot of the entertainment industry staleness and the constant recycling of classics.
More than 90% of all games ever developed are trash, id say even more than 95%, a lot of that percentage are predatory money grabs with minimum effort. There are really not many games to play if you like only a certain genra.
He this is what happens when a generation of "writers" are just ex-tumblr fan fic trash...They have never had, nor ever will have an original thought, they just can bastardize other peoples stories.
I fell in love with the Dragon Age lore for a decade. If you look closer at Dragon Age lore, it actually referenced a lot of real-life history. Christianity schisms, Turkish (Qunari) invasion of Byzantine (Tevinter), Andraste being a Messiah and Joan of Arc figure, etc. Those are politics that suit the "medieval" fantasy setting for Dragon Age. I remember Josephine from Inquisition argued that Andrastian Church is a major force for diplomacy in Thedas. And the arguments between the Divine candidates to reform, or enforce the Church. Then in the epilogue of Tresspasser, the Archon of Tevinter urging the southern Church for an Exhalted March (Crusade.) And I feel more immersed into the world of Thedas. But when suddenly, it's about "Non-Binary," I just checked out. There's not even an effort to cloak it within the lore. It was just dropped into the game, complete with the childish "You should punish yourself if you misgender" message.
I think origins did romances better. And I completely agree. It was a small backdrop to the overall story. Just a little something that makes it a little more immersive. And being able to be besties with companions and learning their story as you go or pissing them off and having them leave. But overall it was you and you're group of chosen companions trying to stop the world from dying.
Replaying Origins now. The reason it did romance better is that it did writing, characters and dialogues brilliantly, and romance just happened to be a part of it.
It's fanfiction writers hired to write the official new chapter of the series. It's like if bronies who draw My Little Pony R34 would be hired to write new episodes of the series. You can be a wierd fan of a specific part of the franchize, but people like that should stay that way. Unlike videogames where modders often times become a good gamedevelopers - fanfiction writers is not the best choice for the actuall product.
@@SaltandDragons It's true, but you could avoid it. I could turn Isabela into a full blown heterosexual, by being a real man for her. I could execute the gay traitor. We had choices.
At this point these lesson should be learned already. As it happens time and time again. And BioWare was long turning to stripped down RPG to action game just like Square has been doing for a decade. With these smaller companies time and time again showing these true rpg sell plenty. AAA will always be dumb down games. Summer blockbusters, to expect more is a fail on the consumer at this point.
The gaming industry, particularly big publishers, have a very persistent bias against RPGs. A good example is an article I recently read about how Sega of America intentionally tried to sabotage Phantasy Star 4, which was one of the big JRPGs of the 90s and one of only a few major RPGs on the Genesis in an effort to prove the genre has no value. The same thing is still happening to this day. Hence denouncing BG3 as anomalous and successful solely due to its IP.
If you can't play an evil asshole, you are not playing an RPG. That's definitely a part if what makes a good RPG. When you can take different paths and get a different experience.
Yeah ive never gotten the people dickriding it like its a positive feature of the game fun for maybe 2 hours and then you just kind if realize how abysmal it is
Oh yeah, forgot to mention in my previous comment but figured this deserves its own comment. I don't think the "players who enjoy romances" subgroup is inherently incompatible with "players who enjoy deep RPG storytelling" or even combat. Personally, I don't give a sh*t about combat in an RPG because I mostly play it for the story. If the story in Veilguard had been good, I would have suffered through the terrible combat for it. If combat is bad, I turn the difficulty as low as it can go or get a mod to skip fights or something like that so that I can enjoy the story. And I even enjoy romances in games, IF they're done well. Until Veilguard, Bioware managed to make quite compelling romances in DA - I played through most of the romances myself, and watched the rest out of curiosity online, and yes they're all actually very well done even if I maybe didn't want to personally experience a romance with every single one of those characters. What I think is strange, however, is that Bioware seems to have full-on focused on the "players enjoying romances" part of the equation and completely forgotten that most of the players who love romances in RPGs ALSO want for the game to have a good story, strong lore and worldbuilding, and more importantly believable dialogue and deep characterization. There is a TINY subset of players who only enjoy the romance and nothing else, and, well, we can absolutely see that in Veilguard's abysmal sales. There is also a tiny subset of players who will just play the equivalent of junk food in video game form for like 40 hours and then move onto something else, not caring at all about the quality of what they just played. But it's a baffling business decision to try to sell your game to these two tiny groups of gamers - especially a game that has been in development for so many years and has to recoup huge development costs, especially a game part of a huge IP that could draw in so many more sales (like Inquisition which sold like 12 million copies I believe?). In all honesty, sometimes when I look at this game I wonder if someone at EA wanted to make a negative example out of Veilguard and thus allowed the game to become so terrible in order for them to later have far more objective reasons to deny developers the inclusion of various types of content in their games, to have more control over the developers they own by giving such a huge example of a flop whenever they veto the devs' choices.
On one hand, that sounds insane. EA and their shareholders only care about money and want to be as rich as the ancient kings. But there is a compelling logic to your point! Over time we’ll be able to see whether or not they greenlit Veilguard as an example of what not to do.
I'm also more a story driven rpg player. And I'm not ashamed to play on easy mode if combat is to hard for me 😅 And I'm one of romance enjoyers, but like you said I need good story and good dialogs. So what if I can romance 7 companions when interactions with them are so disappointig. I would prefer no romance at all if we could get better game.
I'd say it's far simpler than that - it's much easier and cheaper to do a superficial simple action game. Especially when you have the bones of one already developed to be an MMO. Hence the technical execution is pretty decent but most everything else is lacking (versus a full AAA RPG as was anticipated).
@@sapkowska I value complex builds, and very challenging combat myself. I like to really earn my characters progression, and the pride of building a meta class type that can handle business.
The key aspect of Role Playing Games, imho, is the ability to *play a role* of the player's choosing. It's right there in the name. One of the many reasons I didn't finish playing Dragon Age Inquisition was because I could not play my character *in*-character. The slog was a nightmare for someone with only a few hours a week to game, but mostly, I wasn't invested in the story because I wasn't invested in the character that was supposed to be my vehicle for driving the narrative. The Veil Guard has taken this to the extreme of offering exactly zero player agency. You can slap the coat of paint of your choosing onto Rook, but it doesn't matter. The only "role" you can play is the one Bioware set for you. The formula of this game, its writing and even the cadence of the voice acting follow the pattern of shows I watched with a 3-year-old, which are aimed at an audience of children 2-6 years of age. To market this formula at *adults* is simply bewildering. The only reason anyone is acknowledging this game at all, is because Dragon Age is a long-established IP. If this was an indie studio with a new title, it would have been ignored by the vast majority and slated to the point of annihilation by people paid to play the thing.
What on earth even is the gate you are guarding here? Bioware has been all about companions, companion dramas and romances for decades.That is what fans of DA, ME have come to expect. From what I've seen, Veilguard, its writing and companions have some massive issues. if you think romances themselves are among these issues..why on earth you even looking at direction of BW RPGs.Kinda like disliking hockey, buying EA's NHL 2024 and being upset it has hockey in it.
@@mikkom7475 not sure what you are trying to get all up in arms. But the statement was pretty clear, when you want to go mainstream you will always dilute the material till it becomes a shallow summer blocker buster. Not sure how that concept got so lost on you. And you only took away romance bad..
Bioware going to to EA and EA meddling with the development of DA2 was the beginning of the end. EA wanted to make dragon age mainstream like mass effect. It totally destroyed the spirit of dragon age which was the spiritual heir of their D&D licensed game. There's nothing left to save at this point
It's called standardization, they call it "Gaming Industry" for a reason. That process can be found in any given industry. The main goal being -> create a standard for (UI , controls, storytelling etc etc), which leads to predictable formula of investment to profit. The only thing that stands in the way of Gaming Industry achieving a completion of that most important process is the people who know what games are , what makes a game etc. "It feels like the developers hate us" some notice ; That's because they do , they need not gamers but consumers. Imagine an "odd" game that does not abide by the standards of the Industry , with it's "clunky" controls and a non-console standard UI , which gamers suddenly love in mass (like all of those original IPs , DA origins included). That means the standard that the industry pushing can easily become outdated. That means profit loses , unpredictable sales etc etc
Maybe that's the thing they don't realize-You can't standardize entertainment. People will always crave novel experiences over formulaic ones. Maybe stuff like Marvel movies has held on for a bit longer than expected, but that too will die, given enough time.
@@Maxie962 And that is why , in my humble opinion, they might bring politics in , so that it evolves beyond entertainment and becomes personal , aligned with political views. And now an IP is a battleground to be claimed. And here you have it, an audience of consumers, predicted sales and safe investment , government subsidies possibly.
@@chinaporkvas2105 It is indeed a terrible state of affairs. People have seemingly forgotten that entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable, in some form. Do people really draw enjoyment out of affirmative identity politics? In my opinion, shoving politics into media is pretentious if presented without a hint of satire or irony.
I really can't see how "predictable profit" was the goal here. I can see that with other titles like Hogwarts Legacy, where they heavily borrowed entire scenes from the movie, the MC being mostly a blank slate, and having some token inclusion characters here and there without them being particularly good or bad. Veilguard however is so heavily entrenched in one side of the culture war, that anyone who didn't expect that it would be shunned by at least 50% of the population, shouldn't work in any sales job at all. Veilguard broke the lore on so many occasions that its barely the same franchise. Its MC is not a blank slate but a full blown current-day-NPC-ally™ who is incredibly apologetic for "protected groups" while being hyper judgemental, over the top confrontational and offensive towards white guys with power (Solas and the first Warden). It's token characters are shoved into your face, and you are never given the option to reject them or kill them as known from previous entries in the series. So no, this game was not made for predictable profit. It's blatant propaganda, its only way to make money is being paid off by blackrock for fulfilling its purpose.
