If you are here for Game of Thrones, that is coming in the next video. At the start, I will definitely explain why it's been taking so long. If you are here for Dragon Age, you can find the concept art book (Dragon Age Project Joplin) or at least a preview of the first chapters - on Google Books. The quality is good, so feel free to check it out yourself.
So weird that you happened to upload today because I just randomly searched for this again to see if it was finished yet, after not thinking about it for well over a month.
So what you saying is DA:O - Wandering Party DA 2 - City Party DA: Inquisition - Fortress party DA: Dreadwolf - Ship crew. I have to say the idea of traveling with ship all across Thedas coasts or even if it was reduced to map locations it would have been great.
I really appreciate this video. You've pulled off a neat Sherlock Holmes feat. Very intriguing premise and while I didn't mind Veilguard even with its flaws, it's clear that what was originally planned would have been a more compelling experience truer to the franchise.
I'm crying. The moment you mentioned that we'd reunite with who we left behind in the fade via inquisition I'm just... Ugh. We were robbed. We were so robbed.
The decision to abandon Dragon Age Keep was the moment that sealed Veilguard's fate. Since the developers were no longer bound by the choices we made in the past, they did not have to treat them with any kind of significance. It was no longer our story. We were now just participants in another's story, and that is the greatest sin a Dragon Age game can make.
I had only one criticism of the game as far as gameplay went it was great but then again that is just my opinion however I find it annoying that no matter which faction you choose the story of how you meet varric and arrive in tevinter always has you painted as a rebellious person who gets I trouble for doing going against a plan you know won't work or will cost more lives than going against what your superiors tell you. Personally find that offensive more so than the non-binary Taash. That is a problem yes but not as much as problem of doing what you know as right and being criticized by your own faction for doing so.
Holy shit, that’s starts exactly like my head canon, well at least chapter 1. I love that the person we left in the fade in DAI would help Rook out of the fade. This could somehow lead to The Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor and Rook end up in this game together
Remember flemeths advice to hawke in DAII? "We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly." I'm fairly certain that this was foreshadowing to Hawke's fate, to be the one left behind in the fade during inquisition canonically. Add to it the fact that a mage hero of ferelden is also a Amell family member, in fact a cousin to hawke, I'm certain they had plans for tying the history of the Amell family to ancient events. Keep in mind, Flemeth - Mythal - saved both Hawke and the Hero of Ferelden from the blight, and upon meeting hawke in DAII, she hints at the irony, saying "Is it chance or fate? I can never decide", and then proceeds to hand hawke her life insurance, bringing her back to life later, in case the hero of ferelden will kill her. All that potential for intricate narrative design, washed away by one dumb decission, to completely throw out any past choices the player made in previous games, save for 3. Mods can't fix the damage the devs did to their own series, but here's hoping that bioware actually goes backrupt, and fan projects will eventually realise the full potential of what was otherwise a great story, slaughtered on the altar of political activism.
Can we please finance THIS Dragon Age to substitute the current fourth game we have and properly call "Dreadwolf" please? The very beginning is exactly what I was imagining ever since I finished Trespasser, Solas forming a army of loyal elves while Leliana (my choice for Divine) act setting a new exalted march formed by the remains of the Inquisition to stop Solas.
God, the potential setup was amazing! The elves flocking to Solas would have been amazing and the ritual scene in the concept art was PROPER Dragon Age!
Agreed. And honestly many of the artworks are beautifully drawn (especially in terms of composition). Pity that most of them will remain on paper. It could have been epic.
With Lucanis, I was hoping he would suffer from what Anders did -- the constant battling to keep control over his senses. And eventually we could push Spite to completely take over, or get Anders as a cameo to help balance him in some quest. It's still weird that Lucanis can simply live like it's nothing, without any magical knowledge or control.
