BioWare please explain to me why no elves would follow Solas because he was too extreme in wanting to tear down the veil and return them all to immortality and power. But the gods can get men and qunari to help them destroy the whole world? There is no logic.
There IS Logic and that’s why the ball was dropped SO HARD, and you see it in Origins. The Elves HATED and distrusted Fen’Harel. The Dalish faced his statues AWAY from their villages, because they blamed him for their fall. So, it makes sense (and should have been a major plot point) that the elves didn’t want to follow him once they discovered who he was to them. The Elves may have been MORE susceptible to the warp and demons, especially given how they were played by demons in the first 3 games. ONLY SOLACE could’ve survived unscathed. He might’ve killed ALL of them.
#VeilguardSpoilers Do you remember the scene with the Venatori and Elgar'non was talking to them though telepathy thought control? He was using powerful mind control and even the Veilguard were under his power if it was not for Bellara being able to break his influence on them, they were literally trapped. The types of people he could easily control and influence.
To be fair, he also failed miserably by accidentally creating the veil. Also he explicitly tells a romanced inquisitor that he doesn’t want her following him because he is “walking the din’an shir’al” where he knows there is “only death on this journey”. So it’s not the same as the rebellion, he knows he’s going off to do something that will kill LOTS of people.
I mean, the guys probably enjoys having terrible blood circulation in his lower limbs and varicosis aged 50-something, that's why he wishes to reach lichdom early. AM I TAKING STUPID PILLS?! HOW CLUELESS ARE THESE PEOPLE?!
words cannot describe how disappointed I am about the entire AMA in general. the fact that they completely ignored comments that were asking about plot holes, the narrative, even the Golden Nug, was upsetting considering the fact though that Epler is a self-proclaimed Solas hater, to the point that that was the entire reason he killed Varric off is even more upsetting I'm just going to stick with believing that DAV is a spin-off and not canon.
Truth be told, the answer as to what happened to Solas's army doesn't sit right with me at all. I don't buy it. I 100% agree BioWare completely dropped the ball on this.
I think the impact of developers being scared to add dark/mature themes in video games that should include them, is having a dangerous impact on the creativity and intellectual engagement with human behaviour; these dark themes are being erased entirely instead of being engaged with in a thought-provoking way. In Dragon Age Origins, there is not a clear morally correct answer to whether power (particularly magic) should be controlled/regulated or if it should be freely developed and encouraged despite the risks of corruption. There are clear nuances and consequences (both positive and negative) for either stance. This theme/ideological topic is engaging and us as players could leave our imprint on the world of Thedas by leaning towards either side via crucial decisions in Origins (Circle of Magi quest), the end of DA2 and in Inquisition. In Inquisition, the Elven groups were inferred to be understandably tired of the "leash" that humans have over them through their slavery, oppression of and racist attitudes towards elves. The idea that elves were frustrated from these injustices and willing to cross the line in retaliation to this oppression, was developed when Zathrian in DAO cursed humans to be werewolves and was corrupted in his use of blood magic. The reasoning behind his deep hatred and corruption is understandable when he explains the travesty that happened to his son and especially his daughter, hence players had the choice of taking his side, persuading him to undo the curse, or siding with the werewolves and killing all the elves; our ability as players to leave our moral imprint on this theme by having such freedom of choice in this quest encourages roleplaying and multiple playthroughs of the game. It's dark themes like this that set up a progression towards the elves supposedly gathering under Solas. This theme of slavery, power/corruption & the racial context of how this theme has impacted the way in which elves have been treated by humans would have been interesting to unpack in Tervinter. But somehow, this Elven army under Solas was erased from the game after all that handcrafted world-building and storytelling of such themes in each previous game. Every game, the elves appear to get done dirty and us as the player could always choose to their do them dirty even more, or provide support, but in the grand scheme of things the oppression of elves was always there to stay, as the lore/storytelling suggests they have been done dirty for centuries. It feels like the original intention for Veilguard was for this racial/cultural tension between elves and humans to culminate in the elves banding together as an army under Solas, leaving the player to make difficult choices in interacting with and fighting against this army; an army that is may be justified in their extreme stance following such racial torment for so long. I would have loved to see companions that are Elven/Human/Mage/Templar to react under such context and challenge/fight the player depending on choices made, just as it was in Origins e.g. Wynne and Leliana willing to betray and fight you if you taint the urn of sacred ashes with blood. Characters/companions should naturally clash with each other just as Wynne and Morrigan did in Origins in dialogue banter when discussing mages, or as Sten & Leliana did regarding the role of women in war and the sub-text of how Qun culture is with regards to their social framework. The developers, writers and game director for Veilguard seemed very keen on erasing the importance of these themes and our impact on them from previous games, hence the lack of previous choices that can be imported. I believe this is also why any focus on a Tervinter Divine and Tervinter chantry is also erased from the game, as the Tervinter’s culture of accepted servitude and acceptance of mages should have clashed with the Divine established at the end of inquisition. In previous games, with regards to the chantry and templars we could make choices that enable the chantry to continue to oppress mages, grant mages more freedom, or outright slaughter them for fear of potential corruption. In Tervinter, we should have had a similar grey area to explore, with Tervinter mages going too far in having slaves on hand for their blood magic spells - yet also seeing the Tervinter Chantry mages using their magic for the greater good, with complex internal infighting between mages that believe freedom of power (including blood magic) should be encouraged, and mages that believe that line should not be crossed as it encourages the use of slaves and sacrifice for power which invites suffering. Yet, it seems Veilguard did not want players to impact the moral compass of the main character at all, as if that compass was already set stone to prevent roleplay. I remember the narrative designer for this game made a statement a while back regarding the potential for a blood magic specialisation and they stated "Blood magic is unlikely because we've shifted it from a power boost to really being the key to a lot of nasty stuff we aren't interested in having heroes do". For me, it's the "we aren't interested in having heroes do" that bothers me the most out of all the marketing/media they have done for the game; it alludes to why the game seemed to have one specific idea of what a hero should be. Instead of writing things in a way to allow us to have complex, nuanced roleplays to define our own meaning of what it means to be a hero, the writers way of thinking indicates they wanted to limit the player's involvement in the moral compass of Rook, despite the Tervinter setting that is supposed to have very controversial yet interesting moral nuances. If I had to describe the role playing in this game, I would describe it as a "closed-fixed roleplay" where the meaning of being a "hero" is objective and set in stone, as opposed to an "open roleplay" where the values of what makes a "hero" is subjective and for the player to decide, with plenty of sub text and nuanced dialogue that the previous Dragon Age games had. As a whole, the game is severely lacking a lot of sub text in it's dialogue & writing, i.e. unspoken or implied meaning behind the words that are actually said or written. There were a lot of times I felt like the game did not respect my intelligence/ability to have my own perception of things or respect my ability to decide what moral values my character should have. This game is an example of when developers do not respect the art of mature storytelling, role-playing freedom and previously established nuanced themes from previous games by writers that clearly cared about the above. Quality of writing in any form of literature or story has always been tied to the knowledge, wisdom and life experience of the writer itself. I always respected when previous games showed that in life, "right vs wrong" is not always clear and cannot be simplified; this line becomes even more blurred in times of war. The unwillingness from the developers to reflect the morally grey and dark themes of times of war breaks the immersion and sense of danger within the world of Thedas during a blight. It feels like the degraded virtues, values and intellect of lead writers and game directors directly correlate with the degraded quality of dialogue, storytelling and writing present in the game.
***END GAME SPOILERS*** . . . . . . . . . . . . To be fair, he didn't really see modern elves as fully people. Though the writers essentially dropped his whole other passion for spirits and how the veil is harming them. The idea that the poster boy for spirit rights would willfully sustain the thing that harms them (good end) because his ex said 'nah ur good actually' is foul. BUUUUUT Epler has all but admitted he absolutely despises Solas so the handling of the elves/their gods tracks. He apparently wrote Bellara, so.
DA:I Solas: I need to unlock my orb somehow. DA:V Solas: Why didn't I just go for my dagger to begin with? DA:I Solas: I didn't know an old god's servant would learn immortality. DA:V Solas: I've always known the old gods were the immortal evanuris. DA:I Solas: How can the Wardens want to kill the old gods??? DA:V Solas: We need to kill the old gods ASAP!!!
Bioware has a problem with having an overall vision for Dragon Age. I'm frankly amazed Mass Effect 1,2, and 3 were released as a relatively coherent package.
The more I play games, the more amazed I am by what they achieved with the Mass Effect Trilogy. I genuinely don't know who will be able to hit that totality again. Like yeah, you can see them playing around with the story and shifting stuff as they go along, but it still maintains this coherency at its core. There's a reason Shepard is as iconic as they are.
@@toniviskari417 I can tell you someone will hit that consistent tonality again with a game series, only a matter of time. But it is almost 100% for sure not going to be a company called Bioware.
If they wanted to reference past choices, even the Hero of Ferelden in Dragon Age 5, why didn't they do it in THIS game? To me, that's just empty words, just to make people have at least a glimmer of hope for the future of this franchise. Inquisition was my favorite narrative game of all time and I was extremely excited for Dragon Age 4. Veilguard killed my interest in the Dragon Age universe, because unless they ignore all the lore changes in Veilguard (especially the factions), Dragon Age 5 will have to follow the rules that Veilguard established: good factions vs. bad factions and no gray areas in between.
Because the dev cycle for this game had already been 7 years and they needed to push it out. I get it, EA wasn't going to keep funneling money over forever.
Exactly. They had every opportunity to reference the past, they just did not want to. These are the same individuals who did not even know who Zevran was. They couldn't even be bothered to do research on past companions. This is just damage control for some holiday sales.
I'm still of the opinion including the past 22 years wouldn't have added anything. Tevinter has their own chantry. The blight in Ferelden would keep the Seekers more than busy. I do believe we should have seen Velanna and Merrill, and changing the story hurt the chances of that
Tervinter is the diplomatic hub of Thedas? 🤔 The guys who don't get along with any other country on the continent and have been at war with the Qunari since they turned up? And it's too late to bring the HoF back at this point unless it's as a ghoul.
Tervinter is the diplomatic hub of Thedas? The place where magisters would do blood magic on slave elf children as party entertainment? How times have changed, indeed.
Usually I would agree but this game was in complete development hell. They did what they had to so Veilguard come get out he door. We don't know what the team is really capable of.
@@SlanderedGaming What was the last Bioware game that didn't go through development hell? Inquisition, maybe, but even there I heard they had a lot of problems with the Frostbite engine.
@@SlanderedGaming Knowing how to organize the project so that it is not a complete development hell is part of the skills the managers of a video game of this size must have. So I don't find this is an excuse. Sorry for them
being in development hell might be just an excuse at this point. they have been in development hell since andromeda when they were asked why the game was bad at launch. thing is technically DAV was good. the issues were the writing.
Bioware's explanation on Solas is bs. Why would Solas not use an army to achieve his goals when he used Rook throughout the entire game and armies in flashbacks? His armies would have been used as pawns like he used throughout his entire rebellion. It does not make sense. Boooooooo, Tomato, Tomato!
I know the dev cycle argument is a common defense, and I can sympathize with that in some areas, but I don't think it's a particularly strong defense when it comes to the writing/tone issues. Usually dev issues have more to do with the actual gameplay, pacing, bugs or level design. Look at Dragon Age 2, it's typically hailed as having a great story and it only had a year of dev time. The biggest issues with the rushed dev time is the simpler gameplay and the game basically having like, 6 maps that are constantly reused. But they still made memorable characters, included past events and choices from DA1 and good writing. Kotor 2 is another example of a game with like, a year or so of dev time that had incredible writing and memorable characters. The dev time was again more related to the rapid pacing issues and host of bugs. Even Mass Effect 2 was arguably rushed with a 2 year dev time. And there are some writing issues there (feeling shoehorned into Cerebus) that are arguably a result of the short dev cycle, but again, the bulk of the writing is still on point, the characters were memorable, your past decisions were referenced, and they managed to work in previous characters in satisfying ways.
It's not just the short time span it's the absolute chaos surrounding the development. KOTOR 2 had a very short dev cycle but they would always focused on ONE VISION. Bioware didn't have that benefit so I give them some grace.
Fallout New Vegas was done in 18 months and in terms of world building, narrative, characters and factions is outright the best fallout game to date. I've grown bored of the "time" and "oh but development hell" excuse for highschool tier writers and their fanfic.
@@SlanderedGaming yeah big agree. on the other hand, _some_ of the issues Veilguard has with its writing are ones that wouldn’t happen under normal circumstances no matter how bad the development situation was, unless either there was external interference or there were some very naive writers involved. I’m _specifically_ talking about the way rl social issues have been handled - clumsily erasing or trying to step around slavery, racism, the whole situation elves are in in Thedas at this point, messily trying to disentangle Dalish elves from the influences the original writers took from rl indigenous communities, the lack of coherence with which characters with another belief system are presented in the form of the Qunari in Veilguard vs previous versions of them. Those are all rookie errors. Literally. When I was in college that was the kind of ‘what not to do’ that they covered in first year. So for my money, either the loss of talent during layoffs has left behind a writers room who are ( _charitably speaking_ ) very naive when it comes to their grasp of the actual reality they’re referencing (I would use stronger language but I don’t think a yt comments section has ever been improved by strongly opinionated swearing), or they got given some pretty sweeping instructions from up top about filing off the series’ pre-existing social commentary. Honestly I’d put my money on a little bit of both of those having happened, but either way I have a bone to pick with _all_ of the people involved in those choices
@@SlanderedGaming I mean I think they will improve gameplay and level design, but I don't think it will be better in writing and story, and they will probably reduce RPG mechanics even more.