I grew up with BioWare games (I guess I’m a tourist in your eyes cause I was born in the 90s) and I’m one of the people that enjoys the romance aspect of rpgs. That being said that’s not why I play dragon age or rpgs in general. I play for the story. Dragon age’s universe was so much fun because your choices felt like they mattered. The lore was complex and the world felt like it was a living thing. Crafting theories was the best part of the series. My problem with this game is just how sanitized everything became. The crows, an organization that bought children off the slave market and tortured them into master assassins that will be killed for failures, gets turned into a group of morally righteous rebels. BioWare looked at this IP and said nuance? Don’t need it. This follows into countries like Tevinter, where a slave empire that knowingly has blood mages in the highest levels of government, gets no pay off. This game is safe, that’s not a good thing. No one is allowed to be bad/morally grey. Hell even the companions have to be morally upstanding. Even the assassin with a literal demon inside him. The game acts like the player is a child who needs to have their morals and world view force fed to them, which really feels like a slap in the face to the fan base who has been here since origins. I’ve read all the books, listened to the podcast, and watched the tv show. And for what? Because none of it mattered in the end. The devs didn’t care about this world and it really shows. I don’t want to see this IP fail because it has been an obsession of mine for practically the majority of my life, but if this installment is a harbinger of the direction the series will end up, then I don’t want it. I want Thedas not the Disney version
If I was limited to say one thing that is wrong with the game, I would say it has to do with a wrongheaded dedication to safety. Authentic stories and settings are not a safe space. Authentic characters are not safe. The human condition is not safe. If you write your story with the goal of being as non-challenging as possible to everyone's sensibilities, you end with a bloodless, sterile void. And Dragon Age: The Veilguard is largely that, excepting, notably, only some events around characters from older games. The beautiful landscapes make a world which is a joy to walk around. The lore, as far as it's not been butchered, is as fascinating as ever, but is is history, because there are no real human beings left. Mark Darrah, ex-project lead of Dragon Age, has published a video titled "The consequences of leading through fear" 10 days ago. I do not think the timing is a coincidence. I get the impression that Bioware's writers were lead through fear, fear of writing the wrong thing by some unnamed standards of safety and non-offensiveness.
Whether positive or negative, effective word of mouth marketing starts with an IP’s core audience. If you dismiss that audience you’re kneecapping yourself before you even start
Funny how the former Lead Writer of the Dragon Age franchise had the nerve to label people as tourists because in his view the series had been woke from the start. Erm, no it hadn't, it had Bisexual characters in it yes... but he of all people should know the first proper out and out Lesbian, Gay and Transexual characters (Brothel inhabitants don't count, everyone knows that was done for giggles) was in Inquisition and other than Dorian's quest in Redcliffe being akin to Taash's meeting with their mum (but better written, I'll give him praise on that), it was nowhere near as in your face as Taash spouting off about how they are non-binary and all the other poorly written dialogue the terrible voice actor of them could produce. I can understand him wanting to stick up for former colleagues that he is most likely still friends with, it wouldn't surprise me if he approved of decisions they made from a story point of view but to make that claim he did is just absurd because I think you hit the nail on the head that the true 'tourists' to this franchise are these people that are loving this terrible game. I looked at some video last night that an alleged 'Bioware fan' had posted of them starting Veilguard and in the comments section I noticed they stated they had only played Inquisition and half of Origins. I immediately exited the video because that to me isn't a Bioware fan, thats just someone that picked up Inquisition, enjoyed that, heard good things about Origins, tried to play it but it was too complicated for them (I'll wager they stopped playing when they got to the Fade or Orzimmar). But yeah they were also saying the loved the combat in Veilguard so yeah.... clearly a tourist to the franchise. One thing irritating me about people saying it is a return to form, not once have I seen them explain WHY they think it is a return to form and what game they deem as being the dip in form to basically say it is better than that. Considering I know what happens in the last quest and some other stuff including how quests are completed, to me it looks like a poor persons Mass Effect 2 but with added feature of you being forced to recruit everyone... (Agent Stansfield: EVERYONE!) rather than having an option to not bother with some if you didn't want. I imagine if they had allowed people to be able to choose who they recruited, a certain someone would most likely be lead contender for 'Least recruited' and of course there is no way this current team at Bioware would've let that happen.
The IP was always woke, it was just hidden at first (many people still think "progressive" is something different than "woke"). Now they thought it's time to reveal themselves but of course it was too early (and will always be too early, because of human nature).
It's ultimately on the company to whom they decide to cater to, the rest will be decided by profitability. It is on us to move on. I've done so with many franchises I once thought I'd love forever.
I want the Dragon Age 2 Slander to stop. DA2 FELT Like a Sequel to Origins, it was still dark and very closely related to the first game. People may not want to accept it but The issues with Dragon Age started with Dragon Age Inquisition. Inquisition dropped the dark fantasy and went with high fantasy. Why Mike Laidlaw decided to do that for DAI will probably never be known. SO I would like to say, "Tourists" as you call them aren't the main people responsible for the ruination of Dragon age, it was Bioware (Specifically Mike Laidlaw, Mark Darrah and their team) and EA.
I agree, I was really pissed when dragon age 2 came out because of the consolification of the combat versus orgins. I returned after a year or so when I was ready to accept it, I was suprised that the story and companions was as good as they were. Not origins level but pretty good. For inquisition it was obvious that the safe space modern audience had destroyed the tone of the game and the mmo style grind quests was unbearable, tried twice to like it but both times I abandoned my runs and I knew Bioware as I had known them were dead. I had zero hopes for Veilguard long before even seeing the first trailer.
It was just undercooked, but some scenes were top notch still and the tone of the world was upheld and expanded into a personal drama of Hawke. Companions ended up underdeveloped throughout 3 acts, but that could be pinned on the lack of content to play their quests more
Romance in RPG video games really started after early CRPGs some of which had really compelling characters that players wanted to form a relationship. Not for bonking pixels. In an RPG, if you don't have the base of compelling characters, Romance is a huge and awkward detriment.
It's the ideology of the people who made this that's the root of everything that's wrong here. All the casualness, softness, the lack of 'mean' dialogue options and simple puzzles, all of it, is the result of that certain socio-political lens being rigidly applied to game development. It's equity at work, which means the lowest common denominator. Meaningful character interactions are almost exemplified by romance. It's like taking everything you would want in friendships with these NPCs and then putting another layer on top. When it's done well. I hate the way most games are doing romances these days (it's one of my biggest issues with BG3, despite how much I love that game), but the way Bioware did them in the '00s...if only what we had now was iterations of that. Man! I still can't get over how great my FemShep's romantic relationship with Liara felt, and her close friendship with Garrus. I miss that kind of depth with NPCs (admittedly, those were built over 3 games).
As a fan of otome (a type of visual novel x dating sim game), even I HATE the way they handle romance in Veilguard. I do think romance is necessary in RPG, mostly because they're part of the human experience and decision-making (to romance or not to romance), which is one of the cores of RPG, and it can also really enrich the story (such as the case with Inquisitor Lavellan with Solas). However, it should NEVER come at the cost of good storytelling. I specifically brought up Lavellan and Solas because I really did think that was one of the most compelling romances I've had in a video game, so you know that I'm one of the gamers who are looking forward to see how that unfolds in Veilguard. But even I am disappointed by Veilguard. You should know that even with otome games, which has a heavy focus on romance, players won't put up with a bad story. To us, romance IS part of the story, so if the overall story is crap, the romance won't be compelling either. I've seen a couple of romance scenes from Veilguard and they make my stomach hurl. As much as it's a cliche, they feel as if they're written by teenagers who have just started learning to write on Wattpad or tumblr (which is fine, everyone has got to start somewhere), but this is a huge triple A game developed by a huge company with more budget. They could and SHOULD afford better, more experienced writers. Actually, it's downright embarrassing for Veilguard writers when I've read fanfics with way better storytelling and romance than whatever they did in Veilguard. So yeah I mostly agree with your points, though I just want to add that romance is nice to include as part of making choices in an RPG, but that's just it: it SHOULD be PART of the story, NOT the FOCUS, so one should focus on writing a good story overall (including the romance that come with a rich world with rich stories and lore). They are focusing on romance for the sake of it instead of incorporating it into a good story so that the two blends beautifully. I just think anyone who likes Veilguard either has shitty taste or is stupid, or they don't actually take any of this seriously, brushing things off as "It's just a game!" when for me, games are NOT "just a game". They've been a crutch for many times in my miserable life, so I don't appreciate my anger about how things are twisted to be brushed off as just "You're being dramatic over some game." Lastly, I just wanna share that I'm actually the type to put up with meh combat (the minimum requirement being that they're at least playable and fun) as long as the story is good, and seeing the writing in Veilguard... It just BAFFLES me how people can put up with this game for the writing alone. The writing is what instantly turned me off when I would've given the cartoony art style, unappealing companions, and mediocre combat a chance IF the story/writing was good. Now I know that that's not the case, the only redeeming quality of the game I can say is the environment design. That's it. But I can simply flip through artbooks to satisfy that itch than put up with hours of a horrible game just to see pretty buildings in the sky.
Off topic but I'm currently playing Witcher 1 and Gothic 2 again. I'm having so much fun. They just grab you from the moment you see the main menu. This is how games are supposed to be. How I miss those days.
Sales figures apparently around 500k? Imagine a proper RPG (story, mechanics, char progression) in a lore rich DA world aimed at original fans, without any mention of real world politics. It could probably top that number.
Slightly unrelated but I really hope KCD2 and Avowed can fill the fantasy rpg hole that many fans have. I know KCD2 isn’t fantasy but it’s medieval so close enough and from the gameplay footage I’ve seen it looks like it might be a candidate for best rpg of the decade but that’s just me. I’m also really interested in avowed and I hope it’s good because obsidian needs a win. Also if avowed is good it will make me more excited for outer worlds 2 because the first one was so close to being great.
Blessed are the Spooky posts! I have full faith in both games. They will be protected from the likes of the people I talked about; KCD2 has a male protagonist, kryptonite to these people and Avowed has no romance...also kryptonite to these people!
Your channel is one of the best informative channels about RPGs! Thank you so much for great summary 🤍 Hope that things will change and great old games like DA:O will return 🙏🏻 (in form of remakes, mods, ec...)
I love how you can't have bigger eyes or a feminine chin because of "clipping issues" and "animation limitations", but uncanny abominations like this are perfectly fine. I wonder why.
@@nifftbatuff676Are you really saying the character proportions in Veilguard are realistic? Are you really using an appeal to realism in s game where the very DEFENSE for the unrealistic, anachronistic, anti-medieval world is, "If you can believe in wizards, you can believe in this world"?
So did bioware in origins but yeah even Larian said they couldnt make BG3 again if they tried and that people shouldnt have high hopes for their next game
Some of the subtext shaping our presumed mutual dissatisfaction with this game might differ, but I have said the following verbatim - this is an RPG for people who hate RPGs. I don't think I've ever forced myself to keep playing a game like I have this one, even though I ultimately did not finish it either. Appreciate the commentary.
Good sir, I agree with you on so many levels. I started playing RPGs in the same timeframe as you; I went from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse to the original Final Fantasy (whaddaya mean I have to wait on my Fighter attacking Sir Garland???) and fell in love with the genre almost immediately. I don’t blame any part of the LGTBQ community for having stories to tell. However, I do blame the decision makers and the activists who implement those stories. Taash is an incredibly controversial character. Instead of using her to preach to us in real life, it would have been far more fair and interesting to see her challenge Qunari society, maybe even begin changing it. I recall hearing originally that the Qun had a very rigid social/gender structure. Fictional politics are more than fine! I like games/books/movies that make me actually go deep and think. But if you can’t put a real life political agenda in a game without force feeding it to the masses, then please don’t! I’m alright with game romances, so long as they’re not the biggest draw for a game. Morrigan and Alister were successful in this regard because their romantic arcs were beloved by many people who were more there for the tactical combat and rich narrative of the game. Activists don’t play games, the fans do. The sooner game companies remember this the better.