The fact that it ended with just "so I'm now besties with the demon inside me and there are no negative consequences whatsoever" was hilarious and so disappointing
Fr I wish the lore carried and he was jnow as the mage that started the mage v templar war in kirkwall that spread all over the south. If davrin/neve/harding said "I hope you and spite don't have plans like that kirkwall mage"
Spite was certainly frustrating, they turned what is supposed to be a powerful demon up there with Pride, into a jealous dog. There were so many ways they could have played that out, having him embrace Spite or flip over to Determination instead. Could have even had the two go completely nuts if you decided to ignore them, certainly would have made the decision whether or not to keep him around more of a head scratcher. I don’t think we’ve seen a character ever cured of possession before either, so that could have been a new route to explore. Anyway, I just found it weird that you could have a Spite demon wandering your home base the entire game and nothing went wrong.
@Geronimo_89 won't lie in my playthrough he hated spite and actively vowed to rid him from his body. They only ever agreed on fulfilling the mission and my ending slide detailed that he left to find a way to seperate spite from his body.
I think they had plans for Anders like all the previous companies were meant to be part of the game, I feel like Dragon age 4 was planned to be the greatest technically and storytelling masterpiece with characters storyline’s depending massively on what happened in previous games but EA came into the picture and we got this
- A more serious, epic story with diplomacy and war - return of the hero of ferelden and hawke - Solas at least for the first half being the main villain - deal with tevinter and qunari leaders - campatible with dragon age keep and our choices. - Actual flashbacks from the elf- titan war, the primitive dwarves and elven story in general. - another origins for the archdemons apart from being elven gods pets i think. - elven rebellion - multiple endings even one where solas wins and one where a titan awakens. - ride griffons -Taash being a atractive amazonian warrior and in a way heir and maybe aprentice of isabela and instead of a gender dilema a cultural dilema between the qun and rivain. - A FUCKING SUBMARINE. - lore accurate tevinter, antivan crows and qunari/ tal vashot. - blight and the elven gods feeling like a threat to the point of posible conquer tevinter - religous dilema respect the elven gods, the chantry and the imperial chantry WHY THE FUCK WE GET VEILGUARD AND NOT DREADWOLF?
I'm jaded from companies ruining good stories and set pieces, but this one specifically hurts the most, between the games, comics and books, this game was supposed to be the magnum opus of Dragon Age as a whole, returning heroes, possibly even played at some point and an epic conclusion to an otherwise wonderful story. The titans situation could've been left as a possible sequel in the future if Bioware wanted something more, but seriously, I would love to see the community attempt to recreate this story line as a mod, adding back the Dragon Keep, and bring back choices from all previous games and DLCs in some capacity, it would be beautiful at least as a what could've been.
The biggest things I'd wanted lore wise would have been more ambiguity in the deep lore, to give room for the Chantry to have some of their mythology actually be accurate in some way. By making all the big questions "Solas did it," it makes the world less magical and fantastic, more boring and mundane. That is, the fade and Golden City existed before the elves did and they don't really know who made it or why it's empty. This could be where the Chantry says that the Maker abandoned it when the elves took on flesh by trading a part of their souls to the Old Gods (Titans) they thereby worshipped them and gained flesh via blood magic (consumption of lyrium). The Blight would be something not created by Solas using a dagger, but the natural consequences of disordered spirits, in particular the elven pantheon. They've now disordered the Fade through the Tevinter Magisters and their so-called Old Gods that the Fade is tainted such that it can't go back. The Veil was created as a means stop the Evanuris, by Solas sending thousands of souls from bodies to the Fade to serve the purpose of protecting the elves. And then we can have the gaps filled in by of the rest of the lore.
Heartbreaking honestly, I've been burnt by companies ruining good stories in the past with games such as Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Halo, Mass Effect to some extent but this one hurt the most. Comics, books and games all setting everything up to this game alone...reduced to what feels like mockery.
Making the "tearing down the Veil" ritual a giant Blood Magic slaughter makes complete sense when you think of it. All 3 games state that the Veil is thinnest at the site of battles/massive loss of life. And Solas doesn't "abhorre the use of blood magic". He is a-ok with it. To quote him in Inquisition: "Magic is magic. It matters only how it's used." This entire concept is very sad to learn about because it just proves how DA4 could have been on par with Inquisition or even Origins in quality. Instead we have this soulless slop. Edit: 32:50 Taash's design here is so fucking cool it hurts. Why couldn't they stick to it ffs?