@@SlanderedGamingthe last few games they’ve released had subpar writing if we have to wait another 10 years for another DA I don’t think many peep are holding g their breath
Just looking at the art-book and project Joplin anyone can see at wich point this game went wrong and it's also clear the new team is not capable of delivering a good DA game. They lack the talent, the experience and are too constrained by their own moral view of the world to make a fantasy game.
They couldn't pull it off, so we'll never see it. Gotta keep those expectations low enough that you're never disappointed but can yet be pleasantly surprised. 😂
All sounds like a bunch of corporate speak to me. Have they even acknowledged some of the constructive feedback thrown at them? Or just making stupid excuses and empty promises?
They really did NOT want to talk about any of the oppression and disparity in DA 100%. The way they answered the question to that was so evident they were too uncomfortable to do it. And i can understand in the time frame they made Veilguard, before bg3 came out, maybe they were afraid of how much "politics" affected sales. But i hope they see that with all the games that are coming out, delving into topics like that, they should go back to their roots.
I'm sorry, but I started laughing and snorting at the "Solas decided he's not a leader"-part.🤣🤣 Like, you would think he'd had realized that some time sooner. It's comical how they are trying to save this narrative.
I'm puzzled. In your critique and now you said Solas and the elves were written wrong. Yet you still believe the team can do better next time. Solas was THE ONE THING they should have done well. I just don't get it why you defend the writing...
Yea, I don't get this. The people who had years to get one thing right... they didn't get that one thing, right... but next time, they will. Idk, man. Cope is beyond
10.00 I'm sorry Slandered but let's be honest here : it took them 10 years to make this game, you really think in 2035 they'll feel beholden to what was said by a single person in a reddit AMA ? come on let's be realistic here.
I think they didn’t have any elf’s follow solas because then they would have to answer the frankly uncomfortable question of how long does it take humans to just start killing every elf? You think what’s happened before is bad? The terror that would be waged would be apocalyptic.
No, they would have to explain how Rook is able to even reach Solas at the ritual site, which would have logically been defended if Solas had his agents.
9:14 EA's been saying the SAME BS over and over with every single ruined franchise. ME Andromeda? "Going back to the roots"; BF? "Going back to the roots"; etc. The original talented members from Bioware have left the ship long ago and the studio is just waiting for being dissambled.
I wish people would just accept the truth and stop playing the "EA" card. David Gaider himself has said in interviews EA basically gave Bioware total freedom and it was Bioware leadership that chased him out of the company and hated their writing team. The problems are not coming from "EA".
it was kind of funny to me reading through the ama how much of the answers did feel like the developers coming up with in-universe explanations for shortcomings that were 100% just "things fall through the cracks when you have to turn a single player rpg into an mmo and then back into a single player rpg again." EXCEPT... for the question about how the griffins are going to reproduce. to which john epler was like "yeah i was just wondering that. no idea." that did crack me up ngl
@@theobell2002 i am admittedly exaggerating the whole development process there.... honestly unnecessary, since a live service dragon age game is absurd enough as it is
Imo the original plan was for DA5 to change setting and follow up on that after credits scene but since it was badly received and fans complained about previous choices being ignored, I think they decided to switch course
Nah, these are just empty promises. There is no switching course after the South has been destroyed and most major plots are long past their expiration dates thanks to the time-skips.
One of the first lines you get from Solas is that this story does not end with his downfall but we are supposed to think he is humble enough to be like "I don't want the burden of leadership, I'm not good enough."
I think its unlikely the studio will survive long enough to make another dragon age game. Maybe the IP's will be sold off and we might get another game from a different dev in the distant future.
Sadly Slandered the damage is done, for fans like me the franchise is dead and they have pushed away a large part of their previous fanbase. I will not touch another game made by them regardless of whether its Mass Effect or another Dragon age, unless what they create is phenomenal. At some point you have to take a step back and use your head and assess, that their track record of Anthem, Andromeda, Veilguard shows they keep making the same mistakes and do not learn from the previous blunders. At some point as a consumer I have learnt that I am in my own right to "disown" a franchise or game if it's not to my liking.
So basically you won't play their games unless they are great. So all Bioware has to do is make great games to pull you back in as a customer. That's exactly what I want hem to do so we are on the same page.
Yeah, ngl I feel slighted by BioWare at this point like "We think you're part of niche that is not worth including in our target audience" after I've bought nearly every BioWare game (multiple times, in some instances). I genuinely can't imagine them making a game that would get me back on board. But, hey, I still like a lot of those older games (although it looks like I'll have to mod a lot of them to get them running now...).
So I'm one of those 'classic DA' fans who have been around since Origins. Currently replaying inquisition 'Cause I crushed Veilguard. (And honestly enjoying the sniping between teammates. Veilguard's cuddly buddy love approach to the team is definitely weird to me). And honestly, truth to tell from my POV veilguard did nothing bad enough to warrant saying I'd never play a DA game again. DA2 was different from Origins. Inquisition was different from DA2. Veilguard was different from Origins. It's not a surprising thing to do. Bioware tends to pivot playstyle direction in their long running games. Veilguard took what, close to 10yrs to come out? At some point you just gotta bite the bullet and get the game out. It sucks, but Veilguard is actually pretty good playwise. The story isn't too shabby (alot of games have a rough act 1. Inquisition act 1 was a painful slog for me). If the team stays the same, and can build the game from top to bottom this time, I'd give it a shot. Thedas is just a fantastic setting that I love to explore.
@@michaelstapley4878 There is a difference between "changing gameplay" and "changing tone, direction of the writing, and massively overhauling/rewriting plot lines". Dragon Age from a tone/writing perspective had been mostly consistent until veilguard. Nothing in DA2 did a massive rewrite of the plot hooks from DA Origins, same with Inquisition. Solas in veilguard barely even resembles the character in Iniquisition and he isn't the only one.
7:50 cmon slandered…they don’t deserve to be given such an enthusiastic response with that half baked attempt at making it seem like the disconnect of Veilguard was to make room for references in DA5. I don’t think the fandom should be unnecessarily toxic in their response to the AMA but we should be firm in seeing through the PR bullshit…hold them to account for how badly they messed up and refuse to have it explained away like this…I WANT DA5 to be good but I will not show any excitement to anything these devs promise not give them a free pass for any of their explanations that make there genuine mess ups seem like less of a problem than they are. If BioWare want the fans to support them then earn it with more than words…until then nothing they say matters…not going out of my way to hate but being stern in showing that they don’t get to wiggle their way out of owning up to their mistakes.
Finally someone who reviewd this game as a person. Not as an amalgamation of fanhating and destructive criticism (altough some of this criticism comes from a deep love of the nuance, complexity and overall ambientatiin of the previous games). You have a new fan in Brazil my dude. Obrigado por ser essa pessoa maravilhosa. Can't wait to se your next video!
I always felt BioWare would have been better served having their games have smaller stakes since it is so much easier to import choices that way. That got proven true with ME and the vast differences in thier endings. I am intrigued and scared by how they plan to address that
@@marvinp90 i feel in general smaller scales are always better for hero stories, th smaller the scope the more fleshed out the cultures and characters end up being
I think Epler and Busche were the wrong people to do this AMA. I'd rather have had Trick Weekes answer questions. First of all, they'd have made more sense, and it would be interesting to see how the writing team made decisions about what to include and what to cut.
the dude is probably out there sniffing his blue dye. Don't get me wrong, I've got blue hair too, but he has done a major disservice to this games not whipping all the entry-level grunts into a more serious tone while they were writing nonsense they were writing after veterans departed.
I know you like to be diplomatic, but what they did to the Elves was... cowardly writing, to say the least. It could have been such an emotionally powerful arc. The answer about what happened to Solas's army almost makes it feel worse lol.
I'll just say this; you know the game has a writing and story telling problem when the devs have to explain their story in hindsight and involving aspects never even hinted at during the game. Everything in this AMA reeks of damage control after they got feedback on the complete and utter disaster they made. At this stage I doubt we will even see a new DA game made. I will be suprised if Bioware is still a thing next year depending on how the numbers for the game are. The next EA earnings will probably decide it.
@@SlanderedGaming I agree and disagree. If DAVE had been their only failure...however...ME:A flopped, Anthem flopped. ME:LE is likely the only thing that kept them afloat. For the past 10 years the only games Bioware have made a solid profit on was a remake. Any new product has failed. The faith in Biowares ability to make a good product is at an all time low, and I am sure EA sees that as well. Bioware did not learn from any of their mistakes in ME:A, if anything they doubled down on them. More childish writing, even more insultingly sanitized storylines, even less complex enemies, copying bosses over and over. The Mass Effect franchise is a potential cash cow, but likely not in the hands of Bioware, which saddens me greatly to say. Baldurs Gate was the first game I bought back in 96 when I was 14. I still occasionally replay it today. Baldurs Gate 2 might be my all time favorite game. I loved ME1,2 and 3 and probably have 1000s of hours in then. DA:O, DA2 and to some extend DA:I are all games I have massively enjoyed. Heck, I even liked parts of ME:A. But...Bioware has lost it, and maybe the legacy of Bioware would be better passed on to more capable hands. Sorry for the extended rant, it just really saddens to see what has become of the game studio behind my favorite games.
This was really bad, the Solas excuse on the top ofc. I don't believe any words about past choices and DA5, and I think we have some proof that they cannot be trusted now. The fact they bring the Blood Mage "if they had time for a DLC" after saying it was not possible ... Talking as the Crows in the game as idealist is weird, like the others will not defend Treviso - and why choose them in the first place ? Everything seems so fake in this AMA.
Crows as idealists. Hmph. When was this transformation supposed to have occurred? And why didn’t we have an option to agree with the Governor instead of automatically agreeing with that a group of adults who were tortured as kids to be hired cold-blooded killers are the best choice to govern? I really wanted that choice.
I think that if the game had a normal development cycle; this game would have been much better. That they had to change direction in the middle of development had to have had a huge impact on the overall quality of the game. If this game was actually developed from the beginning to be what it is now instead of a life service infested MMOlite; I really do think a lot of the issues with the game would not exist.
DA2 was built in a year or so and still was able to give a story that had decent replay value, much better dialogue and likeable characters also bring able to being in atleast ~20 choices from DAO
This has been my spontaneous assessment as well, chaotic dev cycles are often a death sentence for games (they are killed before release) sometimes for the studio as a whole, and if they manage to land it, often they release in poor states or are just bad. I think this one did the latter, and that they landed a release at all was surprising. We sometimes hear about the "success against all odds" stories but that's such few cases. The amount of killed projects from the game dev world is staggering. For any eager commenter ready to pull that I am jumping to the defence of this game, just know I never cared about it and didn't buy it, just giving some industry side perspective
@@kmel3588The problem in DAV is the direction in the writing team suffered big time. David Gaider gave some very telling statements on Blue Sky the last days.
I just think a new Dragon Age leadership team is required for the next game. And for EA to stop trying to force DA into a live service game / multiplayer / looter game before quickly fudging it back to a single player rpg game.
I would kill for the parallel game set in the south where you play as the Inquisitor. They could actually use the Keep and make the DA 4 that Veilguard should have been. I don’t know how good it’d be given Veilguard’s writing, but at least it’d be an attempt.
That would be amazing. Seeing the inquisitor stabilising the south and being the person to fix the south. Maybe become a ruler also seeing there the go to person for the south.
I would have been cautiously optimistic until I saw the post credit scene. From one of the answers from John, it seems like Bioware is doubling down, retroactivly eliminating complexity from characters like Loghain. My bet is that if we ever get a Dragon Age 5, it will either forshadow or feature yet another mustache twirling villain faction. The damage to the lore is allready done.
Since Veilguard has been called "Avengers" of DA (I hate that, but whatever 😂) I would honestly love if they did a 180° with DA5, and gave us "evil" companions and an evil protag. Like obviously you choose your own moral compass, but it would be cool if your origin was something bad like the Bhaalspawn in BG3.
You know, that is one way to keep a RPG series going in interesting directions. Game 1 you play a hero, game 2 you play a villain fighting your previous character. And then saving the world again in game 3. And so on.
"Saving the world again in game 3" What stops you from saving the world in the even(evil) games? Evil and world saving are not mutual exclusive. Take the Lich path in Pathfinder WotR for example: you are definitly evil, turning humans into willless undead slaves, but your endgoal is to oppose the demongate invasion, you just use evil means to reach your goal. Evil that destroys the world they are living on is pretty stupid. Even an evil lord has to take some care for their subjects, or they will have nothing to rule about or the ressources to fight of their rivals. @@wogsi
Tieing a hero and a villain together with a bond they can't easily break and setting them up on an adventure sounds like it would be a blast. In fact, that's what Larian Studios did for one of their first games in the Divinity universe.