I think you might have nailed the real problem here with those “tourist fans” who want relationship (shipping) development rather than rpg story and battle system development. This is exactly what happened with Disney Star Wars and the ‘Reylo’ shippers who ONLY wanted a satisfactory pay off on their preferred romantic relationship to the point of not even caring about the core story! Plus they were toxic and abusive as heck if you even dared to suggest that the franchise wasn’t meant to be just a big shaggin simulator!😵💫
-SSKTheJL -The entirety of Sweet Baby Inc's Catalog that can be confirmed that they worked on via Sweet Baby Detected -Dustborn -Concord -Star Wars Outlaws -Dragon Age: Veilguard Dont MAKE this list as LONG as Hollywood's SJW Creative Failures.
I had this exact discussion with my sister yesterday and your analysis perfectly captures the divide between us, one who has played crpgs for over 20 years, and the other, someone who started crpgs less than 10 years ago, who said "this game wasn't made for you". That they would take a franchise and make a sequel not intended for the original fanbase of that franchise, is unwise, disrespectful and unforgiveable.
Great take sir. Very happy to hear what you have to say. Particularly on the politics within veilguard. Tired of hearing people write off that point as a moot point. Especially when clear effort was painstakingly taken to force irl politics in the game to the detriment of the writing or other important parts of an rpg
Looking at the discourse on X, yeah, it's all about how their character looks and the romances with the companions. I dont think I agree that they should stay in their lane or the whole tourist thing. What i think is that the devs creating the game is built up of individuals that find that part of the game the most appealing or think that that is what the fans want. And if the devs use X as a way to engage with the fans or god forbid the DA sub reddit, then the loud thirsty majority that posts there will make them think that, yeah that's what they want. And EA will let them make whatever they think will bring in the most cash. The thirsty fans aren't the problem. The devs/Studio is. They agreed on this. They made this, and they shipped this.
All that's left for BioWare is re-releasing Dragon Age Origins and KOTOR with updated graphics. All BioWare can do now is polish up the trophies they won a long time ago.
The Dragon Age creator David Gaider said we are all Tourists for disliking Veilguard. He was correct, we are all tourists. Because Veilguard isn't a Dragon Age game at all and does not resemble his original work and it even retcons everything he worked on. He doesn't realise that he is a tourist himself ever since he left Bioware and left the IP in the hands of incompetent writers.
I cannot agree enough with your video, all of it. It's so refreshing to see a guy in the rpg scene who doesn't ignore or minimize the activism, tourists, and casualization of games. I've played RPGs for 14 years I'm tired of my favorite genre and hobby being ruined because of someone's fetish. The sad thing is I'm seeing some of the same signs CDPR that's destroyed Bioware, and it's depressing.
Thank you so much for your video and the coherent explanation. I came to the whole crpg genre 4 years ago with DA: Inquisition (funny as it is), but I played all DA games 3 times ( in the order: 3-1-2), then Pillars of Eternity 1-2, Tyranny, the Pathfinder games, the Mass Effect trilogy, The Witcher 3, BG3, Greedfall - just to mention a few. I truly wish we'd got the DA: Dreadwolf with the darker tones, and based on the previous concept arts and story. Veilguard is really an abomination (and a joke) in every aspect compared to Origins. Now I'm waiting for Avowed and wish that GreedFall 2 will be as good as I hope it to be. Spiders went back to the tactical route in combat where BioWare chose action rpg.
@@raketensven3127 Thank you, I definitely can! 🙂 I played BG2 as a teen (30 years ago), have both in my GOG library, and they are ideed a good start for the new year. Recently playing The Force Unleashed, but will surely get back to the more tactical track and fantasy setting.
Gaming has been taken over by theatre kids, as well as entertainment as a whole. Also politics in games was fine before because it was in the context of the world and it wasnt preached exclusively from one side. New Vegas for example you can choose a side.
First, thank you for the video been long time since I saw a video I 100% agree upon. Secondly I've personally never felt part of the DA community's because it always seem like we were never in agreement with DA origins enjoyment (I was in senior year so there weren't social media to the present extent) I took me years later to understand was because my focus was rather in the lore and gameplay rather than their romance preferences and fanfic
I wouldnt call them tourists. What they are, lets be honest. COlonizers. They colonized the genre. Made it unrecognizable. And when a true scion of the genre came out in BG3, most of them cried because it was "too complicated."
I could be wrong but if the choice and consequence was more prevalent in this game a lot more people would be receptive to it. ME2 was basically a 3rd person shooter with some story choices and people loved it. There weren’t any deep build or tactics options you picked a class. DA 2 released a year after ME2 with an action focus. I don’t think that was a coincidence. I believed that’s what they were going for here but didn’t hit the mark. Starting out as a live service game probably didn’t help either but inquisition started in the same boat.
The obsession of romance and focusing on the sexuality of characters certainly hurts the writing more than it aids in anyway. And seeing that the dragon age fan base at least on twitter, reddit and in some forums seem to constantly echo the same things about Zevran, Dorian, Iron Bull, Sera, Isabela, etc; just tells me that the franchise was ultimatley hijacked by shippers and terrible fanfic writers. I remember Zevran for tell me about his childhood, his time with the Crows and his love of Antivan leather. Dorian as a patriot who despite his falling out with his father, lived by the ideals the man taught him. Sera as annoying as I find her at least has an interesting concept of a person just lost in a world of demons and magic, struggling to get by and pulling pranks on nobles. Isabela loved living by her own rules and refused to be tied down to anything or anyone. Iron Bull with his struggling to still live by the Qun despite not only being away from it for so long but also living among people that knew him the Iron Bull leader of the Chargers, not Iron Bull the Ben-hassrath. These characters were so much more than their sexualities and romances that if you removed them they would still be great characters, yes even Dorian as hard as that is to believe. So for them to be remembered only for their sexuality, I think speaks volumes about the maturity level of the audience that Veilguard attracted. Dragon Age was a dark fantasy story that dealt with a lot of topics that not only added flavor to the world but helped to keep a player invested in their own character and the companions they made. Whatever this is with and after Veilguard isn't Dragon Age.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say in this video but I think the more important question is why did Bioware start catering to these quite frankly, simple minded newbies? Why would Bioware abandon their core fan base?
Tbh it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of these “fans” also love movies like twilight and 50 shades of grey I mean the “fans” you are talking about in the video are exactly like Reylos in the Star Wars Fandom
The only way you can gatekeep the companies who make the product is by both not giving them money and by expressing your displeasure. If you fail these two basic tasks, you cannot gatekeep the products that they produce.
You said the two pillars are combat system and impactful story. I would add interesting and morally ambiguous characters and good writing for a game to really rise to the top. Sadly, Vielguard has none of these things. Bioware isn't Bioware anymore.
No, what actually happened is that gaming went mainstream - inevitably so with computers and consoles being widespread - and because of that there is now a huge audience of people who play games. 30% of them are the true geeks, who delve deep into stories, lore, gameplay, characters and worldbuilding. 70% of them are casual players who just want something to pass the time. This is the same audience that watches all the crappy series on Netflix, they don't really think about these things much because it's a passtime, not a passion. Both of them have a right to exist, it's normal. It's inevitable. But the problem, the actual problem, is that franchises that have historically been by and for the geeks among gamers, have been directed towards the larger audience. And with that came a steep drop in quality. Why? Because it doesn't matter, they'll buy and play it anyway, and be entertained and then move on. Meanwhile the geeks are having to siftt through oceans of low quality trash to find the gems. Owlcat's games, Larian's games, Warhorse Games. See, a game like Veilguard has a right to exist. It's trash, sure, but whatever. Let the 70% have their games. The real problem is that this is DRAGON AGE, which is NOT a franchise that should be this crappy. It's not that the recent Disney movies have been trash, it's that they've turned franchises that meant something to people INTO trash. That's the actual problem. The monetising of existing IP's by rebranding them for a wider audience that doesn't care about quality.
I've cringed so hard when I saw that Taash is non-binary. I mean you can explore topics like that in your game but then don't use modern day terminology, instead make it fit the story and make it interesting. In Inquisition it was mentioned that there is a concept in the qun for people who are "born as one gender, but choose to live as the other" and while this concept was criticised by some people it actually raises interesting questions about qunari culture, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum. On one hand it is interesting that a philosophy like the qun would allow such a thing, on the other hand it does makes sense for a culture with such strict gender roles to have concepts like that (like some real examples in our past). Example: For qunari it is impossible that a woman is a warrior, because women just aren't warriors in the qun so therefore it makes sense that a female warrior to them is a man in all except appearance.
So I just finished this video and im compelled to leave a second comment. Spell.....this might be your best video. You hit on the real world politics in the best way possible. You explained it perfectly. You are slowly becoming my favorite youtube channel. I know you've called Wolfheart "Lord of the mane" but you sir.....are "Lord of the Role-playing genre". PLEASE keep making videos. Im very interested to follow your "Exodus" content.
This is a very good analysis video. Dragon Age started fading away with Dragon Age 2. Coming from someone who've played all the other games multiple times I'd say Veilguard isn't even on the list of games waiting to be played. I will never touch this game. Wrath of the righteous is fantastic, I just got off playing it before watching this.
I’m very glad you brought up the inquisition problem. I was tremendously disappointed with that game. There was so much unfulfilled potential, and it genuinely felt like who you romanced was far more important than meaningfully resolving story arcs -then burying the most consequential portion of its entire shallow narrative in a DLC was absolutely unforgivable. Otherwise, it had no substance to it, no weight, no heft, no emotional resonance. And it’s like these developers took the worst aspects of inquisition, then decided to do a reboot of the entire franchise around them, to cater to actual tourists. We do not get veilguard without the poorly written Tumblr mess of inquisition.
"Some of these people mod out combat completely. Soul priority is romance and desire to copulate with pixels on a screen." *cough* Dragon Age community council *cough cough*.
Owlcat failed at puzzles and sort of failed at crusade/kingdom management. 🤣 But I get your point. I think a better comparison might be BG3 with previous games. BG3 tried to please everyone, and drastically changed compared to BG1 and BG2. But the difference is that they listened to feedback, which came from a lot of hardcore D&D players (like myself) and they shifted the combat to be more faithful to actual D&D rules, even though the end product still had a lot of homebrew. A long period of early access helped with that. As for Dragon Age, yeah, not only did they drastically change the tone/style of the game, and even combat, they never actually paid attention to feedback from the customers. And that's always a big red flag. Even though I was enjoying the combat initially, I already stopped playing due to the boredom of meaningless side quests with repetitive combat lol.
Sure; I dislike the management stuff but you cannot have everything and the puzzles are awful but the overall game is good. The playerbase seems divided on the management stuff. I don't like it but some people do.