With regards to the I abhor BM line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . He says that because he's lying. You find out in the finale that he's been subtley using blood magic on Rook the whole game to make Rook see what he wants to nudge Rook to his side and not freak out or go against him for Varric's death
Also-also if you say to Stolas, when he asks how you feel about Blood Magic, that “it’s just another form of magic”, he approves. Whoever wrote Veilguard obviously never played Inquisition
@@ZenJestrWas Rook always alone? Or nobody realized that Rook said weird things in conversations? Funny. I guessed Varric would die in the prologue just from the gameplay demo.
@@LadyLeomon Solas is lying in Veilguard. the game has a lot of writing problems but this particular moment isn't one of them if you get to a certain reveal
@@nicolasferreiro4492 yea only Rook saw Varric. if you go back and watch all the cutscenes with Varric nobody acknowledges him. any time Varric is mentioned by another character, their wording and tone implies that he's gone.
The original premisse alone is so amazing. A new exalted march, probably issued by Cassandra or Leliana, the political intrigue from Inquisition paying off in a massive way from the get-go as if you are playing the Witcher 3 right after 2, Rook having a clear reason to exist instead of making us wonder why we're no longer playing as the Inquisitor. Dreadwolf could have been such a fantastic game, shame we got Veilguard instead.
This is IMMEDIATELY more interesting to me than Veilguard. Veilguard started halfway through the story. Rook just shows up and we’re supposed to care. But we don’t care, because Rook hasn’t been established as a significant character in the DA universe. The ritual is the climax of a whole story arc - an arc which the game completely skips. It just tells us, again and again, “you should care about this ritual”. How about constructing a narrative in such a way that we DO actually care about it? It’s bitter sweet to hear how much work had already done in that regard, only for it to be thrown away. Sad, sad. What a wasted opportunity.
Right?? This just hooked me and I watched the whole thing like a movie! Ugh when I finished Veilguard I was left with this feeling of mourning… because it was so unbelievably underwhelming and lazy.
It's nice to see what could have been. As for me, there are only three Dragon Age games. I knew that anti-woke youtubers would blast Veilguard no matter what, as they hate everything that's not Conan the Barbarian, and I was prepared to embrace it despite of certain annoyances, but I didn't expect it to be an ultra-safe, ultra-pandering, disneyfied mockery of a sequel. I waited ten years, and all I got was a slap in the face by EA. But at least your video provides some sort of closure. So thank you.
Very well said. I feel the same, this felt much more like what the story should have been. I just feel sad now, knowing we'll never get it. This franchise is dead now and the magnificent mind-blowing story shown here is dead with it. Also good job calling out that crowd on UA-cam that just farms outrage and hate for cash. I always want to love games and stories and it's disappointing when they turn out like this.
It was feeling like we are starting in the middle of the story rather than the beginning. I would have liked to play through my back story and the meeting of the veilguard and chasing after Solas, rather than starting the game as we catch up to Solas, and people around just saying that yeah remember when you did this in the past?
Me too but EA probably gave a green light to one DA game for BW , so they told us the ending and everything else was chopped and sliced to support somehow the finale.
Literally the entirety of Neve's story could have fit Calpernia better. It's like they swapped out the character in the last moments. She even had Neve's prosthetic leg - I assume it could have been a consequence of being beaten by the Inquisitor and jumping off a cliff to escape / confronting Corypheus if you talked her down or sided with the mages. Neve's story felt so out of place to me, she literally came out of nowhere and acted like the city's batman. And so many opportunities for engaging banter! Imagine, one of DAI's main villains having to work with Harding, Dorian and the Inquisitor alike. So much sass potential. What a waste!! I'm such a sucker for redemption stories.
Having the HoF and Hawke return and complete their arcs, possibly with their friends and LI sounds so good. I really wanted a conclusion for those characters, the Calling really should have played a bigger role in DAV.
I literally just got to this part and absolutely agree. It's like dude has never said "who are they? " when talking about a single person they don't know. IE: "I'm bringing a friend. " "Who are they? "
@@SwogglesFroggles There are tons of ways to express the same without using plural. Like "Who do you intend bring?" or "Who'll that be?". In addition keep in mind he's from eastern Europe, English will not be his first language, and a lot of languages actually make it impossible to abuse the plural to refer to a singular person.