So they were never going to continue the Inquisitor's story that was set up back in Trespasser. That was such a bad decision especially since all I saw leading up to release was people talking about what their Inquisitors were going to do.
Corinne wanting blood mage in the game was a surprise. Positive one thou. They should have done that instead of the hall of valor. Could have cut the whole lords for that. Those guy are cool but so not essential to the story.
I take issues with some of what they said. For instance, why include *canon* info after the fact? Like Lucanis being a demi or asexual virgin. Why say that Spite goes off to read a book when Rook and Lucanis do anything romantic when I know I saw Spites wings sprout when Rook got intimate with him. Spite and Lucanis made an agreement and you literally see them becoming one. Or saying they didn’t let your Rook participate in the companion stuff like the book club because they didn’t want to mess with your roleplaying experience. Huh??? Is it not an RPG? And it felt weird to walk up to companions having conversations that Rook couldn’t participate in. They stop talking and just look at Rook like “This is an AB conversation, C your way out!” And the elves, my gods the elves! Where were all the Solas agents? “Well solas decided he could never be a good leader so he bounced from the rebellion”. Gimme a break! And no, it’s not “satisfying” to portray Lavellan as some sort of “pick me, choose me, love me” type and her drop everything in the South (we hear shit really hit the fan down there) just to walk off into the sunset (Fade) with someone who acts like he didn’t even care about her because Mythal had always been his Day one ride or die. I’m no Solavellan but that made me heated lol
No offense, but why would you believe they would include all these wonderful things you would hipe for, when they simply destroyed the lore, the south, and the last 3 games consequences? I am inclined not to believe a word they say.
I have a different take on Solas. While he is very prideful he still can admit mistakes ( like giving coryphaeus the orb ) And we saw in his memories how he suffered whenever he had to sacrifice some of his allies. He is so tormented by regret and guilt that he now rather does it all on his own. And that's where his pride comes into play, deceiving himself into believing he can succeed alone. And regarding the lack of alienages or slavery, I believe that is not some retcon or that they shied away from difficult themes, but rather a fault of their game design. It is just so hyper focused on its missions that it leaves no place for anything else. And that is in my opinion the only real problem the game has: no space and no time for world building
Admitting mistakes is not the same as admitting faults. The whole reason he wants to tear down the Veil is because he believes putting it up is a mistake. But does he trust anybody else to do that? No because at the end of the day in Solas' mind he is always the best person for the job.
hey slandered disapointed with this game. For me the ammount of time and resources they pushed into making this a live service game years ago (including questionable creative decisions to make it more viable to a younger audience) even tough they pivoted at some point, was crucial to the final product, which is completely out of league with the rest of franchise
I agree but at the same time this is much better than what a live service game would've been which is ultimately what EA wanted. Hopefully the next game can be much more focused and really deliver what fans want.
Man we need to appreciate that slandered always put the spicey shit in the beginning. Every click batey youtuber puts shit at the end and sometimes dont even have the insight. Just gotta give you your flowers for that.
Reading the AMA made me more feel that they know/knew what we want and now are just whispering nice little nothings in our ears, in hopes of retaining enough support to show EA that they have a guaranteed market for the next game. If they manage to do a new game, I really wish they would go more into the dark places of the world. Those were the parts that made the setting more believable and the kind choices actually matter. The only way you can actually show yourself to be a kind person is through effort. Imagine if the next game had the prog to be a bloodmage, someone completely able to control their allies literally, capable of overwriting their will to force them to do what they want or slowly corrupting their thinking to be more in line with yours, but you have choice not to do that. You can choose to be cooperative and at minimum cordial to your allies, to make a real team or have meat marionettes dancing around. I think it could be a great way of making a game where you can collect a more eccentric party, people who don't like each other's causes at best, but not need the world ending stakes to make them work together and grow to like each other and truly see the person behind the cause. Or pit them against each other to eternally switch blame and lull them into trusting only you. Would make a great dichotomy between an evil and good run.
I want to just add that you are my go to DA creator now. You truly seem to care about the franchise, seem like you have been there from very start, understand the characters and lore and call it like you see it. Even if the rest of us are tired of giving the benefit of the doubt to these studios, stay true to your self, positive or not. Keep up the great work man.
That's some serious cope, my friend. Personally, I've lost all confidence that the current Bioware can produce another Dragon Age game (at least one that's good enough for us old fans to forgive them for Veilguard). They just don't have the talent anymore, and even if they did, they'd be hampered by strict guidelines that would prevent them from touching upon the darker themes that made the original setting so great.
There is no way for us to know the talent level currently at Bioware when Veilguard took 10 years to make and was effectively three different games during that time span. There's nothing definitively we can state based on that situation.
your videos on Veilguard are my fave. I don't always agree with every take of yours but I do with most, and you always back up your opinions with great arguments and lore knowledge and always judge and comment on things fairly and reasonably :)
If they keep the same team based off what they gave us then the next game is (in my opinion) not gonna meet expectations. A retcon would save the next game as well as a reset on who they have handling the next game.
Can you imagine if the game about 'regret' where you roll through Solas' memories allowed you to confront him with issues real time by having members of his previous operation harmed/ involved rather than handwaved away in an AMA--actually seeing his regret/struggle play out more tangibly than in a memory. Imagine if we would have seen even just a small crew become people to him, and were consistently able to challenge his motivations and perspectives by pulling on his heart strings and capitalizing on that regret. For all of Solas' cold calculating actions, he has NEVER been able to stop himself from caring about people regardless of who they are *cough* Iron Bull banter *cough* Cole *cough cough* his acquired respect for Vivienne *cough cough cough cough cough* the fact he killed Felassan out of fear of what his attachment to a modern elf could mean *I'm literally choking atp lol*. Hell, just mention Charter! In Tevinter Knights he shows he respects and cares for Charter and feels sorrowful. If we couldn't see bits of his forces at least reference something already written to further bolster the narrative.
I have been thinking about things that I would want to see in the next game. Just my personal preference: 1)From DAO - I know many disagree but....Silent Protagonist (or a well done AI voicework that allows for us to have both a voice and the amount of branching dialogue we had back then.) I do not think what is said in paranthesis is currently possible, but it can be someday. BG3 demonstrates it can be done well. Also, the tactical combat with a lot more abilities. You can move fluidly like in later games, but you pause the action and use talents and spells to create combinations. I want persuasion, cunning, and intimidate checks as well. Skills like trap making, alchemy, and so on. 2)From DA2 - The Friendship/Rivalry system should return. I liked the dynamic between the companions in DA2 and how your behavior influences how they perceive you. This creates a lot of replay value. 3)From DAI - The crafting system should return. To be honest, I didn't mind the sandboxes in Inquisition, but they need to do it more like The Witcher 3 where you actually breathe life into the regions if you do this. If this means making them a little smaller, that's fine. You don't need every map to be the Emerald Graves or Hinterlands. You can balance these out with hubs like the cities in Veilguard. 4)From DAV - The environments were nice. I also like the ME2 final mission style and how you build up relations with allies and stuff. However, a Battle of Denerim style calling on allies would be welcomed. 5)DA: Keep. They don't need to use the Keep in its current iteration, but they should integrate such an interface into the character creation screen. But above all else, I think they need to reveal the rest of the lore in this game and then from there, if they want to do spin offs, okay. Writers should be given more creative freedom. I think Gaider left for a reason. They should be able to lean into the M rating and put offensive stuff in the game (like the broodmother). There is a place for such things if it is done well. Same thing with their historical friendliness towards minority groups...you can write that well within the context of the world. The team just needs a vision, they need to see what worked and what didn't and play into the strengths and overcome the weaknesses. And if they change their company culture to be a little more appreciative of the importance of writing and creative freedom, perhaps Gaider might return. A man can dream.
Development hell and doing what you can to get the product out the door. THAT ISN'T AN EXCUSE for a paid product. Look we know this product is crap but we tried really hard!!! Nope. Not getting my money. This is akin to a plate of food from a fancy kitchen. They need a Gordon Ramsey to come around and say not good enough. Call them a Donut and fix it.
There's like an eight year gap between Inquisition and Veilguard. They could have just said Solas did at the beginning gather elves to his side, but only to manipulate them into doing what he wants, and after so many years, he basically alienated himself from the elves when they find out he's Fen'harel or just an asshole or both. There. Gap filled. It's still mental gymnastics, but at least it's not mental twister.
Smaller scale stories need to have very strong writing to keep people invested. Let’s be honest, this team has shown no indication that they can handle it.
I don't know I agree with some of the other comments, went ahead and checked most of their answers, for teh vast majority (except the personal preference ones) really sound like something read out of a corporate book of allowed answers. I'm still mostly sure we won't get another Dragon Age, and a part of me hopes we won't, I'd rather these new teams invest their creativity in something new, something they can call their own, it might end up not being "for me" but it doesn't matter, I'm just a person.
You have a much better understanding of Solas than the devs seem to have at this oint and I want to add, that even if he didn't want to be a leader, elves around the world should still want to flog around his cause. It's not, that we don't have real life examples, where people became the cause of a movement wether they want that or not.They really dropped the ball here. About Minrathous being the focus of a future game: I do like the idea, but not, if it is a cozy game like Veilguard. I loved DA2 and the more smaller problems around the templar and mages and the qunari. I think, you could do something similar epic with Minrathous, but can't be afraid of showing the darker stuff or that game will not have the same impact as DA2 had. I generally prefer the smaller scale storylines over the end of the world stuff. They really should explained the thing with the Crows in the game. If you play DAO and have Zevran in the group, he tells such a dark tale about the Crows and then you meet Lucanis and his happy go lucky little family - that didn't sit right with me. Basically: Show, don't tell.
Here is what i think they should have done as a fan that grew up with the series. They should have did a "dragon age origins 2" as a filler or segway game where they followed an expanded origins structure that explored a rook-like character and Tervinter deeper. Having the converging story be about overcoming a blood mage who is making his move to overtake the Tervinter Divine, find the OG darkspawn magisters, and experiment on and sacrifice dwarves and dalish elves because he wants to try to and reenter the golden city. With the story narrative happening concurrently with other game's timelines such as inquisition with callbacks/easter eggs/ reactions to events happening through out the world( rumor of a new blight happening/being stopped, qunari take over of Kirkwall, the chantry divine dying, etc.) and ending the game where inquisition ended to set up rook to take on the elven rebellion. This would have given them room to create a game with a clean slate, with an easy layup success with fans, and breathing room to develop dread wolf properly.
I honestly respect your views here, and give a lot of props for how you are trying to keep a positive outlook and good prospective on dragon age as an ip and veilguard as a game. But I am very confused how you can say they are mishandling solas and writing him poorly, but you trust them with writing dragon age on the whole. If I cannot trust them to write one character, how can I trust them to write the whole plotline and world? Assuming the hero of ferelden talk isn't just that, pure hot air talk, I dont buy it or trust them. This is a reaction to how poorly the writing of veilguard was received and how dramatic the backlash was on how they handled the southern side of thedas.
Right why the fk did they cut that? I would have loved this kind of ending (because Solas was right) and i would have liked to see what would happen, it's never elaborated. They just say it's bad but WHY???? But from their answers i take it that they didn't know what to do or what actually would have happened (lack of vision i suppose).
You can hear me laughing about Emmrich sleeping standing up every time he comes on screen 🤣🤣 I haven't been able to get over it since the AMA. this is absolutely weird and wonderful.
Veilguard did the impossible - it made me not care about the future of the franchise, because it completely destroyed everything I cared about. I don't trust Bioware at all with the future of DA.
So, I understand that the game was in development hell. That it changed multiple times and would probably have been better if it had an easier development cycle. With that being said, I feel like a lot of the problems with the game aren't fully attributed to the development hell the game had. The writing for the game in particular I think is significantly more impacted by inexperienced writers who were directed to make this game more PG for general audience. At every level, and every point the game is less dark, gruesome, and direct with its themes and direction. I really feel like for future titles they need to reverse this direction. I wouldn't go as far as to say that this more PG direction would ruin the dragon age franchise. I do think it would damage it in the long term if this more PG take of dragon age continues. This game isn't meant for children, this franchise is not meant for children. It's meant for adults. Treat it like it's meant for adults.
I don't think there's a way for us to judge from the outside whether the writing issues are a result of talent or chaos. They may not even be able to judge that internally.
@@SlanderedGaming If they are not able to judge it internally doesn't bode well for the future. Any dev team has to make proper post-mortems, that doesn't mean the conclusion they arrive to should match players' preferences, but they need to be aware as to why such a huge change in tone was made.
This AMA left me so frustrated. I am going to let go of Dragon Age series. Bioware combined EA's producers do not understand what makes people so invested which in returns makes the community thrive over the years.