I'd argue that the "core Dragon Age audience" are the people that also read the books, comics, make the fan art, come up with the theories, etc. Those people tend to also enjoy the romance subplots. I've been playing BioWare games since BG1 in the 90s. I'm sure you remember this, but by the time DAO came out, romance options were already a major selling point of BioWare games, because no one else was really doing it at the time. It was what made BioWare games special. When we talk about "tourists" in the DA fandom, we're talking about the people that clearly have never actually played the games that are invading the fandom's spaces, saying things like DA has "gone gay", as if DAO didn't have LGBT characters 6 years before gay marriage was even legal. I remember a similar invasion happening when DAI came out too, though to a much lesser degree.
Well, no, we aren't the tourists, the redditor mob is. As a proud far-right person could play the first two games, easily dismissing the gayness in them. I even could execute the gay traitor towards the end of DA2. I stopped playing Inquisition after 2 hours, all the colors, all the armor designs screamed at me "GAAAY!!!" I obviously won't touch Veilguard, where you can't roleplay anymore, you can't be offensive towards the characters you don't like, and of course you can't kill them. Oh and in my country gay marriage is still forbidden of course, because it's pure nonsense.
I play the Dragon Age Inquisition game for the story, the combat to me is a part of that story. I agree with you on all accounts. When I just want to build a family in a video game, I play my Sims 4 game
Oh you mentioned these mobs should be playing Sims in your video, well guess what? Did you know the story director for the veilguard is someone who directed the Sims game's in the past? No I'm not kidding look it up if you want. We truly live in clown world. Either way excellent video as always!
You practically gave a lesson on how these big developers should treat their fans and improve their successful franchises. There's no need to "reinvent" the core mechanics or replace the audience, that's for arrogant and greedy people. Imagine if Dragon Age Origins had followed the core design to this day? Maybe it would be more successful than BG3. RPGs are made to be polished. And for me, the more complex and logical an RPG is, the better. This idea of simplifying everything has destroyed many games. I don't want to turn off my brain while playing games, we have to be challenged, to put our neurons to work, damn it! If someone doesn't like that, then they simply don't like RPGs.
FF7 was anti capitalism and climate activism. But it was written by smart men that did not use their game to lecture their audience like a disdainful schoolmarm. Star Trek was leftist activism but written by smart men with the setting and characters belonging to a masculine military organization (star fleet)
You could argue that about King's Quest and Quest for Glory, too. Sierra games were made by California liberals, but they still had good stories and unfortunately a lot of puns. It was endearing after a while, like dad jokes.
This is literally the worst and most pompous video youve made. Youre literally just strawmaning to discredit anyone who doesnt share your opinion, it's delusional. Imagine thinking you have the most important and correct opinion because youre old, lmao.
Youre incredibly biased because of criticism youre getting from other fans, but how are you twisting this into people like you being marginalized? When your narrative is dominant in online discussion? Your videos have good like dislike ratio, any video that speaks positively about the game, any poisitive review is dislike bombed, the game is review bombed, and every positive video gets negative comments from people who havent played the game. Honestly this sounds like crybullying to me. And even as you portray yourself as some sort of victim, you cant help but disrespect any other viewpoint or people who enjoy the game. Your comments are out of touch and lack self-awareness.
Youre just making assumptions with no evidence because your narrative only makes sense if theyre true, but that's illogical. Youre as much a "tourist" as they are. Assuming that people who liked the old games dont like this one is wrong as it's factually untrue. It varies just as it varies among "modern" fans. And who the hell do you think you are to tell people theyre enjoying video games wrong? No one values each aspect of games equally, how do you know youre not undervaluing many elements of the games? Again, you have no self-awareness and youre delusional. You were never the "core audience" , there isnt a single developer of Bioware, BG2/DAO who would agree with the nonsense you spewed in this video.
You also direspect all developers as you seem to think they have no agency or thoughts of their own apparently. Youre not a tourist, youre just annoying old man who thinks a studio should exclusively cater to.
Of course I am biased; that is the human condition. IF no one from back then would agree with my takes, I wonder why there was no real world politics in any of those games...really gets the noggin joggin, doesn't it? Hope you enjoyed your hate watch!
you mad bro?
His assessment is 100% correct. I too have been playing RPGs since the 90s at the age of 7 and this game is not a good RPG if it even can be called one. Then the real life current day politics ruin it even further. All the developers at Bioware today are not the ones that made DAO or DAI. They are a bunch of idiots that were promoted or hired for their ideologies not their abilities or talent. Maybe you just have bad taste in games.
Wow.
@Valyrael, there are chemists around that can help if you've lost your precription. You need to keep taking those meds, even if you feel really super right now. Running into traffic won't end well.
Pin of shame
What I learned:
1) never trust mainstream journalism
2) what you love will eventually fall in the hands of people that don't care or respect the history if the IP
3) regardless of where you stand in the cultural war, our games should be kept out it for all people sake
4) marvel-ization of writing is a blight that can't die soon enough
5) developers in big studios aren't gamers themselves anymore
@@ProbusVerus
You'll keep losing every IP you own if you don't recognize number three is why you keep losing.
I don't think it's "Marvelization", I think it's just really bad writing. Look at what they did with The Acolyte. That writing was atrocious. Look at what they did to The Witcher TV show, where all you had to do was translate the source material, and they f'ed it up. There is still good stuff, but there is also so much bad writing.
All true, I can bet you right no most if not all of the devs of current Bioware have not played Origins, let alone any left that have worked on that game.
The bigger the company or corp the more McDonald's they become it's human nature there's a point where greed and money matters more than the actual quality. It's a social structural problem people don't do things for passion and love anymore so cities end up being more generic. A society full of robots and zombies who only mimic and not create from the core
That’s a pretty good break down 😂😂
1- make instant classic 9/10 first game in a new ip.
2- massively streamline and dumb down elements in original game for sequel, fans hate it.
3- strike balance between second and first game to create one of the studio's best sellers of all time.
4- massively streamline and dumb down the elements that are already dumbed down, trash the art style, and insert companions that talk to you like a toddler- worst in the series.
I genuinely fear for mass effect
You left out the fact that the third game destroyed the lore. If you read the lore discussions with the original devs (Dragon Age: Origins) their intention was to create a world where the gods and deities were alway shrouded in mystery (like the real world). They intended to always give just enough credibility to show that the gods may have existed and may have done the things you hear they did... but you were never quite sure.
Skip to Dragon Age Inquisition. All religion, deity lore, and spirituality is fake, incorrect, the gods were just misunderstood normal people and we have to kill them.
Yea...
Say what you want of Inquisition but it was the canary in the coal mine. The start of the destruction of the world building, history, and overall feel of the entire series.
Inquisition was already woke garbage
We all should be afraid.
Same with so many good games, it's sad
Romance is apart of storytelling. However, if that’s the sole aspect of the storytelling that you care about then you’re better off playing dating sims. This is coming from someone who quite enjoys romance in RPGs but it’s not the end all be all reason I play them.
The issue today, is rather than romance, they have turned it into a fuqfest. Damn, I remember the amount of time it took to romance Morrigan in DAO, you had to earn that shit. Now, everyone just hits on you no matter their gender, and relationship building is pretty worthless now.
@@jcfra420 It spoils BG3 for me. All these weirdo sex maniacs trying it on, knock it off!
One of the many reasons I didn't like interacting with companions in BG3 and yet to finish.
@@Dabutlergames You know you don’t have to engage in the romances? Companions will come on to you, yes, but you just have to tell them you’re not interested. Sorry. You’re missing out on so much.
@@jcfra420 I see where you’re coming from! I enjoy slow burn myself but I won’t lie, when things are getting spicy - I do love some spice.
Imagine if the Dark Souls franchise completely changed everything that made it special. Elden Ring would never been successful.
Thankfully Japanese developers aren't dumb like western ones lol.
It would be made fun of into oblivion just like this game. Forever.
You Unalived
Git gud.
@@kittydaddy2023 "you offended" then cuts to your character doing pushups 😅
I am astonished to see so many boiled frogs around me. I am talking 30 - 40 something year old guys saying "it is Dragon age, it has always been like this" and as I shake my head in disbelief I am just thinking this could very well be called Forspoken 2. Veilguard has nothing in common with Dragon age as it was conceptualized in Origins.
It's doing my head in how many content creators who have been covering DA lore and news for over 12 years have dogpiled me and gotten really fiery when I dared mention all the retconning in Veilguard too. They KNOW the lore, but they're still proclaiming nothing's changed... even when they're shown the lore entries and ingame footage. It's bizarre!
@@michalvoh revisionist lies are the bread and butter of the cultists. They do this with history and black washing too.
DA2 already had nothing to do with Dragon Age, as it was conceptualized in Origins.
@shizachan8421 go away you indoctrinated, mind wiped drone.
@@shizachan8421 How so?
Abomination indeed.
Great points here. I would like to add that lots of people love to throw around the fact that "each Dragon Age game was radically different from each other", but as a hardcore DA fan I simply don't agree with this statement because I think it's just being used as a marketing tool for Veilguard, specifically to distance itself from the previous games and say that it's "actually not a bad thing because look the previous games did it too!".
If you look at DAO, DA2, and DAI, you can very clearly call all of them Dragon Age games, even with the various changes to gameplay and slight tonal shifts they brought. DA2 was as much of a direct sequel to DAO Bioware could make in an extremely short development time, while still trying to fix issues that they had with Origins (such as the symmetrical combat system which caused them a lot of trouble in balancing the game - that's why they went for an asymmetrical combat system in DA2 so they could balance things more easily). They used the same engine as Origins slightly updated, they had a lot of the same abilities, there were very clear choices with consequences, you had companions who could love you or hate you, extremely dark storylines, interesting lore revelations, and I could go on. DAI was in my opinion an almost-perfect marriage between DAO and DA2, with really the only disappointing thing for me being the main story which felt like it had chunks of it missing (which it DID, because the writers were forced to cut out parts of the story due to budget and time reasons). However, even with DA2's lack of character customization (only one race + background) and its more action-focused combat, or Inquisition's more "open-world design" (which was fine, they just didn't have enough time to make enough GOOD quests to populate the areas with), they were still very recognizably Dragon Age games, at least to me as a DA fan since 2010. I greatly enjoyed my time with them (have about 4-5 finished playthroughs of DA2 and ~700 hours of Inquisition). I think the devs are throwing poop at the previous games because, I don't know, very clearly they couldn't even come close to making a game as good as DA2 which until now had been the most contentious game in the series due to its gameplay and reused areas. I would play DA2 any day, it's very fun and the story is amazing. You couldn't PAY me to play Veilguard. I tried to continue my playthrough last night and had to immediately exit the game after 45 minutes - that's as much as I could stomach.
You should make a videoabout why you could not continue playing. I would watch it.
@@spellandshield I will make a few videos critiquing Veilguard, but I also want to make my usual content too, so it'll take a while. But yeah, definitely going to make my own full analysis and critique, and can't wait to watch yours too!