Matt Rhodes (Art Director of Veilguard and senior concept artist of previous DA games), posted on his Artstation regarding the "waking up Titan" concept: "An artist's pitch for a potential end-game. Solas has raised the titan upon which the city of Minrathous had been built, in order to use its strength to tear open the veil."
More likely they'll go "Its not selling well, time to kill Dragon Age in it's entirety and never do anything with it again except more soulless cash grabs"
I'd have mad respect for Bioware if they could actually just face reality and realize DAV sucks, then retcon it with what Dreadwolf was supposed to be.
Well, yeah...Bellara does remind me of Merrill in some ways. Though, when I played through her questline, I imagined her story unfolding a bit differently. Below is a massive wall of chaotic fantasies - read at your own risk :) Imagine this: her quest could have been structured like this: -She and her brother are searching for archives. -Her brother becomes so obsessed with his goal that he is willing to go further and further - both morally and literally. -At one point, in one of the elven temples, he "sets up" a team that was also exploring the ruins, perhaps to disarm traps. Most of them die, but one member and Bellara survive. (This could raise a question without a definitive answer: was he willing to sacrifice Bellara too?) -In the end, since one team member survived, their clan learns about the incident. Her brother, frustrated with their caution and old-fashioned ways, decides to go even further (possibly seeking answers in the Fade with demons). He leaves on his own, but Bellara faces the backlash as people believe she was complicit (after all, why would her brother betray his own sister?). (All of this would be revealed through dialogues as you progress through her quest.) -Then, as in the game, she finds a new clan that takes her in without asking too many questions. During the game, we come across traces of her brother. By this point, he is already possessed by a demon and discovers an archive that can be "unlocked" using a blood magic ritual. The ritual would extract knowledge from the Fade and seal it into some sort of device (similar to what we find in the game). -Eventually, he reaches Bellara’s new clan, manipulates the young and ambitious elves (much like he himself once was), and leads them astray. Bellara hears about this, and we set out to rescue her clanmates. BUT! He manages to complete the ritual, believing the ends justify the means, and binds spirits (or souls) to the archive, cutting them off from the Fade. -We defeat her crazed brother, but then we face a difficult choice: On one hand, destroy the archive to free the spirits and let them rest. On the other hand, acknowledge that her brother was partially right - desperate times call for desperate measures. Since the ritual is done (and the demon is dead, so it can't be repeated without further sacrifices), maybe the archive should be preserved? Yes, the trapped spirits would suffer as long as the archive exists, but, as her brother might have said, "Knowledge has a price." (Or something along those lines.) This would make the choice ambiguous and challenging. It could go even further: if you choose option 1) Bellara might have a lower chance of surviving the final act or one of her clanmates could die. If you choose option 2) you would face the decision of whether to tell her clan the truth about what happened and the price paid to make the archive work. Her personality and behavior will become much stricter and significantly change - something similar to Shadowheart from BG3, where she acts quite differently depending on whether she remains a devotee of Shar or turns to Selune. But in this scenario, Bellara would have a better chance of succeeding in the finale, as she’d be equipped with the secrets of the Fade. And since her brother technically achieves his goal, Bellara would need to decide whether to accept his victory and use it for good or uphold her principles, rendering the young elves' sacrifice meaningless and losing the archive’s potential answers. *end* So, I mean, it is mostly the same as what we saw in Veilguard, but I think the ending could have been a bit more... ambiguous. For instance, her chances of surviving the finale could have depended on the choices you made throughout the game. That would have changed the structure of the game, making both the ending and the entire story feel more dynamic. Imagine having something like the War Asset system from Mass Effect 3. Depending on your companions' loyalty and the "strength of the forces gathered across Thedas," you would get different endings. In short, they could have made the events much more grand in scale and tied everything together even more intricately.