@@SlanderedGaming may be quality of life things for veilguard, may be mini standalone DLC where some of old choices were imported, official mod support like BG3 would be nice and give extended life to veilguard
So Lucanis got "too much passion" to not go for Neve regardless and the same day Mary Kirby casually tweets the guy is panromantic and demisexual, a virgin and never had a relationship before. I can't 😂
Solas was willing to tear down the veil knowing that there will be casualties, thats what he and varric were arguing at the beginning of the game. So not sure why he does not want some loyal expendable elves to make sure his plan would succeed regardless if he feels like a leader or if he cares about the elves or not. lol
Can Bioware just outsource it to Owlcat already so we can have a proper dragon age game and bioware can make some money while they are at it. After hearing about it is pretty clear that current day bioware just fired their last good writers and the guys left couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. They simple aren't putting in the effort to flesh out their world correctly and that is one of the reasons this game just crashed and burned. IF they cared then they would probably announce something like a solas side wins DLC with ways to be mean to people thrown as an update. They won't even though it would fix a lot of what is wrong with the game. Dragon Age veilguard could be a good game if it were put into intensive care mode but that isn't happening because no one at Bioware cares.
Its frustrating cause Weekes wrote The Masked Empire which provided such a great weight when it came time to make the decision of who should rule Orlais in DAI and how that could lead into strengthening Solas' forces leading into the Trespasser DLC. Solas killed Felassan for an Eluvian network that at the end of the day didn't matter?? Or what about the reveal about Charter being a double agent for Solas?? Weekes, did you forget your own plot??
Minrathous is tainted to the void and back. Ferelden is destroyed. How can Epler talk about returning to these places or bringing back those who rule? Rule what? The ashes? And for Cory Busche to invoke the Hero of Ferelden? TOO LATE! The Hero should have returned in this game, and this game should have taken place soon after Trespasser. The only reason Cory wants to bring back the Hero is so the Hero can be killed off by the taint. And in reality, invoking the Hero is just a marketing ploy to get the fans who left to come back. Well that's not going to happen. SEE YA BIOWARE!!! There won't be any future Dragon Age games. Not unless a new team full of competent people takes it over and strikes FailHard from the canon. The Executor plot is idiotic. Even BioWare knows it. So now they are trying to walk it back by saying Loghain was only lightly pushed. But pushed to do what? How does throwing the battle at Ostegar help anyone? The Blight was ended regardless, so who cares if it ended in Denerim or Ostegar? The version of Mythal that helped the protagonists is the same one Solas killed and absorbed. So Morrigan showing up with that same essence makes no difference. The only thing that did was the original fragment of Mythal from the Crossroads. So BioWare's excuse makes no sense. And no, the original Mythal releasing Solas from her service should not change the fact that Solas would still feel guilt over what he did to the elves. BioWare also realized Solas going to prison was a dumb ending, and more so if the Lavellen joins him. So this is their attempt to walk that back as well by making the prison not so bad. But the fact remains that Solas didn't need to go to the prison at all. He could have simply went to the Lighthouse. The Andraste question is easy to answer. Yes. BioWare would probably make her a vessel if there were to ever be another Dragon Age game. And it would contradict the lore as well, because BioWare doesn't care about the lore. The elves not regaining immortality just confirms Lavellen is dumb to join Solas in prison, since she will die within a few decades, if not days without food or water. More nonsense. Origins confirms that an archdemon's soul is cancelled out by the Warden's soul. Both are obliterated. This is BioWare attempting to leave the door open for more evanuris after making an excuse to not have to write for them in this game. Plus, if those evanuris are still alive, then the veil would not have started to fall after Elgar'nan's death. Dragon Age is a dead franchise so long as this new lore direction is what they're going with. Veggies? 9_9 More nonsense excuses for why the taint doesn't taint no more. So now it's no longer a biological corruption because the taint cube can't reach out to it anymore? What about the red lyrium and the other titans? How is that not augmenting the taint? And since when does the veil work perfectly in keeping things separated? The veil has always been thin in various places. Also, Solas binding himself to the veil would still only make for ONE power source. That means the veil's power source would be at its weakest point since Elgar'nan was the only one left. AND, Solas wasn't even as powerful as Elgar'nan anyway! So what the hell is BioWare talking about? These are just BS excuses. Still no cure = the Hero of Ferelden's quest was meaningless, pointless, and a massive waste of time. BioWare forgets to program a bed for Emmerich, so they just say he sleeps standing up. Wow. More lore-busting on the archdemons. And this is worse because it's not even in the game. It's just BioWare spouting off. And they forgot their own lore. The comics confirm that Great Dragons exist, are above High Dragons, and can be male. The old gods are Great Dragons, not High Dragons. Yeah right. BioWare didn't want to build large areas of Minrathous. They phoned it in. Just look at how much was dropped from the art book. They're walking back the Crows as well after seeing the criticisms of how much they were changed in this game. This is just BioWare making excuses for their bad flop of a game.
It's 'Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet' all over again. Undertalented, intellectually lazy people explain their oversights and poor choices in hopes they can hook players for another round. They don't even know a thing about human blood circulation. I've read AMA and they evade every complex lore question and sugarcoat every plothole if they ever even bother to address it in the first place. Destructible objects were pushed for while Radonis, 'evil' Crow faction, Qunari splitting off and politics of Tevinter got cut. They could've stolen griffon flying from GW2, they could've just kept the artbook cast of characters and story outline and it all would've worked. Yeah, these people are incompetent.
Thank you for stating in the beginning of your video about spoilers. Not everyone does which is understandable as it's been a while since the game released. Unfortunately, I have a very busy schedule nowadays and I am progressing very slowly. As I progress though, I will sometimes follow your journey through your own playthrough as well and then stop at the point that I have reached haha. Keep up the great content. I will come back to this video soon, as I want to hear what the developers have to say.
Yeah saying this was elf focused is like saying the care bears movies are a brown bear documentary. Anything Elf related was Disney washed and broken to make this Marvels midnights sun school hangout game were all just feel like humans in cosplay and not strong characters of wildy different races and cultures that would not instantly work together. And the faster that stupid secret ending gets retconned the beter.
The greatest problem with Dragon Age always has been lack of continuity, I hope those news are about them learning how not to do ANOTHER sequel that ain't a sequel.
so it's possible that dragon age reorigins could be a thing?! (I'm surprised ea didn't finish them yet) I'd play the crap out of dragon origins with decent combat adjustment
They made that break in this game, hence only 3 choices that carry over. Please leave the Hero of Ferelden alone, after how they wrote Rook, we don't want them touching previous characters. I don't share your optimism about how well they can do going forward. Looking at what made it into the game, and how, including how they swept Solas' army under the rug, with a handwave and an excuse that nobody that's looking at what happened in Trespasser should take seriously, they don't have the required skill in the writing department to pull it off. They had almost 10 years on this game, and this was the best they could do? Nope, I have 0 confidence.
I could believe solas thinks hes a bad leader, but it was not shown. And he being insightful enough to see that, but not escape the regret cage is queationable. Then needing 4 people to convience him to stop makes me more doubtful
As I said elsewhere, I know the signs of a hopium and copium addiction and as a Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who fan, I just can’t do this “give them one more chance” shtick anymore because life is to short and I gave Bioware ten years of benefit of the doubt for them to just sneakily reboot the canon and lore of the first three Dragon Age games in The Veilguard. I fell for this when I bought Mass Effect Andromeda but no more.😵💫
The story probably isn't all epler's fault. According to Patrick weekes blood magic is too "nasty" "something we aren't interested in having heros do". Honestly don't expect these games to have agency again. I get the sense bioware isn't interested in agency that goes against the teams ethics, which means real agency isn't going to be a thing. For me it's a safe assumption they aren't interested in making proper rpgs because those require a real depth of choice, you can't be morally strangled by the devs. It's a safe assumption for me that their games won't be worth playing. Their not even honest about their intentions, they said there no blood magic for story reasons, bro you make the story, you didn't want it because you didn't want to give us the choice to be villainous. It such a lack of respect for our intelligence. Reminds of Emil tbh.
I think the next DA game could easily be set in the south, during the events of DAV. That way we get the consequences of the choices we made in previous games. That was all in the south after all.
I think i would be the happiest if they just remade DA origins with new graphics, and better controls, or some other old gem like the IceWind dale games
Man im really sad, listening about possible new da games is not hyping me up. I dont think they can go back and hook me onto this story again. I really really hope im wrong
It feels bleak right now but the next DA game would probably be at least 5 years away. By that time Veilguard will sting less and you might be more open. :)
"A real end the the Hero of Ferelden"? Sorry what? Their story ended with a bowtie, perfection. All games that came after did nothing but handwave and lampshade their involvement. I do not want these failures of writers to even think of touching that character's legacy. Their fanfiction already undoes the entirely of DAO's main story. To me, Dragon Age Origins is the only canon. DA2 was a spinoff, DAI was another reality and DAV doesn't exist.
The developers have lied, blamed the fanbase, and avoided/hidden the truth. I don't see how they can ever improve and make a better DA5 when they won't even admit to the mistakes they made.
I think the problem with this game was always the most that it was game 4 in an arc, combined with so many years passing. There was always no way it would feel the same, no matter what.
I can imagine had this game not had the dev cycle it had, they could have added the things they would have wanted to add into it. They could have delayed the game further if they needed to and I would have liked it. Still, the game is out and while I like some things about it, I also don't like other stuff with it. Though thinking more on it, they at least gave a way out with the wardens of the south possibly splitting from the north. Kinda wished they had more than three choices for the game, do what rhey did for mass effect or Pillars of eternity 2 and have options to pick at the character creation, maybe even a tutorial playing as Rook and the faction choice being the tutorial level like in origins.
BioWare please explain to me why no elves would follow Solas because he was too extreme in wanting to tear down the veil and return them all to immortality and power. But the gods can get men and qunari to help them destroy the whole world? There is no logic.
NONE. None whatsoever.
Solas is like Han. Solo
@@theobell2002 You realize what you just described by definition is "not" helping them willingly.
There IS Logic and that’s why the ball was dropped SO HARD, and you see it in Origins. The Elves HATED and distrusted Fen’Harel. The Dalish faced his statues AWAY from their villages, because they blamed him for their fall.
So, it makes sense (and should have been a major plot point) that the elves didn’t want to follow him once they discovered who he was to them. The Elves may have been MORE susceptible to the warp and demons, especially given how they were played by demons in the first 3 games.
ONLY SOLACE could’ve survived unscathed. He might’ve killed ALL of them.
#VeilguardSpoilers Do you remember the scene with the Venatori and Elgar'non was talking to them though telepathy thought control? He was using powerful mind control and even the Veilguard were under his power if it was not for Bellara being able to break his influence on them, they were literally trapped. The types of people he could easily control and influence.
Lmao solas saying he's not a leader when he led an ancient eleven rebellion
It's cray cray dude.
"He just wasn't ready for a management position :))))"
A successful rebellion because he succeed in trapping the evanuris. Their stance doesn't make sense.
To be fair, he also failed miserably by accidentally creating the veil. Also he explicitly tells a romanced inquisitor that he doesn’t want her following him because he is “walking the din’an shir’al” where he knows there is “only death on this journey”. So it’s not the same as the rebellion, he knows he’s going off to do something that will kill LOTS of people.
@@cthulhucrews6602 true, but there were 8 years after Trespasser, maybe he changed his mind 🤷♀️
I lost when they said Emmrich has no bed bc he sleeps standing up. just admit you forgot to add a bed to his place in the lighthouse
I mean, the guys probably enjoys having terrible blood circulation in his lower limbs and varicosis aged 50-something, that's why he wishes to reach lichdom early.
AM I TAKING STUPID PILLS?! HOW CLUELESS ARE THESE PEOPLE?!
Or at least a coffin
I mean, he has that stone altar he uses for questioning corpses 😅
He was making a joke. Stop being such a neigh sayer.
SPOILERS. Yeah, probably he was intended to be a lich from the start, so he wouldnt need it
honestly, these answers feel like corporate damage control
Some of them for sure.
A company this size never does these things unless they thought it was necessary. So yeah. It's about as genuine as an HR mandatory fun day.
They don’t FEEL like it, they ARE corporate damage control. “we went totally lazy on this game but pls keep buying our products!”
words cannot describe how disappointed I am about the entire AMA in general. the fact that they completely ignored comments that were asking about plot holes, the narrative, even the Golden Nug, was upsetting
considering the fact though that Epler is a self-proclaimed Solas hater, to the point that that was the entire reason he killed Varric off is even more upsetting
I'm just going to stick with believing that DAV is a spin-off and not canon.
Or BAD FANFICTION
Do you have anywhere i can see that epler is a solas hater? First time hearing about that
Truth be told, the answer as to what happened to Solas's army doesn't sit right with me at all. I don't buy it. I 100% agree BioWare completely dropped the ball on this.
Yup that's the way I feel. Not the end of the world but at the same time let's not just gloss over it.
@@SlanderedGaming Yeah, we don't need our intelligence insulted with this in my opinion, a cop out answer.