@@btiermutineer I just need to get it over with. I could not finish the game; I made it 60+ hours in but the exhausting combat, boring characters and terrible pacing made it unbearable. I simply could not continue.
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the "all the games have been different from each other" excuse is pretty bs. Each game had pretty dark situations, hard to decide choices, characters with their own demons and characters that could be recognized between each game... I couldn't even tell Varric was Varric in Veilguard without that cheap name pop up saying who it was.
The most radical difference between 2 and Inquisition was the semi-open world and the baffling choice to completely remove healing 😢😢
I'm scared I'll get hate... but I'm semi-tourist. I started playing in tabletop rpgs sice I was 11. When I grow up I played many rpgs. But I have to admit I never cared that much about combat, the story and storytelling was the most important. And for me the part of every good story are companions. And I like romances. That's why I always loved Bioware games - they were perfect mix of good story, roleplay and companions.
It's funny that in DAV you don't even have good romance and companions - interaction with them is so shallow.
I am not going to hate on you. You can like what you like. I like good stories too.
I'm kind of baffled that, even with how large the numbers of people who are 'story and romance' only that bioware hasn't made stuff like dating sims, point and click adventure and dialogue tree-only games. They cram everything into a frankenstein abomination so that it appeals to no one
I'm also a semi-tourist, with a ca.30 year gap between gaming as a kid and as an adult. And I totally understand and respect your point of view.
I'm a bit of a die hard, playing D&D since 1982 and cRPGs since, hell, some ancient dungeon crawlers like Bard's Tale or adventure games like Zork, if those count. I like romance in my games, too, but only when it's done well, as an extension of great character writing. I can't stand how a lot of games treat romances these days, though. So, yeah, I'm with ya, bud, no hate here!
You should read books instead, if you're not interested in gameplay.
After seeing your video, I'm actually glad that you were able to preserve your sanity from this madness. You've served your sentence. Welcome back
What do you do when the devs become the tourists? It's ironic.
Romance is a big draw for me- particularly in fantasy and sci-fi settings. IMO a well-crafted romance subplot can elevate a story, adding depth to character development and emotional resonance to the overall narrative. However! For romance to be compelling, it needs a strong foundation - A good overall narrative, well-written dialogue, believable character development, and meaningful interactions that make us genuinely care about the character and the world. I’m seeing people celebrate the game’s “worst ending” where everyone dies. How can the devs expect us to fall in love with characters we actually want to see gone? Who is falling for these character models, these creepy looking facial animations, these out of sync lip-syncs and these horrible dialogues? I know, I know, different preferences and such but man...I am so disappointed.
I don't disagree. It can elevate a story but you need a story in the first place to elevate...
@@spellandshield exactly.
Tourists took over all the best established IPs, then mutated them so that no one could enjoy them.
Nah, CDPR still making games for adults and hopefully The Witcher 4 will remain that way.
Larian still releasing the games we love.
I think we'll see some other new design studios also release games that are like those we love.
The big publishers are failing but new ones will rise up.
@@ScytheNoire From what I have hear in regards to CDPR, and how they fully endorse the woke agenda...I really am skeptical about W4. They have earned my trust with their games in the past, but I am still gonna wait until I learn a little more after launch about the game. My days of pre-ordering are long behind me.
Stockholders want mass appeal, so they water everything down into bland slop.
I'll say the same about activists. I've come to the conclusion that you can't be activist and storyteller at the same time, because the former can't adopt the perspectives of people different from them, while the latter needs exactly that to make good stories.
@@ScytheNoire Most talent left CDPR, the writer for W4 is a activist. Disaster looms in the horizon for this franchise too. The Warhorse Studios absorved much of the devs leaving CDPR, Kingdom come deliverance 2 will be a treat.
Fans have a chance to just make their own DA though now and in fact it's already happening. DA:O is being remade by fans with the BG3 mod tool which has been jailbroken and allows for basically anything now
I wish the studios that produced the games I loved in the past could figure out that writing is important and not to produce watered down slop that takes no risks.
They figured it out. They just don’t care.
Nobody reads books anymore. New developers aren't coming in with much experience with storycraft.
This probably explains a lot of the entertainment industry staleness and the constant recycling of classics.
More than 90% of all games ever developed are trash, id say even more than 95%, a lot of that percentage are predatory money grabs with minimum effort. There are really not many games to play if you like only a certain genra.
He this is what happens when a generation of "writers" are just ex-tumblr fan fic trash...They have never had, nor ever will have an original thought, they just can bastardize other peoples stories.
I genuinely think that they just can't write good, even if their life depended on it.
I fell in love with the Dragon Age lore for a decade. If you look closer at Dragon Age lore, it actually referenced a lot of real-life history. Christianity schisms, Turkish (Qunari) invasion of Byzantine (Tevinter), Andraste being a Messiah and Joan of Arc figure, etc.
Those are politics that suit the "medieval" fantasy setting for Dragon Age. I remember Josephine from Inquisition argued that Andrastian Church is a major force for diplomacy in Thedas. And the arguments between the Divine candidates to reform, or enforce the Church. Then in the epilogue of Tresspasser, the Archon of Tevinter urging the southern Church for an Exhalted March (Crusade.) And I feel more immersed into the world of Thedas.
But when suddenly, it's about "Non-Binary," I just checked out. There's not even an effort to cloak it within the lore. It was just dropped into the game, complete with the childish "You should punish yourself if you misgender" message.
I think origins did romances better. And I completely agree. It was a small backdrop to the overall story. Just a little something that makes it a little more immersive. And being able to be besties with companions and learning their story as you go or pissing them off and having them leave. But overall it was you and you're group of chosen companions trying to stop the world from dying.
Replaying Origins now. The reason it did romance better is that it did writing, characters and dialogues brilliantly, and romance just happened to be a part of it.
It's fanfiction writers hired to write the official new chapter of the series. It's like if bronies who draw My Little Pony R34 would be hired to write new episodes of the series. You can be a wierd fan of a specific part of the franchize, but people like that should stay that way. Unlike videogames where modders often times become a good gamedevelopers - fanfiction writers is not the best choice for the actuall product.
Fanfiction would have been better than this
After seeing what a certain fanfiction writer did once Larian hired them for bg3, I must agre...
@@OldyAlbert fan fiction writing is actually 100x better than than the writing we got in this game.
@@Alwaysttangoi havent heard this story pleeeease elaborate you have me interested
Every dragon age game after origins got sabatage
100
Origins was gay, DA2 finally had some testosterone in it.
A 100%
@@tomigun5180 Da2 was full of gay romances.
@@SaltandDragons It's true, but you could avoid it. I could turn Isabela into a full blown heterosexual, by being a real man for her. I could execute the gay traitor. We had choices.
At this point these lesson should be learned already. As it happens time and time again. And BioWare was long turning to stripped down RPG to action game just like Square has been doing for a decade.
With these smaller companies time and time again showing these true rpg sell plenty. AAA will always be dumb down games.
Summer blockbusters, to expect more is a fail on the consumer at this point.
The gaming industry, particularly big publishers, have a very persistent bias against RPGs. A good example is an article I recently read about how Sega of America intentionally tried to sabotage Phantasy Star 4, which was one of the big JRPGs of the 90s and one of only a few major RPGs on the Genesis in an effort to prove the genre has no value. The same thing is still happening to this day. Hence denouncing BG3 as anomalous and successful solely due to its IP.
If you can't play an evil asshole, you are not playing an RPG. That's definitely a part if what makes a good RPG. When you can take different paths and get a different experience.
that combat looks exhausting
It is...it is awful and tedious. It is fun for 2-3 hours after that, just painful.
Yeah ive never gotten the people dickriding it like its a positive feature of the game fun for maybe 2 hours and then you just kind if realize how abysmal it is
Oh yeah, forgot to mention in my previous comment but figured this deserves its own comment. I don't think the "players who enjoy romances" subgroup is inherently incompatible with "players who enjoy deep RPG storytelling" or even combat. Personally, I don't give a sh*t about combat in an RPG because I mostly play it for the story. If the story in Veilguard had been good, I would have suffered through the terrible combat for it. If combat is bad, I turn the difficulty as low as it can go or get a mod to skip fights or something like that so that I can enjoy the story. And I even enjoy romances in games, IF they're done well. Until Veilguard, Bioware managed to make quite compelling romances in DA - I played through most of the romances myself, and watched the rest out of curiosity online, and yes they're all actually very well done even if I maybe didn't want to personally experience a romance with every single one of those characters.
What I think is strange, however, is that Bioware seems to have full-on focused on the "players enjoying romances" part of the equation and completely forgotten that most of the players who love romances in RPGs ALSO want for the game to have a good story, strong lore and worldbuilding, and more importantly believable dialogue and deep characterization. There is a TINY subset of players who only enjoy the romance and nothing else, and, well, we can absolutely see that in Veilguard's abysmal sales. There is also a tiny subset of players who will just play the equivalent of junk food in video game form for like 40 hours and then move onto something else, not caring at all about the quality of what they just played. But it's a baffling business decision to try to sell your game to these two tiny groups of gamers - especially a game that has been in development for so many years and has to recoup huge development costs, especially a game part of a huge IP that could draw in so many more sales (like Inquisition which sold like 12 million copies I believe?).
In all honesty, sometimes when I look at this game I wonder if someone at EA wanted to make a negative example out of Veilguard and thus allowed the game to become so terrible in order for them to later have far more objective reasons to deny developers the inclusion of various types of content in their games, to have more control over the developers they own by giving such a huge example of a flop whenever they veto the devs' choices.
On one hand, that sounds insane. EA and their shareholders only care about money and want to be as rich as the ancient kings.
But there is a compelling logic to your point! Over time we’ll be able to see whether or not they greenlit Veilguard as an example of what not to do.
Appreciate feedback Lord Mutineer!
I'm also more a story driven rpg player. And I'm not ashamed to play on easy mode if combat is to hard for me 😅 And I'm one of romance enjoyers, but like you said I need good story and good dialogs. So what if I can romance 7 companions when interactions with them are so disappointig. I would prefer no romance at all if we could get better game.
I'd say it's far simpler than that - it's much easier and cheaper to do a superficial simple action game. Especially when you have the bones of one already developed to be an MMO. Hence the technical execution is pretty decent but most everything else is lacking (versus a full AAA RPG as was anticipated).
@@sapkowska I value complex builds, and very challenging combat myself. I like to really earn my characters progression, and the pride of building a meta class type that can handle business.
Most of the new “fans” started with Dragon Age: Inquisition. Most of them can’t even finish Orgins because “it’s outdated”
The key aspect of Role Playing Games, imho, is the ability to *play a role* of the player's choosing. It's right there in the name. One of the many reasons I didn't finish playing Dragon Age Inquisition was because I could not play my character *in*-character. The slog was a nightmare for someone with only a few hours a week to game, but mostly, I wasn't invested in the story because I wasn't invested in the character that was supposed to be my vehicle for driving the narrative.
The Veil Guard has taken this to the extreme of offering exactly zero player agency. You can slap the coat of paint of your choosing onto Rook, but it doesn't matter. The only "role" you can play is the one Bioware set for you. The formula of this game, its writing and even the cadence of the voice acting follow the pattern of shows I watched with a 3-year-old, which are aimed at an audience of children 2-6 years of age. To market this formula at *adults* is simply bewildering.
The only reason anyone is acknowledging this game at all, is because Dragon Age is a long-established IP. If this was an indie studio with a new title, it would have been ignored by the vast majority and slated to the point of annihilation by people paid to play the thing.
People need to realize, gatekeeping is actually a GOOD thing...
Yep because once gaming went full mainstream it really ended up turning to shit
What on earth even is the gate you are guarding here? Bioware has been all about companions, companion dramas and romances for decades.That is what fans of DA, ME have come to expect. From what I've seen, Veilguard, its writing and companions have some massive issues. if you think romances themselves are among these issues..why on earth you even looking at direction of BW RPGs.Kinda like disliking hockey, buying EA's NHL 2024 and being upset it has hockey in it.
@@mikkom7475 not sure what you are trying to get all up in arms. But the statement was pretty clear, when you want to go mainstream you will always dilute the material till it becomes a shallow summer blocker buster.
Not sure how that concept got so lost on you. And you only took away romance bad..
You are almost 30 years late to gatekeep.
Bioware: I’ve got nothing to say to you.
Renegade Players: How about goodbye?
Bioware going to to EA and EA meddling with the development of DA2 was the beginning of the end. EA wanted to make dragon age mainstream like mass effect. It totally destroyed the spirit of dragon age which was the spiritual heir of their D&D licensed game. There's nothing left to save at this point
It's called standardization, they call it "Gaming Industry" for a reason. That process can be found in any given industry. The main goal being -> create a standard for (UI , controls, storytelling etc etc), which leads to predictable formula of investment to profit. The only thing that stands in the way of Gaming Industry achieving a completion of that most important process is the people who know what games are , what makes a game etc. "It feels like the developers hate us" some notice ; That's because they do , they need not gamers but consumers.
Imagine an "odd" game that does not abide by the standards of the Industry , with it's "clunky" controls and a non-console standard UI , which gamers suddenly love in mass (like all of those original IPs , DA origins included). That means the standard that the industry pushing can easily become outdated. That means profit loses , unpredictable sales etc etc
Well said.
Maybe that's the thing they don't realize-You can't standardize entertainment. People will always crave novel experiences over formulaic ones. Maybe stuff like Marvel movies has held on for a bit longer than expected, but that too will die, given enough time.
@@Maxie962 And that is why , in my humble opinion, they might bring politics in , so that it evolves beyond entertainment and becomes personal , aligned with political views. And now an IP is a battleground to be claimed. And here you have it, an audience of consumers, predicted sales and safe investment , government subsidies possibly.
@@chinaporkvas2105 It is indeed a terrible state of affairs. People have seemingly forgotten that entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable, in some form. Do people really draw enjoyment out of affirmative identity politics? In my opinion, shoving politics into media is pretentious if presented without a hint of satire or irony.
I really can't see how "predictable profit" was the goal here. I can see that with other titles like Hogwarts Legacy, where they heavily borrowed entire scenes from the movie, the MC being mostly a blank slate, and having some token inclusion characters here and there without them being particularly good or bad.
Veilguard however is so heavily entrenched in one side of the culture war, that anyone who didn't expect that it would be shunned by at least 50% of the population, shouldn't work in any sales job at all.
Veilguard broke the lore on so many occasions that its barely the same franchise. Its MC is not a blank slate but a full blown current-day-NPC-ally™ who is incredibly apologetic for "protected groups" while being hyper judgemental, over the top confrontational and offensive towards white guys with power (Solas and the first Warden). It's token characters are shoved into your face, and you are never given the option to reject them or kill them as known from previous entries in the series.
So no, this game was not made for predictable profit. It's blatant propaganda, its only way to make money is being paid off by blackrock for fulfilling its purpose.
I grew up with BioWare games (I guess I’m a tourist in your eyes cause I was born in the 90s) and I’m one of the people that enjoys the romance aspect of rpgs. That being said that’s not why I play dragon age or rpgs in general. I play for the story. Dragon age’s universe was so much fun because your choices felt like they mattered. The lore was complex and the world felt like it was a living thing. Crafting theories was the best part of the series. My problem with this game is just how sanitized everything became. The crows, an organization that bought children off the slave market and tortured them into master assassins that will be killed for failures, gets turned into a group of morally righteous rebels. BioWare looked at this IP and said nuance? Don’t need it. This follows into countries like Tevinter, where a slave empire that knowingly has blood mages in the highest levels of government, gets no pay off. This game is safe, that’s not a good thing. No one is allowed to be bad/morally grey. Hell even the companions have to be morally upstanding. Even the assassin with a literal demon inside him. The game acts like the player is a child who needs to have their morals and world view force fed to them, which really feels like a slap in the face to the fan base who has been here since origins. I’ve read all the books, listened to the podcast, and watched the tv show. And for what? Because none of it mattered in the end. The devs didn’t care about this world and it really shows. I don’t want to see this IP fail because it has been an obsession of mine for practically the majority of my life, but if this installment is a harbinger of the direction the series will end up, then I don’t want it. I want Thedas not the Disney version
If I was limited to say one thing that is wrong with the game, I would say it has to do with a wrongheaded dedication to safety. Authentic stories and settings are not a safe space. Authentic characters are not safe. The human condition is not safe. If you write your story with the goal of being as non-challenging as possible to everyone's sensibilities, you end with a bloodless, sterile void. And Dragon Age: The Veilguard is largely that, excepting, notably, only some events around characters from older games. The beautiful landscapes make a world which is a joy to walk around. The lore, as far as it's not been butchered, is as fascinating as ever, but is is history, because there are no real human beings left.
Mark Darrah, ex-project lead of Dragon Age, has published a video titled "The consequences of leading through fear" 10 days ago. I do not think the timing is a coincidence. I get the impression that Bioware's writers were lead through fear, fear of writing the wrong thing by some unnamed standards of safety and non-offensiveness.
Whether positive or negative, effective word of mouth marketing starts with an IP’s core audience. If you dismiss that audience you’re kneecapping yourself before you even start
Funny how the former Lead Writer of the Dragon Age franchise had the nerve to label people as tourists because in his view the series had been woke from the start.
Erm, no it hadn't, it had Bisexual characters in it yes... but he of all people should know the first proper out and out Lesbian, Gay and Transexual characters (Brothel inhabitants don't count, everyone knows that was done for giggles) was in Inquisition and other than Dorian's quest in Redcliffe being akin to Taash's meeting with their mum (but better written, I'll give him praise on that), it was nowhere near as in your face as Taash spouting off about how they are non-binary and all the other poorly written dialogue the terrible voice actor of them could produce.
I can understand him wanting to stick up for former colleagues that he is most likely still friends with, it wouldn't surprise me if he approved of decisions they made from a story point of view but to make that claim he did is just absurd because I think you hit the nail on the head that the true 'tourists' to this franchise are these people that are loving this terrible game.
I looked at some video last night that an alleged 'Bioware fan' had posted of them starting Veilguard and in the comments section I noticed they stated they had only played Inquisition and half of Origins. I immediately exited the video because that to me isn't a Bioware fan, thats just someone that picked up Inquisition, enjoyed that, heard good things about Origins, tried to play it but it was too complicated for them (I'll wager they stopped playing when they got to the Fade or Orzimmar). But yeah they were also saying the loved the combat in Veilguard so yeah.... clearly a tourist to the franchise.
One thing irritating me about people saying it is a return to form, not once have I seen them explain WHY they think it is a return to form and what game they deem as being the dip in form to basically say it is better than that. Considering I know what happens in the last quest and some other stuff including how quests are completed, to me it looks like a poor persons Mass Effect 2 but with added feature of you being forced to recruit everyone... (Agent Stansfield: EVERYONE!) rather than having an option to not bother with some if you didn't want.
I imagine if they had allowed people to be able to choose who they recruited, a certain someone would most likely be lead contender for 'Least recruited' and of course there is no way this current team at Bioware would've let that happen.
The IP was always woke, it was just hidden at first (many people still think "progressive" is something different than "woke"). Now they thought it's time to reveal themselves but of course it was too early (and will always be too early, because of human nature).
It's ultimately on the company to whom they decide to cater to, the rest will be decided by profitability. It is on us to move on. I've done so with many franchises I once thought I'd love forever.
I want the Dragon Age 2 Slander to stop. DA2 FELT Like a Sequel to Origins, it was still dark and very closely related to the first game. People may not want to accept it but The issues with Dragon Age started with Dragon Age Inquisition. Inquisition dropped the dark fantasy and went with high fantasy. Why Mike Laidlaw decided to do that for DAI will probably never be known. SO I would like to say, "Tourists" as you call them aren't the main people responsible for the ruination of Dragon age, it was Bioware (Specifically Mike Laidlaw, Mark Darrah and their team) and EA.
I agree, I was really pissed when dragon age 2 came out because of the consolification of the combat versus orgins. I returned after a year or so when I was ready to accept it, I was suprised that the story and companions was as good as they were. Not origins level but pretty good. For inquisition it was obvious that the safe space modern audience had destroyed the tone of the game and the mmo style grind quests was unbearable, tried twice to like it but both times I abandoned my runs and I knew Bioware as I had known them were dead. I had zero hopes for Veilguard long before even seeing the first trailer.
It was just undercooked, but some scenes were top notch still and the tone of the world was upheld and expanded into a personal drama of Hawke. Companions ended up underdeveloped throughout 3 acts, but that could be pinned on the lack of content to play their quests more
Romance in RPG video games really started after early CRPGs some of which had really compelling characters that players wanted to form a relationship. Not for bonking pixels. In an RPG, if you don't have the base of compelling characters, Romance is a huge and awkward detriment.
Agree with you about Owlcat, and I was a kickstarter supporter for all theirs games..
Every exaggerated face looks the work of the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills from escape from LA
It's the ideology of the people who made this that's the root of everything that's wrong here. All the casualness, softness, the lack of 'mean' dialogue options and simple puzzles, all of it, is the result of that certain socio-political lens being rigidly applied to game development. It's equity at work, which means the lowest common denominator.
Meaningful character interactions are almost exemplified by romance. It's like taking everything you would want in friendships with these NPCs and then putting another layer on top. When it's done well. I hate the way most games are doing romances these days (it's one of my biggest issues with BG3, despite how much I love that game), but the way Bioware did them in the '00s...if only what we had now was iterations of that. Man! I still can't get over how great my FemShep's romantic relationship with Liara felt, and her close friendship with Garrus. I miss that kind of depth with NPCs (admittedly, those were built over 3 games).