I think the impact of developers being scared to add dark/mature themes in video games that should include them, is having a dangerous impact on the creativity and intellectual engagement with human behaviour; these dark themes are being erased entirely instead of being engaged with in a thought-provoking way. In Dragon Age Origins, there is not a clear morally correct answer to whether power (particularly magic) should be controlled/regulated or if it should be freely developed and encouraged despite the risks of corruption. There are clear nuances and consequences (both positive and negative) for either stance. This theme/ideological topic is engaging and us as players could leave our imprint on the world of Thedas by leaning towards either side via crucial decisions in Origins (Circle of Magi quest), the end of DA2 and in Inquisition.
In Inquisition, the Elven groups were inferred to be understandably tired of the "leash" that humans have over them through their slavery, oppression of and racist attitudes towards elves. The idea that elves were frustrated from these injustices and willing to cross the line in retaliation to this oppression, was developed when Zathrian in DAO cursed humans to be werewolves and was corrupted in his use of blood magic. The reasoning behind his deep hatred and corruption is understandable when he explains the travesty that happened to his son and especially his daughter, hence players had the choice of taking his side, persuading him to undo the curse, or siding with the werewolves and killing all the elves; our ability as players to leave our moral imprint on this theme by having such freedom of choice in this quest encourages roleplaying and multiple playthroughs of the game.
It's dark themes like this that set up a progression towards the elves supposedly gathering under Solas. This theme of slavery, power/corruption & the racial context of how this theme has impacted the way in which elves have been treated by humans would have been interesting to unpack in Tervinter. But somehow, this Elven army under Solas was erased from the game after all that handcrafted world-building and storytelling of such themes in each previous game. Every game, the elves appear to get done dirty and us as the player could always choose to their do them dirty even more, or provide support, but in the grand scheme of things the oppression of elves was always there to stay, as the lore/storytelling suggests they have been done dirty for centuries. It feels like the original intention for Veilguard was for this racial/cultural tension between elves and humans to culminate in the elves banding together as an army under Solas, leaving the player to make difficult choices in interacting with and fighting against this army; an army that is may be justified in their extreme stance following such racial torment for so long.
I would have loved to see companions that are Elven/Human/Mage/Templar to react under such context and challenge/fight the player depending on choices made, just as it was in Origins e.g. Wynne and Leliana willing to betray and fight you if you taint the urn of sacred ashes with blood. Characters/companions should naturally clash with each other just as Wynne and Morrigan did in Origins in dialogue banter when discussing mages, or as Sten & Leliana did regarding the role of women in war and the sub-text of how Qun culture is with regards to their social framework. The developers, writers and game director for Veilguard seemed very keen on erasing the importance of these themes and our impact on them from previous games, hence the lack of previous choices that can be imported. I believe this is also why any focus on a Tervinter Divine and Tervinter chantry is also erased from the game, as the Tervinter’s culture of accepted servitude and acceptance of mages should have clashed with the Divine established at the end of inquisition. In previous games, with regards to the chantry and templars we could make choices that enable the chantry to continue to oppress mages, grant mages more freedom, or outright slaughter them for fear of potential corruption. In Tervinter, we should have had a similar grey area to explore, with Tervinter mages going too far in having slaves on hand for their blood magic spells - yet also seeing the Tervinter Chantry mages using their magic for the greater good, with complex internal infighting between mages that believe freedom of power (including blood magic) should be encouraged, and mages that believe that line should not be crossed as it encourages the use of slaves and sacrifice for power which invites suffering. Yet, it seems Veilguard did not want players to impact the moral compass of the main character at all, as if that compass was already set stone to prevent roleplay.
I remember the narrative designer for this game made a statement a while back regarding the potential for a blood magic specialisation and they stated "Blood magic is unlikely because we've shifted it from a power boost to really being the key to a lot of nasty stuff we aren't interested in having heroes do". For me, it's the "we aren't interested in having heroes do" that bothers me the most out of all the marketing/media they have done for the game; it alludes to why the game seemed to have one specific idea of what a hero should be. Instead of writing things in a way to allow us to have complex, nuanced roleplays to define our own meaning of what it means to be a hero, the writers way of thinking indicates they wanted to limit the player's involvement in the moral compass of Rook, despite the Tervinter setting that is supposed to have very controversial yet interesting moral nuances.
If I had to describe the role playing in this game, I would describe it as a "closed-fixed roleplay" where the meaning of being a "hero" is objective and set in stone, as opposed to an "open roleplay" where the values of what makes a "hero" is subjective and for the player to decide, with plenty of sub text and nuanced dialogue that the previous Dragon Age games had. As a whole, the game is severely lacking a lot of sub text in it's dialogue & writing, i.e. unspoken or implied meaning behind the words that are actually said or written. There were a lot of times I felt like the game did not respect my intelligence/ability to have my own perception of things or respect my ability to decide what moral values my character should have.
This game is an example of when developers do not respect the art of mature storytelling, role-playing freedom and previously established nuanced themes from previous games by writers that clearly cared about the above. Quality of writing in any form of literature or story has always been tied to the knowledge, wisdom and life experience of the writer itself. I always respected when previous games showed that in life, "right vs wrong" is not always clear and cannot be simplified; this line becomes even more blurred in times of war. The unwillingness from the developers to reflect the morally grey and dark themes of times of war breaks the immersion and sense of danger within the world of Thedas during a blight. It feels like the degraded virtues, values and intellect of lead writers and game directors directly correlate with the degraded quality of dialogue, storytelling and writing present in the game.
Perfectly put, what a good read!
DA:I Solas: "I'm tearing down the Veil for the Elves."
DA:V Solas: "To be honest, I never cared about the Elves."
***END GAME SPOILERS***
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To be fair, he didn't really see modern elves as fully people. Though the writers essentially dropped his whole other passion for spirits and how the veil is harming them. The idea that the poster boy for spirit rights would willfully sustain the thing that harms them (good end) because his ex said 'nah ur good actually' is foul. BUUUUUT Epler has all but admitted he absolutely despises Solas so the handling of the elves/their gods tracks. He apparently wrote Bellara, so.
DA:I Solas: I need to unlock my orb somehow.
DA:V Solas: Why didn't I just go for my dagger to begin with?
DA:I Solas: I didn't know an old god's servant would learn immortality.
DA:V Solas: I've always known the old gods were the immortal evanuris.
DA:I Solas: How can the Wardens want to kill the old gods???
DA:V Solas: We need to kill the old gods ASAP!!!
Solas not a leader? Dragon Age The Dreadwolf? More like Dragon Age The Lone Wolf 😂
What's up Dan! Yeah it's crazy dude. 😂
Based Big Dan 👍✌️
Bioware has a problem with having an overall vision for Dragon Age. I'm frankly amazed Mass Effect 1,2, and 3 were released as a relatively coherent package.
ME3's story was an obvious deviation from what was originally planned with an extremely out there ending
Yeah they've definitely been getting by on "Bioware Magic". LOL
The more I play games, the more amazed I am by what they achieved with the Mass Effect Trilogy. I genuinely don't know who will be able to hit that totality again.
Like yeah, you can see them playing around with the story and shifting stuff as they go along, but it still maintains this coherency at its core. There's a reason Shepard is as iconic as they are.
@toniviskari417 it's a one of kind achievement in story continuity between games!
@@toniviskari417 I can tell you someone will hit that consistent tonality again with a game series, only a matter of time. But it is almost 100% for sure not going to be a company called Bioware.
If they wanted to reference past choices, even the Hero of Ferelden in Dragon Age 5, why didn't they do it in THIS game? To me, that's just empty words, just to make people have at least a glimmer of hope for the future of this franchise. Inquisition was my favorite narrative game of all time and I was extremely excited for Dragon Age 4. Veilguard killed my interest in the Dragon Age universe, because unless they ignore all the lore changes in Veilguard (especially the factions), Dragon Age 5 will have to follow the rules that Veilguard established: good factions vs. bad factions and no gray areas in between.
Because the dev cycle for this game had already been 7 years and they needed to push it out. I get it, EA wasn't going to keep funneling money over forever.
Exactly. They had every opportunity to reference the past, they just did not want to. These are the same individuals who did not even know who Zevran was. They couldn't even be bothered to do research on past companions. This is just damage control for some holiday sales.
I'm still of the opinion including the past 22 years wouldn't have added anything.
Tevinter has their own chantry.
The blight in Ferelden would keep the Seekers more than busy.
I do believe we should have seen Velanna and Merrill, and changing the story hurt the chances of that
We will take into the count your past choices.
3 is the best we can do.
You totally nailed it for me!👍
Tervinter is the diplomatic hub of Thedas? 🤔 The guys who don't get along with any other country on the continent and have been at war with the Qunari since they turned up?
And it's too late to bring the HoF back at this point unless it's as a ghoul.
Tervinter is the diplomatic hub of Thedas? The place where magisters would do blood magic on slave elf children as party entertainment? How times have changed, indeed.
so, basically what corin says is, "i know we promised u this before, but we're really gonna give it to u next time." mkay.
Usually I would agree but this game was in complete development hell. They did what they had to so Veilguard come get out he door. We don't know what the team is really capable of.
@@SlanderedGaming What was the last Bioware game that didn't go through development hell? Inquisition, maybe, but even there I heard they had a lot of problems with the Frostbite engine.
@@SlanderedGaming Knowing how to organize the project so that it is not a complete development hell is part of the skills the managers of a video game of this size must have. So I don't find this is an excuse. Sorry for them
being in development hell might be just an excuse at this point. they have been in development hell since andromeda when they were asked why the game was bad at launch.
thing is technically DAV was good. the issues were the writing.
@@SlanderedGaming Except we do know what they are capable of. They just showed us in Veilgaurd.
Bioware's explanation on Solas is bs. Why would Solas not use an army to achieve his goals when he used Rook throughout the entire game and armies in flashbacks? His armies would have been used as pawns like he used throughout his entire rebellion. It does not make sense. Boooooooo, Tomato, Tomato!
Yeah it's ridiculous. LOL
I know the dev cycle argument is a common defense, and I can sympathize with that in some areas, but I don't think it's a particularly strong defense when it comes to the writing/tone issues. Usually dev issues have more to do with the actual gameplay, pacing, bugs or level design. Look at Dragon Age 2, it's typically hailed as having a great story and it only had a year of dev time. The biggest issues with the rushed dev time is the simpler gameplay and the game basically having like, 6 maps that are constantly reused. But they still made memorable characters, included past events and choices from DA1 and good writing.
Kotor 2 is another example of a game with like, a year or so of dev time that had incredible writing and memorable characters. The dev time was again more related to the rapid pacing issues and host of bugs. Even Mass Effect 2 was arguably rushed with a 2 year dev time. And there are some writing issues there (feeling shoehorned into Cerebus) that are arguably a result of the short dev cycle, but again, the bulk of the writing is still on point, the characters were memorable, your past decisions were referenced, and they managed to work in previous characters in satisfying ways.
It's not just the short time span it's the absolute chaos surrounding the development. KOTOR 2 had a very short dev cycle but they would always focused on ONE VISION. Bioware didn't have that benefit so I give them some grace.
Fallout New Vegas was done in 18 months and in terms of world building, narrative, characters and factions is outright the best fallout game to date. I've grown bored of the "time" and "oh but development hell" excuse for highschool tier writers and their fanfic.
@@SlanderedGaming yeah big agree. on the other hand, _some_ of the issues Veilguard has with its writing are ones that wouldn’t happen under normal circumstances no matter how bad the development situation was, unless either there was external interference or there were some very naive writers involved. I’m _specifically_ talking about the way rl social issues have been handled - clumsily erasing or trying to step around slavery, racism, the whole situation elves are in in Thedas at this point, messily trying to disentangle Dalish elves from the influences the original writers took from rl indigenous communities, the lack of coherence with which characters with another belief system are presented in the form of the Qunari in Veilguard vs previous versions of them. Those are all rookie errors. Literally. When I was in college that was the kind of ‘what not to do’ that they covered in first year. So for my money, either the loss of talent during layoffs has left behind a writers room who are ( _charitably speaking_ ) very naive when it comes to their grasp of the actual reality they’re referencing (I would use stronger language but I don’t think a yt comments section has ever been improved by strongly opinionated swearing), or they got given some pretty sweeping instructions from up top about filing off the series’ pre-existing social commentary.
Honestly I’d put my money on a little bit of both of those having happened, but either way I have a bone to pick with _all_ of the people involved in those choices
They need better writers and they need to execute a story better. Also, insert more choice into an rpg.
The next game will hopefully be an improvement.
@@SlanderedGaming I mean I think they will improve gameplay and level design, but I don't think it will be better in writing and story, and they will probably reduce RPG mechanics even more.
@@SlanderedGamingthe last few games they’ve released had subpar writing if we have to wait another 10 years for another DA I don’t think many peep are holding g their breath
There were 0 rp aspects to this game.
Did they ever address the romance claim of it being the best of the series as well as the companions being the best?
Especially when it's the worst in both of those aspects.
Yes, Corinne literally said in one of the answers that she wishes they could have gone deeper in the romances.
@@mickeyveach3612That’s so wild to say this now, after promoting the romances they way that the did prior to launch.
Just looking at the art-book and project Joplin anyone can see at wich point this game went wrong and it's also clear the new team is not capable of delivering a good DA game. They lack the talent, the experience and are too constrained by their own moral view of the world to make a fantasy game.