As a fan of otome (a type of visual novel x dating sim game), even I HATE the way they handle romance in Veilguard. I do think romance is necessary in RPG, mostly because they're part of the human experience and decision-making (to romance or not to romance), which is one of the cores of RPG, and it can also really enrich the story (such as the case with Inquisitor Lavellan with Solas). However, it should NEVER come at the cost of good storytelling. I specifically brought up Lavellan and Solas because I really did think that was one of the most compelling romances I've had in a video game, so you know that I'm one of the gamers who are looking forward to see how that unfolds in Veilguard. But even I am disappointed by Veilguard.
You should know that even with otome games, which has a heavy focus on romance, players won't put up with a bad story. To us, romance IS part of the story, so if the overall story is crap, the romance won't be compelling either. I've seen a couple of romance scenes from Veilguard and they make my stomach hurl. As much as it's a cliche, they feel as if they're written by teenagers who have just started learning to write on Wattpad or tumblr (which is fine, everyone has got to start somewhere), but this is a huge triple A game developed by a huge company with more budget. They could and SHOULD afford better, more experienced writers. Actually, it's downright embarrassing for Veilguard writers when I've read fanfics with way better storytelling and romance than whatever they did in Veilguard.
So yeah I mostly agree with your points, though I just want to add that romance is nice to include as part of making choices in an RPG, but that's just it: it SHOULD be PART of the story, NOT the FOCUS, so one should focus on writing a good story overall (including the romance that come with a rich world with rich stories and lore). They are focusing on romance for the sake of it instead of incorporating it into a good story so that the two blends beautifully. I just think anyone who likes Veilguard either has shitty taste or is stupid, or they don't actually take any of this seriously, brushing things off as "It's just a game!" when for me, games are NOT "just a game". They've been a crutch for many times in my miserable life, so I don't appreciate my anger about how things are twisted to be brushed off as just "You're being dramatic over some game."
Lastly, I just wanna share that I'm actually the type to put up with meh combat (the minimum requirement being that they're at least playable and fun) as long as the story is good, and seeing the writing in Veilguard... It just BAFFLES me how people can put up with this game for the writing alone. The writing is what instantly turned me off when I would've given the cartoony art style, unappealing companions, and mediocre combat a chance IF the story/writing was good. Now I know that that's not the case, the only redeeming quality of the game I can say is the environment design. That's it. But I can simply flip through artbooks to satisfy that itch than put up with hours of a horrible game just to see pretty buildings in the sky.
Dragon Age since inquisition is turning into a high fantasy romance franchise and there is a lot of people who enjoy this there's no turning back
Off topic but I'm currently playing Witcher 1 and Gothic 2 again. I'm having so much fun. They just grab you from the moment you see the main menu. This is how games are supposed to be. How I miss those days.
Personally, I prefer W2 to W1. The controls for W1 are just really....really....bad.
Witcher 1 is still my favourite. Such a great game.
Sales figures apparently around 500k? Imagine a proper RPG (story, mechanics, char progression) in a lore rich DA world aimed at original fans, without any mention of real world politics. It could probably top that number.
Slightly unrelated but I really hope KCD2 and Avowed can fill the fantasy rpg hole that many fans have. I know KCD2 isn’t fantasy but it’s medieval so close enough and from the gameplay footage I’ve seen it looks like it might be a candidate for best rpg of the decade but that’s just me. I’m also really interested in avowed and I hope it’s good because obsidian needs a win. Also if avowed is good it will make me more excited for outer worlds 2 because the first one was so close to being great.
Blessed are the Spooky posts! I have full faith in both games. They will be protected from the likes of the people I talked about; KCD2 has a male protagonist, kryptonite to these people and Avowed has no romance...also kryptonite to these people!
Diving after a drunkard’s body into a shitter in 15th century Bohemia is peak medieval experience, can’t wait to play it
Your channel is one of the best informative channels about RPGs! Thank you so much for great summary 🤍 Hope that things will change and great old games like DA:O will return 🙏🏻 (in form of remakes, mods, ec...)
I love how you can't have bigger eyes or a feminine chin because of "clipping issues" and "animation limitations", but uncanny abominations like this are perfectly fine. I wonder why.
Every woman in DAV looks like transwomen. That is their agenda.
I bet modders (if there will be some) will demonstrate that their reasons are lies.
You annot have bigger eyes because human beings are not dolls and anime is not real.
@@nifftbatuff676Are you really saying the character proportions in Veilguard are realistic? Are you really using an appeal to realism in s game where the very DEFENSE for the unrealistic, anachronistic, anti-medieval world is, "If you can believe in wizards, you can believe in this world"?
@@nifftbatuff676 this game feels like it was made by Disney, so it might as well look like it.
Larian caught lightning in a bottle.
So did bioware in origins but yeah even Larian said they couldnt make BG3 again if they tried and that people shouldnt have high hopes for their next game
Some of the subtext shaping our presumed mutual dissatisfaction with this game might differ, but I have said the following verbatim - this is an RPG for people who hate RPGs. I don't think I've ever forced myself to keep playing a game like I have this one, even though I ultimately did not finish it either. Appreciate the commentary.
Good sir, I agree with you on so many levels. I started playing RPGs in the same timeframe as you; I went from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse to the original Final Fantasy (whaddaya mean I have to wait on my Fighter attacking Sir Garland???) and fell in love with the genre almost immediately.
I don’t blame any part of the LGTBQ community for having stories to tell. However, I do blame the decision makers and the activists who implement those stories.
Taash is an incredibly controversial character. Instead of using her to preach to us in real life, it would have been far more fair and interesting to see her challenge Qunari society, maybe even begin changing it. I recall hearing originally that the Qun had a very rigid social/gender structure.
Fictional politics are more than fine! I like games/books/movies that make me actually go deep and think. But if you can’t put a real life political agenda in a game without force feeding it to the masses, then please don’t!
I’m alright with game romances, so long as they’re not the biggest draw for a game. Morrigan and Alister were successful in this regard because their romantic arcs were beloved by many people who were more there for the tactical combat and rich narrative of the game.
Activists don’t play games, the fans do. The sooner game companies remember this the better.
I think you might have nailed the real problem here with those “tourist fans” who want relationship (shipping) development rather than rpg story and battle system development.
This is exactly what happened with Disney Star Wars and the ‘Reylo’ shippers who ONLY wanted a satisfactory pay off on their preferred romantic relationship to the point of not even caring about the core story!
Plus they were toxic and abusive as heck if you even dared to suggest that the franchise wasn’t meant to be just a big shaggin simulator!😵💫
-SSKTheJL
-The entirety of Sweet Baby Inc's Catalog that can be confirmed that they worked on via Sweet Baby Detected
-Dustborn
-Concord
-Star Wars Outlaws
-Dragon Age: Veilguard
Dont MAKE this list as LONG as Hollywood's SJW Creative Failures.
This is why Gatekeeping is necessary at times.
I had this exact discussion with my sister yesterday and your analysis perfectly captures the divide between us, one who has played crpgs for over 20 years, and the other, someone who started crpgs less than 10 years ago, who said "this game wasn't made for you".
That they would take a franchise and make a sequel not intended for the original fanbase of that franchise, is unwise, disrespectful and unforgiveable.
When people who should be playing dating sims invade a RPG series
Great take sir. Very happy to hear what you have to say. Particularly on the politics within veilguard. Tired of hearing people write off that point as a moot point. Especially when clear effort was painstakingly taken to force irl politics in the game to the detriment of the writing or other important parts of an rpg
"Taking a Bharv" when misgendering a clear female was the most cringe thing I've ever seen in an RPG
I wonder if tourists also took over tabletop rpgs like dnd.. This would explain quite a bit
Looking at the discourse on X, yeah, it's all about how their character looks and the romances with the companions.
I dont think I agree that they should stay in their lane or the whole tourist thing. What i think is that the devs creating the game is built up of individuals that find that part of the game the most appealing or think that that is what the fans want.
And if the devs use X as a way to engage with the fans or god forbid the DA sub reddit, then the loud thirsty majority that posts there will make them think that, yeah that's what they want.
And EA will let them make whatever they think will bring in the most cash.
The thirsty fans aren't the problem. The devs/Studio is.
They agreed on this. They made this, and they shipped this.
If they are satisfied selling 500 000 copies instead of 5-12 millions, I'd say they should go for it! 🤣
This video is so good, its a crime it only has 12k views
All that's left for BioWare is re-releasing Dragon Age Origins and KOTOR with updated graphics.
All BioWare can do now is polish up the trophies they won a long time ago.
It is Saber Interactive that is supposedly working on KOTOR Remake, not Bioware
The Dragon Age creator David Gaider said we are all Tourists for disliking Veilguard. He was correct, we are all tourists. Because Veilguard isn't a Dragon Age game at all and does not resemble his original work and it even retcons everything he worked on. He doesn't realise that he is a tourist himself ever since he left Bioware and left the IP in the hands of incompetent writers.
I cannot agree enough with your video, all of it. It's so refreshing to see a guy in the rpg scene who doesn't ignore or minimize the activism, tourists, and casualization of games. I've played RPGs for 14 years I'm tired of my favorite genre and hobby being ruined because of someone's fetish. The sad thing is I'm seeing some of the same signs CDPR that's destroyed Bioware, and it's depressing.
Well, at least some people are waking up to the reality that most games have been corrupted from the inside, albeit a little late 😂
Thank you so much for your video and the coherent explanation. I came to the whole crpg genre 4 years ago with DA: Inquisition (funny as it is), but I played all DA games 3 times ( in the order: 3-1-2), then Pillars of Eternity 1-2, Tyranny, the Pathfinder games, the Mass Effect trilogy, The Witcher 3, BG3, Greedfall - just to mention a few. I truly wish we'd got the DA: Dreadwolf with the darker tones, and based on the previous concept arts and story. Veilguard is really an abomination (and a joke) in every aspect compared to Origins. Now I'm waiting for Avowed and wish that GreedFall 2 will be as good as I hope it to be. Spiders went back to the tactical route in combat where BioWare chose action rpg.
Glad to have you in the RPG space!
Try BG 1 and 2, if you can stomach 'ancient games'.
@@raketensven3127 Thank you, I definitely can! 🙂 I played BG2 as a teen (30 years ago), have both in my GOG library, and they are ideed a good start for the new year. Recently playing The Force Unleashed, but will surely get back to the more tactical track and fantasy setting.
Gaming has been taken over by theatre kids, as well as entertainment as a whole. Also politics in games was fine before because it was in the context of the world and it wasnt preached exclusively from one side. New Vegas for example you can choose a side.