For real, a half-decent author would just spin the Joplin outline into a good game, make it shorter maybe or more linear in sections.
100% this.
A Dragon Age game where we rebuild southern Thedas and deal with competing factions trying to assume control would be some juicy story telling.
That's how I feel!
They couldn't pull it off, so we'll never see it. Gotta keep those expectations low enough that you're never disappointed but can yet be pleasantly surprised. 😂
All sounds like a bunch of corporate speak to me. Have they even acknowledged some of the constructive feedback thrown at them? Or just making stupid excuses and empty promises?
Obviously not. They live in their echo chamber.
They really did NOT want to talk about any of the oppression and disparity in DA 100%. The way they answered the question to that was so evident they were too uncomfortable to do it. And i can understand in the time frame they made Veilguard, before bg3 came out, maybe they were afraid of how much "politics" affected sales. But i hope they see that with all the games that are coming out, delving into topics like that, they should go back to their roots.
Me too I really hope the message is clear.
Except, there are some pretty political messages in veilgaurd. Way more so than BG3.... idk what you are trying to say?
lifestyle choices is only a political issue to people who don't want to share the planet with other people @@jamesmunn576
Yeah what message? "Be who you want to be?" That's what they teach in kids cartoons, bro. @@jamesmunn576
I'm trying to say exactly what I said. Game's not political enough. @@jamesmunn576
I'm sorry, but I started laughing and snorting at the "Solas decided he's not a leader"-part.🤣🤣 Like, you would think he'd had realized that some time sooner. It's comical how they are trying to save this narrative.
I'm puzzled. In your critique and now you said Solas and the elves were written wrong. Yet you still believe the team can do better next time. Solas was THE ONE THING they should have done well. I just don't get it why you defend the writing...
Its so weird bc literally dav showed the elves being central for all the lore, but if theyre written wrong where is all this faith coming from??
Yea, I don't get this. The people who had years to get one thing right... they didn't get that one thing, right... but next time, they will. Idk, man. Cope is beyond
It's called toxic positivity
10.00 I'm sorry Slandered but let's be honest here : it took them 10 years to make this game, you really think in 2035 they'll feel beholden to what was said by a single person in a reddit AMA ? come on let's be realistic here.
Beholden? Certainly not but it clues you into the thinking of leadership at this time.
@SlanderedGaming more like it clues us into what they want to tell us. Is it for goodwill purposes ? To placate fans ? Or sincere ? We don't know.
@@CatroiOz. It's mere damage control, nothing more, nothing less.
I think they didn’t have any elf’s follow solas because then they would have to answer the frankly uncomfortable question of how long does it take humans to just start killing every elf? You think what’s happened before is bad? The terror that would be waged would be apocalyptic.
No, they would have to explain how Rook is able to even reach Solas at the ritual site, which would have logically been defended if Solas had his agents.
9:14 EA's been saying the SAME BS over and over with every single ruined franchise. ME Andromeda? "Going back to the roots"; BF? "Going back to the roots"; etc.
The original talented members from Bioware have left the ship long ago and the studio is just waiting for being dissambled.
That's not true John Epler and Corrine Busch were both a part of major successful Bioware games.
@@SlanderedGaming Did they not have creative directors and writers switched out like 50 different times over the years? It's been a mess.
It goes to show past success can't always predict future success...
I wish people would just accept the truth and stop playing the "EA" card. David Gaider himself has said in interviews EA basically gave Bioware total freedom and it was Bioware leadership that chased him out of the company and hated their writing team. The problems are not coming from "EA".
@@SlanderedGamingCorrine Busche has done nothing but The Sims and we could tell their influence on the art direction.😅
it was kind of funny to me reading through the ama how much of the answers did feel like the developers coming up with in-universe explanations for shortcomings that were 100% just "things fall through the cracks when you have to turn a single player rpg into an mmo and then back into a single player rpg again."
EXCEPT... for the question about how the griffins are going to reproduce. to which john epler was like "yeah i was just wondering that. no idea." that did crack me up ngl
I never heard that Veilguard was supposed to be an MMO. I know it was supposed to be a live service game but that doesn't mean MMO.
@@theobell2002 i am admittedly exaggerating the whole development process there.... honestly unnecessary, since a live service dragon age game is absurd enough as it is
Imo the original plan was for DA5 to change setting and follow up on that after credits scene but since it was badly received and fans complained about previous choices being ignored, I think they decided to switch course
Nah, these are just empty promises. There is no switching course after the South has been destroyed and most major plots are long past their expiration dates thanks to the time-skips.
Yep
One of the first lines you get from Solas is that this story does not end with his downfall but we are supposed to think he is humble enough to be like "I don't want the burden of leadership, I'm not good enough."
I think its unlikely the studio will survive long enough to make another dragon age game. Maybe the IP's will be sold off and we might get another game from a different dev in the distant future.
I think that depends on how Mass Effect does.
let's hope! gaider leaving was the end of bioware for me. it's his baby and he should have been part of da4
Sadly Slandered the damage is done, for fans like me the franchise is dead and they have pushed away a large part of their previous fanbase. I will not touch another game made by them regardless of whether its Mass Effect or another Dragon age, unless what they create is phenomenal.
At some point you have to take a step back and use your head and assess, that their track record of Anthem, Andromeda, Veilguard shows they keep making the same mistakes and do not learn from the previous blunders. At some point as a consumer I have learnt that I am in my own right to "disown" a franchise or game if it's not to my liking.
So basically you won't play their games unless they are great. So all Bioware has to do is make great games to pull you back in as a customer. That's exactly what I want hem to do so we are on the same page.
Yeah, ngl I feel slighted by BioWare at this point like "We think you're part of niche that is not worth including in our target audience" after I've bought nearly every BioWare game (multiple times, in some instances).
I genuinely can't imagine them making a game that would get me back on board. But, hey, I still like a lot of those older games (although it looks like I'll have to mod a lot of them to get them running now...).
So I'm one of those 'classic DA' fans who have been around since Origins. Currently replaying inquisition 'Cause I crushed Veilguard. (And honestly enjoying the sniping between teammates. Veilguard's cuddly buddy love approach to the team is definitely weird to me).
And honestly, truth to tell from my POV veilguard did nothing bad enough to warrant saying I'd never play a DA game again.
DA2 was different from Origins. Inquisition was different from DA2. Veilguard was different from Origins. It's not a surprising thing to do. Bioware tends to pivot playstyle direction in their long running games.
Veilguard took what, close to 10yrs to come out? At some point you just gotta bite the bullet and get the game out. It sucks, but Veilguard is actually pretty good playwise. The story isn't too shabby (alot of games have a rough act 1. Inquisition act 1 was a painful slog for me).
If the team stays the same, and can build the game from top to bottom this time, I'd give it a shot. Thedas is just a fantastic setting that I love to explore.
@@michaelstapley4878 There is a difference between "changing gameplay" and "changing tone, direction of the writing, and massively overhauling/rewriting plot lines". Dragon Age from a tone/writing perspective had been mostly consistent until veilguard. Nothing in DA2 did a massive rewrite of the plot hooks from DA Origins, same with Inquisition. Solas in veilguard barely even resembles the character in Iniquisition and he isn't the only one.
We have to stop paying them for slop if we want to stop eating slop.
7:50 cmon slandered…they don’t deserve to be given such an enthusiastic response with that half baked attempt at making it seem like the disconnect of Veilguard was to make room for references in DA5. I don’t think the fandom should be unnecessarily toxic in their response to the AMA but we should be firm in seeing through the PR bullshit…hold them to account for how badly they messed up and refuse to have it explained away like this…I WANT DA5 to be good but I will not show any excitement to anything these devs promise not give them a free pass for any of their explanations that make there genuine mess ups seem like less of a problem than they are. If BioWare want the fans to support them then earn it with more than words…until then nothing they say matters…not going out of my way to hate but being stern in showing that they don’t get to wiggle their way out of owning up to their mistakes.
100% this.
Great content, so few ppl who not overly positive or negative about Dragon age these days... just realistic and not toxic at all. Thank you!
It's weird that you trust Bioware to make a good Dragon Age game even though you care about the story and they don't.
Finally someone who reviewd this game as a person. Not as an amalgamation of fanhating and destructive criticism (altough some of this criticism comes from a deep love of the nuance, complexity and overall ambientatiin of the previous games). You have a new fan in Brazil my dude. Obrigado por ser essa pessoa maravilhosa. Can't wait to se your next video!
I always felt BioWare would have been better served having their games have smaller stakes since it is so much easier to import choices that way. That got proven true with ME and the vast differences in thier endings. I am intrigued and scared by how they plan to address that
Yup smaller scale would definitely be better for them.
@@marvinp90 i feel in general smaller scales are always better for hero stories, th smaller the scope the more fleshed out the cultures and characters end up being
I think Epler and Busche were the wrong people to do this AMA. I'd rather have had Trick Weekes answer questions. First of all, they'd have made more sense, and it would be interesting to see how the writing team made decisions about what to include and what to cut.
the dude is probably out there sniffing his blue dye. Don't get me wrong, I've got blue hair too, but he has done a major disservice to this games not whipping all the entry-level grunts into a more serious tone while they were writing nonsense they were writing after veterans departed.
I know you like to be diplomatic, but what they did to the Elves was... cowardly writing, to say the least. It could have been such an emotionally powerful arc. The answer about what happened to Solas's army almost makes it feel worse lol.
I'll just say this; you know the game has a writing and story telling problem when the devs have to explain their story in hindsight and involving aspects never even hinted at during the game. Everything in this AMA reeks of damage control after they got feedback on the complete and utter disaster they made.
At this stage I doubt we will even see a new DA game made. I will be suprised if Bioware is still a thing next year depending on how the numbers for the game are. The next EA earnings will probably decide it.
The next EA earnings won't decide it because they know ME is a cash cow. Now if ME does poorly....
@@SlanderedGaming I agree and disagree. If DAVE had been their only failure...however...ME:A flopped, Anthem flopped. ME:LE is likely the only thing that kept them afloat. For the past 10 years the only games Bioware have made a solid profit on was a remake. Any new product has failed. The faith in Biowares ability to make a good product is at an all time low, and I am sure EA sees that as well. Bioware did not learn from any of their mistakes in ME:A, if anything they doubled down on them. More childish writing, even more insultingly sanitized storylines, even less complex enemies, copying bosses over and over.
The Mass Effect franchise is a potential cash cow, but likely not in the hands of Bioware, which saddens me greatly to say. Baldurs Gate was the first game I bought back in 96 when I was 14. I still occasionally replay it today. Baldurs Gate 2 might be my all time favorite game. I loved ME1,2 and 3 and probably have 1000s of hours in then. DA:O, DA2 and to some extend DA:I are all games I have massively enjoyed. Heck, I even liked parts of ME:A. But...Bioware has lost it, and maybe the legacy of Bioware would be better passed on to more capable hands.
Sorry for the extended rant, it just really saddens to see what has become of the game studio behind my favorite games.
This was really bad, the Solas excuse on the top ofc. I don't believe any words about past choices and DA5, and I think we have some proof that they cannot be trusted now. The fact they bring the Blood Mage "if they had time for a DLC" after saying it was not possible ... Talking as the Crows in the game as idealist is weird, like the others will not defend Treviso - and why choose them in the first place ? Everything seems so fake in this AMA.
I liked the AMA but agree bringing up Blood Mage was very odd.
Third time BioWare promised a Blood Mage.
Crows as idealists. Hmph. When was this transformation supposed to have occurred? And why didn’t we have an option to agree with the Governor instead of automatically agreeing with that a group of adults who were tortured as kids to be hired cold-blooded killers are the best choice to govern? I really wanted that choice.
I think that if the game had a normal development cycle; this game would have been much better. That they had to change direction in the middle of development had to have had a huge impact on the overall quality of the game. If this game was actually developed from the beginning to be what it is now instead of a life service infested MMOlite; I really do think a lot of the issues with the game would not exist.
DA2 was built in a year or so and still was able to give a story that had decent replay value, much better dialogue and likeable characters also bring able to being in atleast ~20 choices from DAO
Yup that's part of the reason I still have faith in the team. They haven't been given a fair shake yet.
This has been my spontaneous assessment as well, chaotic dev cycles are often a death sentence for games (they are killed before release) sometimes for the studio as a whole, and if they manage to land it, often they release in poor states or are just bad.
I think this one did the latter, and that they landed a release at all was surprising.
We sometimes hear about the "success against all odds" stories but that's such few cases. The amount of killed projects from the game dev world is staggering.
For any eager commenter ready to pull that I am jumping to the defence of this game, just know I never cared about it and didn't buy it, just giving some industry side perspective
@@SlanderedGaminghopefully Mass effect 5 will be the game they’re fully in control
@@kmel3588The problem in DAV is the direction in the writing team suffered big time. David Gaider gave some very telling statements on Blue Sky the last days.
I just think a new Dragon Age leadership team is required for the next game.
And for EA to stop trying to force DA into a live service game / multiplayer / looter game before quickly fudging it back to a single player rpg game.
I would kill for the parallel game set in the south where you play as the Inquisitor. They could actually use the Keep and make the DA 4 that Veilguard should have been. I don’t know how good it’d be given Veilguard’s writing, but at least it’d be an attempt.
In another 10 years maybe 🙄.
But don't expect good writing.
That would be amazing. Seeing the inquisitor stabilising the south and being the person to fix the south. Maybe become a ruler also seeing there the go to person for the south.
I would have been cautiously optimistic until I saw the post credit scene. From one of the answers from John, it seems like Bioware is doubling down, retroactivly eliminating complexity from characters like Loghain. My bet is that if we ever get a Dragon Age 5, it will either forshadow or feature yet another mustache twirling villain faction. The damage to the lore is allready done.
With they way Veilguard went, they very well might retcon anything in that ending that isn't liked by whoever is in charge by the time da5 comes out.
Since Veilguard has been called "Avengers" of DA (I hate that, but whatever 😂) I would honestly love if they did a 180° with DA5, and gave us "evil" companions and an evil protag. Like obviously you choose your own moral compass, but it would be cool if your origin was something bad like the Bhaalspawn in BG3.
You already know I would be down for that. LOL
You know, that is one way to keep a RPG series going in interesting directions. Game 1 you play a hero, game 2 you play a villain fighting your previous character. And then saving the world again in game 3. And so on.
"Saving the world again in game 3"
What stops you from saving the world in the even(evil) games?
Evil and world saving are not mutual exclusive.
Take the Lich path in Pathfinder WotR for example: you are definitly evil, turning humans into willless undead slaves, but your endgoal is to oppose the demongate invasion, you just use evil means to reach your goal.
Evil that destroys the world they are living on is pretty stupid.
Even an evil lord has to take some care for their subjects, or they will have nothing to rule about or the ressources to fight of their rivals. @@wogsi
Tieing a hero and a villain together with a bond they can't easily break and setting them up on an adventure sounds like it would be a blast.
In fact, that's what Larian Studios did for one of their first games in the Divinity universe.
So they were never going to continue the Inquisitor's story that was set up back in Trespasser. That was such a bad decision especially since all I saw leading up to release was people talking about what their Inquisitors were going to do.
Each DA game being different is no longer serving the series.
@SlanderedGaming It only really helped DA2 since it made the combat good and had a small scale story which is why I think it's best DA game.
Corinne wanting blood mage in the game was a surprise. Positive one thou. They should have done that instead of the hall of valor. Could have cut the whole lords for that. Those guy are cool but so not essential to the story.
I take issues with some of what they said. For instance, why include *canon* info after the fact? Like Lucanis being a demi or asexual virgin. Why say that Spite goes off to read a book when Rook and Lucanis do anything romantic when I know I saw Spites wings sprout when Rook got intimate with him. Spite and Lucanis made an agreement and you literally see them becoming one.
Or saying they didn’t let your Rook participate in the companion stuff like the book club because they didn’t want to mess with your roleplaying experience. Huh??? Is it not an RPG? And it felt weird to walk up to companions having conversations that Rook couldn’t participate in. They stop talking and just look at Rook like “This is an AB conversation, C your way out!”
And the elves, my gods the elves! Where were all the Solas agents? “Well solas decided he could never be a good leader so he bounced from the rebellion”. Gimme a break!
And no, it’s not “satisfying” to portray Lavellan as some sort of “pick me, choose me, love me” type and her drop everything in the South (we hear shit really hit the fan down there) just to walk off into the sunset (Fade) with someone who acts like he didn’t even care about her because Mythal had always been his Day one ride or die. I’m no Solavellan but that made me heated lol
No offense, but why would you believe they would include all these wonderful things you would hipe for, when they simply destroyed the lore, the south, and the last 3 games consequences? I am inclined not to believe a word they say.
I have a different take on Solas.
While he is very prideful he still can admit mistakes ( like giving coryphaeus the orb )
And we saw in his memories how he suffered whenever he had to sacrifice some of his allies.
He is so tormented by regret and guilt that he now rather does it all on his own. And that's where his pride comes into play, deceiving himself into believing he can succeed alone.
And regarding the lack of alienages or slavery, I believe that is not some retcon or that they shied away from difficult themes, but rather a fault of their game design. It is just so hyper focused on its missions that it leaves no place for anything else. And that is in my opinion the only real problem the game has: no space and no time for world building
Admitting mistakes is not the same as admitting faults. The whole reason he wants to tear down the Veil is because he believes putting it up is a mistake. But does he trust anybody else to do that? No because at the end of the day in Solas' mind he is always the best person for the job.
Exactly, so why should he work with someone else?
hey slandered disapointed with this game. For me the ammount of time and resources they pushed into making this a live service game years ago (including questionable creative decisions to make it more viable to a younger audience) even tough they pivoted at some point, was crucial to the final product, which is completely out of league with the rest of franchise
I agree but at the same time this is much better than what a live service game would've been which is ultimately what EA wanted. Hopefully the next game can be much more focused and really deliver what fans want.
@@SlanderedGamingthat's never going to happen fella they proved that with veilguard
Man we need to appreciate that slandered always put the spicey shit in the beginning. Every click batey youtuber puts shit at the end and sometimes dont even have the insight.
Just gotta give you your flowers for that.
Thank you!
Reading the AMA made me more feel that they know/knew what we want and now are just whispering nice little nothings in our ears, in hopes of retaining enough support to show EA that they have a guaranteed market for the next game.
If they manage to do a new game, I really wish they would go more into the dark places of the world. Those were the parts that made the setting more believable and the kind choices actually matter. The only way you can actually show yourself to be a kind person is through effort. Imagine if the next game had the prog to be a bloodmage, someone completely able to control their allies literally, capable of overwriting their will to force them to do what they want or slowly corrupting their thinking to be more in line with yours, but you have choice not to do that. You can choose to be cooperative and at minimum cordial to your allies, to make a real team or have meat marionettes dancing around.
I think it could be a great way of making a game where you can collect a more eccentric party, people who don't like each other's causes at best, but not need the world ending stakes to make them work together and grow to like each other and truly see the person behind the cause. Or pit them against each other to eternally switch blame and lull them into trusting only you. Would make a great dichotomy between an evil and good run.
I want to just add that you are my go to DA creator now. You truly seem to care about the franchise, seem like you have been there from very start, understand the characters and lore and call it like you see it. Even if the rest of us are tired of giving the benefit of the doubt to these studios, stay true to your self, positive or not. Keep up the great work man.
I've been playing through the original SWTOR campaigns and damn I can honestly say that I really miss the old Bioware.
That's some serious cope, my friend. Personally, I've lost all confidence that the current Bioware can produce another Dragon Age game (at least one that's good enough for us old fans to forgive them for Veilguard). They just don't have the talent anymore, and even if they did, they'd be hampered by strict guidelines that would prevent them from touching upon the darker themes that made the original setting so great.
There is no way for us to know the talent level currently at Bioware when Veilguard took 10 years to make and was effectively three different games during that time span. There's nothing definitively we can state based on that situation.
your videos on Veilguard are my fave. I don't always agree with every take of yours but I do with most, and you always back up your opinions with great arguments and lore knowledge and always judge and comment on things fairly and reasonably :)
If they keep the same team based off what they gave us then the next game is (in my opinion) not gonna meet expectations. A retcon would save the next game as well as a reset on who they have handling the next game.
Can you imagine if the game about 'regret' where you roll through Solas' memories allowed you to confront him with issues real time by having members of his previous operation harmed/ involved rather than handwaved away in an AMA--actually seeing his regret/struggle play out more tangibly than in a memory. Imagine if we would have seen even just a small crew become people to him, and were consistently able to challenge his motivations and perspectives by pulling on his heart strings and capitalizing on that regret. For all of Solas' cold calculating actions, he has NEVER been able to stop himself from caring about people regardless of who they are *cough* Iron Bull banter *cough* Cole *cough cough* his acquired respect for Vivienne *cough cough cough cough cough* the fact he killed Felassan out of fear of what his attachment to a modern elf could mean *I'm literally choking atp lol*.
Hell, just mention Charter! In Tevinter Knights he shows he respects and cares for Charter and feels sorrowful. If we couldn't see bits of his forces at least reference something already written to further bolster the narrative.
I have been thinking about things that I would want to see in the next game. Just my personal preference:
1)From DAO - I know many disagree but....Silent Protagonist (or a well done AI voicework that allows for us to have both a voice and the amount of branching dialogue we had back then.) I do not think what is said in paranthesis is currently possible, but it can be someday. BG3 demonstrates it can be done well. Also, the tactical combat with a lot more abilities. You can move fluidly like in later games, but you pause the action and use talents and spells to create combinations. I want persuasion, cunning, and intimidate checks as well. Skills like trap making, alchemy, and so on.
2)From DA2 - The Friendship/Rivalry system should return. I liked the dynamic between the companions in DA2 and how your behavior influences how they perceive you. This creates a lot of replay value.
3)From DAI - The crafting system should return. To be honest, I didn't mind the sandboxes in Inquisition, but they need to do it more like The Witcher 3 where you actually breathe life into the regions if you do this. If this means making them a little smaller, that's fine. You don't need every map to be the Emerald Graves or Hinterlands. You can balance these out with hubs like the cities in Veilguard.
4)From DAV - The environments were nice. I also like the ME2 final mission style and how you build up relations with allies and stuff. However, a Battle of Denerim style calling on allies would be welcomed.
5)DA: Keep. They don't need to use the Keep in its current iteration, but they should integrate such an interface into the character creation screen.
But above all else, I think they need to reveal the rest of the lore in this game and then from there, if they want to do spin offs, okay. Writers should be given more creative freedom. I think Gaider left for a reason. They should be able to lean into the M rating and put offensive stuff in the game (like the broodmother). There is a place for such things if it is done well. Same thing with their historical friendliness towards minority groups...you can write that well within the context of the world.
The team just needs a vision, they need to see what worked and what didn't and play into the strengths and overcome the weaknesses. And if they change their company culture to be a little more appreciative of the importance of writing and creative freedom, perhaps Gaider might return.
A man can dream.
Development hell and doing what you can to get the product out the door. THAT ISN'T AN EXCUSE for a paid product. Look we know this product is crap but we tried really hard!!! Nope. Not getting my money. This is akin to a plate of food from a fancy kitchen. They need a Gordon Ramsey to come around and say not good enough. Call them a Donut and fix it.
There's like an eight year gap between Inquisition and Veilguard. They could have just said Solas did at the beginning gather elves to his side, but only to manipulate them into doing what he wants, and after so many years, he basically alienated himself from the elves when they find out he's Fen'harel or just an asshole or both. There. Gap filled.
It's still mental gymnastics, but at least it's not mental twister.
Smaller scale stories need to have very strong writing to keep people invested. Let’s be honest, this team has shown no indication that they can handle it.
I don't know I agree with some of the other comments, went ahead and checked most of their answers, for teh vast majority (except the personal preference ones) really sound like something read out of a corporate book of allowed answers.
I'm still mostly sure we won't get another Dragon Age, and a part of me hopes we won't, I'd rather these new teams invest their creativity in something new, something they can call their own, it might end up not being "for me" but it doesn't matter, I'm just a person.
You have a much better understanding of Solas than the devs seem to have at this oint and I want to add, that even if he didn't want to be a leader, elves around the world should still want to flog around his cause. It's not, that we don't have real life examples, where people became the cause of a movement wether they want that or not.They really dropped the ball here.
About Minrathous being the focus of a future game: I do like the idea, but not, if it is a cozy game like Veilguard. I loved DA2 and the more smaller problems around the templar and mages and the qunari. I think, you could do something similar epic with Minrathous, but can't be afraid of showing the darker stuff or that game will not have the same impact as DA2 had. I generally prefer the smaller scale storylines over the end of the world stuff.
They really should explained the thing with the Crows in the game. If you play DAO and have Zevran in the group, he tells such a dark tale about the Crows and then you meet Lucanis and his happy go lucky little family - that didn't sit right with me.
Basically: Show, don't tell.
Thank you for covering the AMA!! I agree with your points, and it was a very enlightening video!
Here is what i think they should have done as a fan that grew up with the series. They should have did a "dragon age origins 2" as a filler or segway game where they followed an expanded origins structure that explored a rook-like character and Tervinter deeper. Having the converging story be about overcoming a blood mage who is making his move to overtake the Tervinter Divine, find the OG darkspawn magisters, and experiment on and sacrifice dwarves and dalish elves because he wants to try to and reenter the golden city. With the story narrative happening concurrently with other game's timelines such as inquisition with callbacks/easter eggs/ reactions to events happening through out the world( rumor of a new blight happening/being stopped, qunari take over of Kirkwall, the chantry divine dying, etc.) and ending the game where inquisition ended to set up rook to take on the elven rebellion. This would have given them room to create a game with a clean slate, with an easy layup success with fans, and breathing room to develop dread wolf properly.
I honestly respect your views here, and give a lot of props for how you are trying to keep a positive outlook and good prospective on dragon age as an ip and veilguard as a game. But I am very confused how you can say they are mishandling solas and writing him poorly, but you trust them with writing dragon age on the whole. If I cannot trust them to write one character, how can I trust them to write the whole plotline and world?