First, thank you for the video been long time since I saw a video I 100% agree upon. Secondly I've personally never felt part of the DA community's because it always seem like we were never in agreement with DA origins enjoyment (I was in senior year so there weren't social media to the present extent) I took me years later to understand was because my focus was rather in the lore and gameplay rather than their romance preferences and fanfic
It's not just this game that's abomination but modern-day Bioware, too. They were legendary once, they revolutionised the RPG genre in their prime.
If they screw up writing in general, how could they expect a satisfying resolution to the Solas romance? Through a happy accident?
I wouldnt call them tourists.
What they are, lets be honest.
COlonizers.
They colonized the genre. Made it unrecognizable.
And when a true scion of the genre came out in BG3, most of them cried because it was "too complicated."
This is why gatekeeping is not bad at all and in fact an important part of protecting communities from subversion and rot.
I could be wrong but if the choice and consequence was more prevalent in this game a lot more people would be receptive to it. ME2 was basically a 3rd person shooter with some story choices and people loved it. There weren’t any deep build or tactics options you picked a class. DA 2 released a year after ME2 with an action focus. I don’t think that was a coincidence. I believed that’s what they were going for here but didn’t hit the mark. Starting out as a live service game probably didn’t help either but inquisition started in the same boat.
Another simple way I've heard it. People who used to make fun of you for liking (RPGs) are now making (RPGs).
Now you start to see the light. I have also been playing CRPGS since the late 80's. It was certainly never like it is now.
The obsession of romance and focusing on the sexuality of characters certainly hurts the writing more than it aids in anyway. And seeing that the dragon age fan base at least on twitter, reddit and in some forums seem to constantly echo the same things about Zevran, Dorian, Iron Bull, Sera, Isabela, etc; just tells me that the franchise was ultimatley hijacked by shippers and terrible fanfic writers. I remember Zevran for tell me about his childhood, his time with the Crows and his love of Antivan leather. Dorian as a patriot who despite his falling out with his father, lived by the ideals the man taught him. Sera as annoying as I find her at least has an interesting concept of a person just lost in a world of demons and magic, struggling to get by and pulling pranks on nobles. Isabela loved living by her own rules and refused to be tied down to anything or anyone. Iron Bull with his struggling to still live by the Qun despite not only being away from it for so long but also living among people that knew him the Iron Bull leader of the Chargers, not Iron Bull the Ben-hassrath. These characters were so much more than their sexualities and romances that if you removed them they would still be great characters, yes even Dorian as hard as that is to believe. So for them to be remembered only for their sexuality, I think speaks volumes about the maturity level of the audience that Veilguard attracted.
Dragon Age was a dark fantasy story that dealt with a lot of topics that not only added flavor to the world but helped to keep a player invested in their own character and the companions they made. Whatever this is with and after Veilguard isn't Dragon Age.
This SO accurate.
These "modern audience" morons are invading and ruining other genres.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say in this video but I think the more important question is why did Bioware start catering to these quite frankly, simple minded newbies? Why would Bioware abandon their core fan base?
Tbh it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of these “fans” also love movies like twilight and 50 shades of grey
I mean the “fans” you are talking about in the video are exactly like Reylos in the Star Wars Fandom
Trash game but you are right we can all learn a lesson from this mess. Hope other developers do; that is even more important.
The only way you can gatekeep the companies who make the product is by both not giving them money and by expressing your displeasure. If you fail these two basic tasks, you cannot gatekeep the products that they produce.
You said the two pillars are combat system and impactful story. I would add interesting and morally ambiguous characters and good writing for a game to really rise to the top. Sadly, Vielguard has none of these things. Bioware isn't Bioware anymore.
Sure, companions are part of the story though for me.
No, what actually happened is that gaming went mainstream - inevitably so with computers and consoles being widespread - and because of that there is now a huge audience of people who play games. 30% of them are the true geeks, who delve deep into stories, lore, gameplay, characters and worldbuilding. 70% of them are casual players who just want something to pass the time. This is the same audience that watches all the crappy series on Netflix, they don't really think about these things much because it's a passtime, not a passion.
Both of them have a right to exist, it's normal. It's inevitable. But the problem, the actual problem, is that franchises that have historically been by and for the geeks among gamers, have been directed towards the larger audience. And with that came a steep drop in quality. Why? Because it doesn't matter, they'll buy and play it anyway, and be entertained and then move on. Meanwhile the geeks are having to siftt through oceans of low quality trash to find the gems. Owlcat's games, Larian's games, Warhorse Games.
See, a game like Veilguard has a right to exist. It's trash, sure, but whatever. Let the 70% have their games. The real problem is that this is DRAGON AGE, which is NOT a franchise that should be this crappy. It's not that the recent Disney movies have been trash, it's that they've turned franchises that meant something to people INTO trash. That's the actual problem. The monetising of existing IP's by rebranding them for a wider audience that doesn't care about quality.
I've cringed so hard when I saw that Taash is non-binary. I mean you can explore topics like that in your game but then don't use modern day terminology, instead make it fit the story and make it interesting.
In Inquisition it was mentioned that there is a concept in the qun for people who are "born as one gender, but choose to live as the other" and while this concept was criticised by some people it actually raises interesting questions about qunari culture, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.
On one hand it is interesting that a philosophy like the qun would allow such a thing, on the other hand it does makes sense for a culture with such strict gender roles to have concepts like that (like some real examples in our past).
Example: For qunari it is impossible that a woman is a warrior, because women just aren't warriors in the qun so therefore it makes sense that a female warrior to them is a man in all except appearance.
So I just finished this video and im compelled to leave a second comment. Spell.....this might be your best video. You hit on the real world politics in the best way possible. You explained it perfectly. You are slowly becoming my favorite youtube channel. I know you've called Wolfheart "Lord of the mane" but you sir.....are "Lord of the Role-playing genre". PLEASE keep making videos. Im very interested to follow your "Exodus" content.
I'm praying, that Avowed will not share same fate.
Well, that game will not have romances, so it already isn't going to be something those people end up playing.
It is protected, no romance means these people will stay away from it.
This is a very good analysis video. Dragon Age started fading away with Dragon Age 2. Coming from someone who've played all the other games multiple times I'd say Veilguard isn't even on the list of games waiting to be played. I will never touch this game.
Wrath of the righteous is fantastic, I just got off playing it before watching this.
I’m very glad you brought up the inquisition problem. I was tremendously disappointed with that game. There was so much unfulfilled potential, and it genuinely felt like who you romanced was far more important than meaningfully resolving story arcs -then burying the most consequential portion of its entire shallow narrative in a DLC was absolutely unforgivable. Otherwise, it had no substance to it, no weight, no heft, no emotional resonance.
And it’s like these developers took the worst aspects of inquisition, then decided to do a reboot of the entire franchise around them, to cater to actual tourists.
We do not get veilguard without the poorly written Tumblr mess of inquisition.
"Some of these people mod out combat completely. Soul priority is romance and desire to copulate with pixels on a screen." *cough* Dragon Age community council *cough cough*.
Thank you for this video, and thank you for the "tourists" term. This is what I was thinking inside my head for years now.
Unfortunately we've witnessed this lesson with Saints Row and still they haven't learned yet...
Owlcat failed at puzzles and sort of failed at crusade/kingdom management. 🤣
But I get your point. I think a better comparison might be BG3 with previous games.
BG3 tried to please everyone, and drastically changed compared to BG1 and BG2. But the difference is that they listened to feedback, which came from a lot of hardcore D&D players (like myself) and they shifted the combat to be more faithful to actual D&D rules, even though the end product still had a lot of homebrew. A long period of early access helped with that.
As for Dragon Age, yeah, not only did they drastically change the tone/style of the game, and even combat, they never actually paid attention to feedback from the customers. And that's always a big red flag. Even though I was enjoying the combat initially, I already stopped playing due to the boredom of meaningless side quests with repetitive combat lol.
Sure; I dislike the management stuff but you cannot have everything and the puzzles are awful but the overall game is good. The playerbase seems divided on the management stuff. I don't like it but some people do.
Dei ruind dragon age 4 and killed dragon age, my favorite story. I want vengeance! Dei is poison!
I'd argue that the "core Dragon Age audience" are the people that also read the books, comics, make the fan art, come up with the theories, etc. Those people tend to also enjoy the romance subplots. I've been playing BioWare games since BG1 in the 90s. I'm sure you remember this, but by the time DAO came out, romance options were already a major selling point of BioWare games, because no one else was really doing it at the time. It was what made BioWare games special.
When we talk about "tourists" in the DA fandom, we're talking about the people that clearly have never actually played the games that are invading the fandom's spaces, saying things like DA has "gone gay", as if DAO didn't have LGBT characters 6 years before gay marriage was even legal. I remember a similar invasion happening when DAI came out too, though to a much lesser degree.
Well, no, we aren't the tourists, the redditor mob is. As a proud far-right person could play the first two games, easily dismissing the gayness in them. I even could execute the gay traitor towards the end of DA2. I stopped playing Inquisition after 2 hours, all the colors, all the armor designs screamed at me "GAAAY!!!" I obviously won't touch Veilguard, where you can't roleplay anymore, you can't be offensive towards the characters you don't like, and of course you can't kill them. Oh and in my country gay marriage is still forbidden of course, because it's pure nonsense.
I play the Dragon Age Inquisition game for the story, the combat to me is a part of that story. I agree with you on all accounts. When I just want to build a family in a video game, I play my Sims 4 game
Even some Dragon age 2 and Inquisition fans hate Veilguard truly a game for no fans of the series.
GREAT eloquent video. I really would LOVE to see you and Wolfheart FPS debate Renfail on this game.
Oh you mentioned these mobs should be playing Sims in your video, well guess what? Did you know the story director for the veilguard is someone who directed the Sims game's in the past? No I'm not kidding look it up if you want. We truly live in clown world. Either way excellent video as always!
You practically gave a lesson on how these big developers should treat their fans and improve their successful franchises. There's no need to "reinvent" the core mechanics or replace the audience, that's for arrogant and greedy people. Imagine if Dragon Age Origins had followed the core design to this day? Maybe it would be more successful than BG3. RPGs are made to be polished. And for me, the more complex and logical an RPG is, the better. This idea of simplifying everything has destroyed many games. I don't want to turn off my brain while playing games, we have to be challenged, to put our neurons to work, damn it! If someone doesn't like that, then they simply don't like RPGs.
FF7 was anti capitalism and climate activism. But it was written by smart men that did not use their game to lecture their audience like a disdainful schoolmarm. Star Trek was leftist activism but written by smart men with the setting and characters belonging to a masculine military organization (star fleet)
You could argue that about King's Quest and Quest for Glory, too. Sierra games were made by California liberals, but they still had good stories and unfortunately a lot of puns. It was endearing after a while, like dad jokes.
Diversity Age: The Tumblrguard
after playing this vailguard is nothing like inquisition
Remember the sassiness of Dorian and Zevran? The epic mental chess match between Iron Bull and Solas? Man I miss those days...