Assuming the hero of ferelden talk isn't just that, pure hot air talk, I dont buy it or trust them. This is a reaction to how poorly the writing of veilguard was received and how dramatic the backlash was on how they handled the southern side of thedas.
AMA was nice, I’m confused why they cut out the solas wins ending though. Wonder what they have next, probably 2030 or something 😅
Let's hope the wait isn't that long. LOL
Right why the fk did they cut that? I would have loved this kind of ending (because Solas was right) and i would have liked to see what would happen, it's never elaborated. They just say it's bad but WHY???? But from their answers i take it that they didn't know what to do or what actually would have happened (lack of vision i suppose).
@ either that, or they didn’t want to put in the effort for a “game over” ending I suppose.
You can hear me laughing about Emmrich sleeping standing up every time he comes on screen 🤣🤣 I haven't been able to get over it since the AMA. this is absolutely weird and wonderful.
Veilguard did the impossible - it made me not care about the future of the franchise, because it completely destroyed everything I cared about. I don't trust Bioware at all with the future of DA.
So, I understand that the game was in development hell. That it changed multiple times and would probably have been better if it had an easier development cycle. With that being said, I feel like a lot of the problems with the game aren't fully attributed to the development hell the game had. The writing for the game in particular I think is significantly more impacted by inexperienced writers who were directed to make this game more PG for general audience. At every level, and every point the game is less dark, gruesome, and direct with its themes and direction. I really feel like for future titles they need to reverse this direction. I wouldn't go as far as to say that this more PG direction would ruin the dragon age franchise. I do think it would damage it in the long term if this more PG take of dragon age continues. This game isn't meant for children, this franchise is not meant for children. It's meant for adults. Treat it like it's meant for adults.
I don't think there's a way for us to judge from the outside whether the writing issues are a result of talent or chaos. They may not even be able to judge that internally.
@@SlanderedGaming If they are not able to judge it internally doesn't bode well for the future.
Any dev team has to make proper post-mortems, that doesn't mean the conclusion they arrive to should match players' preferences, but they need to be aware as to why such a huge change in tone was made.
This AMA left me so frustrated. I am going to let go of Dragon Age series. Bioware combined EA's producers do not understand what makes people so invested which in returns makes the community thrive over the years.
What did you want from the AMA that you did not get?
@@SlanderedGaming may be quality of life things for veilguard, may be mini standalone DLC where some of old choices were imported, official mod support like BG3 would be nice and give extended life to veilguard
6:45 - Say it louder for the people in the back. :D
So Lucanis got "too much passion" to not go for Neve regardless and the same day Mary Kirby casually tweets the guy is panromantic and demisexual, a virgin and never had a relationship before. I can't 😂
Solas was willing to tear down the veil knowing that there will be casualties, thats what he and varric were arguing at the beginning of the game. So not sure why he does not want some loyal expendable elves to make sure his plan would succeed regardless if he feels like a leader or if he cares about the elves or not. lol
Emmrich deserves to have a bed. No respect for elders, jeez...
Can Bioware just outsource it to Owlcat already so we can have a proper dragon age game and bioware can make some money while they are at it. After hearing about it is pretty clear that current day bioware just fired their last good writers and the guys left couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. They simple aren't putting in the effort to flesh out their world correctly and that is one of the reasons this game just crashed and burned. IF they cared then they would probably announce something like a solas side wins DLC with ways to be mean to people thrown as an update. They won't even though it would fix a lot of what is wrong with the game. Dragon Age veilguard could be a good game if it were put into intensive care mode but that isn't happening because no one at Bioware cares.
no after so much disrespect for players and lore.... they don't deserve to get close to any DA game
Bring back Spirit Healer!
Its frustrating cause Weekes wrote The Masked Empire which provided such a great weight when it came time to make the decision of who should rule Orlais in DAI and how that could lead into strengthening Solas' forces leading into the Trespasser DLC. Solas killed Felassan for an Eluvian network that at the end of the day didn't matter?? Or what about the reveal about Charter being a double agent for Solas?? Weekes, did you forget your own plot??
4:20 THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS! 💯 BS! Thank you for calling this element missing from the game and calling out that answer!
Minrathous is tainted to the void and back. Ferelden is destroyed. How can Epler talk about returning to these places or bringing back those who rule? Rule what? The ashes? And for Cory Busche to invoke the Hero of Ferelden? TOO LATE! The Hero should have returned in this game, and this game should have taken place soon after Trespasser. The only reason Cory wants to bring back the Hero is so the Hero can be killed off by the taint. And in reality, invoking the Hero is just a marketing ploy to get the fans who left to come back. Well that's not going to happen. SEE YA BIOWARE!!!
There won't be any future Dragon Age games. Not unless a new team full of competent people takes it over and strikes FailHard from the canon.
The Executor plot is idiotic. Even BioWare knows it. So now they are trying to walk it back by saying Loghain was only lightly pushed. But pushed to do what? How does throwing the battle at Ostegar help anyone? The Blight was ended regardless, so who cares if it ended in Denerim or Ostegar?
The version of Mythal that helped the protagonists is the same one Solas killed and absorbed. So Morrigan showing up with that same essence makes no difference. The only thing that did was the original fragment of Mythal from the Crossroads. So BioWare's excuse makes no sense. And no, the original Mythal releasing Solas from her service should not change the fact that Solas would still feel guilt over what he did to the elves.
BioWare also realized Solas going to prison was a dumb ending, and more so if the Lavellen joins him. So this is their attempt to walk that back as well by making the prison not so bad. But the fact remains that Solas didn't need to go to the prison at all. He could have simply went to the Lighthouse.
The Andraste question is easy to answer. Yes. BioWare would probably make her a vessel if there were to ever be another Dragon Age game. And it would contradict the lore as well, because BioWare doesn't care about the lore.
The elves not regaining immortality just confirms Lavellen is dumb to join Solas in prison, since she will die within a few decades, if not days without food or water.
More nonsense. Origins confirms that an archdemon's soul is cancelled out by the Warden's soul. Both are obliterated. This is BioWare attempting to leave the door open for more evanuris after making an excuse to not have to write for them in this game. Plus, if those evanuris are still alive, then the veil would not have started to fall after Elgar'nan's death.
Dragon Age is a dead franchise so long as this new lore direction is what they're going with.
Veggies? 9_9
More nonsense excuses for why the taint doesn't taint no more. So now it's no longer a biological corruption because the taint cube can't reach out to it anymore? What about the red lyrium and the other titans? How is that not augmenting the taint? And since when does the veil work perfectly in keeping things separated? The veil has always been thin in various places. Also, Solas binding himself to the veil would still only make for ONE power source. That means the veil's power source would be at its weakest point since Elgar'nan was the only one left. AND, Solas wasn't even as powerful as Elgar'nan anyway! So what the hell is BioWare talking about? These are just BS excuses.
Still no cure = the Hero of Ferelden's quest was meaningless, pointless, and a massive waste of time.
BioWare forgets to program a bed for Emmerich, so they just say he sleeps standing up. Wow.
More lore-busting on the archdemons. And this is worse because it's not even in the game. It's just BioWare spouting off. And they forgot their own lore. The comics confirm that Great Dragons exist, are above High Dragons, and can be male. The old gods are Great Dragons, not High Dragons.
Yeah right. BioWare didn't want to build large areas of Minrathous. They phoned it in. Just look at how much was dropped from the art book.
They're walking back the Crows as well after seeing the criticisms of how much they were changed in this game.
This is just BioWare making excuses for their bad flop of a game.
All of this is very correct, and exactly what I think too.
You make more sense than these pseudo developers themselves.
It's 'Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet' all over again. Undertalented, intellectually lazy people explain their oversights and poor choices in hopes they can hook players for another round. They don't even know a thing about human blood circulation. I've read AMA and they evade every complex lore question and sugarcoat every plothole if they ever even bother to address it in the first place. Destructible objects were pushed for while Radonis, 'evil' Crow faction, Qunari splitting off and politics of Tevinter got cut. They could've stolen griffon flying from GW2, they could've just kept the artbook cast of characters and story outline and it all would've worked. Yeah, these people are incompetent.
Thank you for stating in the beginning of your video about spoilers. Not everyone does which is understandable as it's been a while since the game released. Unfortunately, I have a very busy schedule nowadays and I am progressing very slowly. As I progress though, I will sometimes follow your journey through your own playthrough as well and then stop at the point that I have reached haha.
Keep up the great content. I will come back to this video soon, as I want to hear what the developers have to say.
Yeah saying this was elf focused is like saying the care bears movies are a brown bear documentary. Anything Elf related was Disney washed and broken to make this Marvels midnights sun school hangout game were all just feel like humans in cosplay and not strong characters of wildy different races and cultures that would not instantly work together.
And the faster that stupid secret ending gets retconned the beter.
The greatest problem with Dragon Age always has been lack of continuity, I hope those news are about them learning how not to do ANOTHER sequel that ain't a sequel.
Continuity should definitely be a focus next go round.
so it's possible that dragon age reorigins could be a thing?! (I'm surprised ea didn't finish them yet)
I'd play the crap out of dragon origins with decent combat adjustment
They made that break in this game, hence only 3 choices that carry over. Please leave the Hero of Ferelden alone, after how they wrote Rook, we don't want them touching previous characters.
I don't share your optimism about how well they can do going forward. Looking at what made it into the game, and how, including how they swept Solas' army under the rug, with a handwave and an excuse that nobody that's looking at what happened in Trespasser should take seriously, they don't have the required skill in the writing department to pull it off. They had almost 10 years on this game, and this was the best they could do? Nope, I have 0 confidence.
I could believe solas thinks hes a bad leader, but it was not shown. And he being insightful enough to see that, but not escape the regret cage is queationable.
Then needing 4 people to convience him to stop makes me more doubtful
As I said elsewhere, I know the signs of a hopium and copium addiction and as a Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who fan, I just can’t do this “give them one more chance” shtick anymore because life is to short and I gave Bioware ten years of benefit of the doubt for them to just sneakily reboot the canon and lore of the first three Dragon Age games in The Veilguard.
I fell for this when I bought Mass Effect Andromeda but no more.😵💫
The story probably isn't all epler's fault. According to Patrick weekes blood magic is too "nasty" "something we aren't interested in having heros do". Honestly don't expect these games to have agency again. I get the sense bioware isn't interested in agency that goes against the teams ethics, which means real agency isn't going to be a thing. For me it's a safe assumption they aren't interested in making proper rpgs because those require a real depth of choice, you can't be morally strangled by the devs. It's a safe assumption for me that their games won't be worth playing. Their not even honest about their intentions, they said there no blood magic for story reasons, bro you make the story, you didn't want it because you didn't want to give us the choice to be villainous. It such a lack of respect for our intelligence. Reminds of Emil tbh.
I mean, blood magic is pretty evil.. inherently. It's not like there's an "ethical" way of using blood magic.
Weekes can get bent i want to make that decision of my own accord
I think the next DA game could easily be set in the south, during the events of DAV. That way we get the consequences of the choices we made in previous games. That was all in the south after all.
I think i would be the happiest if they just remade DA origins with new graphics, and better controls, or some other old gem like the IceWind dale games
Man im really sad, listening about possible new da games is not hyping me up. I dont think they can go back and hook me onto this story again. I really really hope im wrong
It feels bleak right now but the next DA game would probably be at least 5 years away. By that time Veilguard will sting less and you might be more open. :)
@SlanderedGaming thanks man, love your channel and i do appreciate your insight.
"A real end the the Hero of Ferelden"? Sorry what?
Their story ended with a bowtie, perfection. All games that came after did nothing but handwave and lampshade their involvement.
I do not want these failures of writers to even think of touching that character's legacy. Their fanfiction already undoes the entirely of DAO's main story.
To me, Dragon Age Origins is the only canon. DA2 was a spinoff, DAI was another reality and DAV doesn't exist.
The developers have lied, blamed the fanbase, and avoided/hidden the truth.
I don't see how they can ever improve and make a better DA5 when they won't even admit to the mistakes they made.
I think the problem with this game was always the most that it was game 4 in an arc, combined with so many years passing. There was always no way it would feel the same, no matter what.
I assume that Veilguard is just a soft-reboot? That's what I'm hearing?
Veilguard just feels so off. The lore doesn't even make sense. Characters don't behave like they should.
I can imagine had this game not had the dev cycle it had, they could have added the things they would have wanted to add into it. They could have delayed the game further if they needed to and I would have liked it. Still, the game is out and while I like some things about it, I also don't like other stuff with it. Though thinking more on it, they at least gave a way out with the wardens of the south possibly splitting from the north. Kinda wished they had more than three choices for the game, do what rhey did for mass effect or Pillars of eternity 2 and have options to pick at the character creation, maybe even a tutorial playing as Rook and the faction choice being the tutorial level like in origins.
It's definitely a mixed bag and I would liked to see what they would do with a much more normal dev cycle.
@SlanderedGaming no kidding, it would have been one heck of a game if it had a normal development cycle
No it wouldn't. 🤣😂
Writing: Trash
Art Style: Childish
Combat: Mobile games have done better
All around a pathetic display.