It would have been neat if Merril was the leader of the Veiljumpers it would make a lot of sense for her. They brought Isabella back as leader of the lord of fortune why not to the same with Merril
Merrill just should have been among Veiljumpers. I am okay with Bellara, but I would prefer if Veiljumpers had Merrill in it. Merrill should be one that is expert on eluvians. I would totally swap Strife and Irelin into Merrill. Merrill by end of DA II was determined to help ANY elves. Not just dalish. And the Veiljumpers clearly have anybody who is interested in Veil study in them.
@@cracmar03 Bellara does not really work for me...she is just too much adorkable trope but without the substance...the funny thing with Merril was that you sometimes didn't know if she was actually as naive as she pretended to or if she subtible trolled again...
I’m actually replaying too and it’s very obvious Bellara was inspired by Merrill. If they continued with solas having followers, I could see bellara having been the next mage apostate that betrays you to give her people the greatest gift of all, knowledge and immortality.
I think my biggest dream for a dragon age 4 was a mission, a single mission, when you could use all the protagonists of all previous games in one team, The Warden, Hawke, The Inquisitor and Rook, just imagine AWESOME that would be? And it would make sense, that's the only team who could stop a god like Solas is a team of 4 protagonists.
Exactly. With Mythal shattered into pieces, and Titans basically dead/lobotomised, Elgar'nan is probably the most powerful being that ever existed in Thedas. Solas could not defeat him alone, but imagine the badass cutscene of HoF, Hawke, Inquisitor, Solas and Morrigan with Flemeth's influence and Kieran's old god soul taking down Elgar'nan, as anything less than that would not be enough.
The creators of inquisition went over the struggles they had incorporating Hawke into the game let alone incorporating the HoF. It just wouldn’t work. Even Kieran was supposed to have a bigger role in inquisition but there were too many variables it would be too hard while staying faithful to each players campaign.
Fr fr. We deserve a dragon age game that is on par with bg3. I mean they gotbalders gate ip from BW why not dragom age. I wouldn't mknd waiting another 10 years for a game deserving of our free time to play.
For real. Larian would have done Dragon Age justice if it had rescued it from EA/Bioware's clutches (just please don't make it purely turn-based though!)
I almost wish I hadn't watched this. See, in the old days brilliant concepts fallen victim to the corporate cutting room floor always left me with hope. Hope for modders to take up and restore these ideas, like they did for so many Troika and Obsidian games. But nowadays, with full VA and sky-high production costs, that hope is gone, and nothing but emptiness remains. It really hurts to think how so many of the impossible decisions in DA:V (the complete absence of politics, the Qunari siding with Elven gods while Elves are nowhere to be seen, the infiltration missions so at odds with the Marvelesque escalation of stakes from the very beginning...) have their roots in and could have worked so much better with this version of the story. It would have made so much sense for the two layers (Tevinter vs Qunari and Elven Gods vs everyone) of war to be detached on the surface and only connected through Solas' machinations behind the scenes.
In all honesty, I think Veilguard should just be made non-canon and just try again with the original idea because this is just so much better. Especially with the return of the Warden and the use of Dragon Age Keep.
It's over, they are not going to spend another 10 years in Dragon Age, not even 3 years at all. This was the only chance they had, and they blew it away. The budget for Dragon Age was used in Veilguard. I don't think they can just say. "Hey, we already wasted millions on this game, but let's make it again from scratch." The team has already moved to Mass Effect anyway.
@SeventhheavenDK Oh, no doubt, but for the first time, I'm not looking forward to a new Dragon age game if it's just going to work of Vielguard and not the other dragon age games. I think they should wait and see if the new Mass effect is a win because if it fails, I don't think things are going o get better. But if it is good and it does succeed, they should just call Vielguard Non canon. Keep it around for those rare few who still play it and just make new games from Inquisition trespasser and use, Dragon age Keep with it.
It's truly tragic that the Joplin project hasn't made it to the final game. The story you imagine with the art concept seems so much better! And although I disagree that the veilguard is criticized too much I'm on board with your opinion on Joplin. I hated the writing of Veilguard. And no technical perfection can cover this for me. The problem is that da fans had forgiven a lot of things for the story and characters in these games. And this team destroyed the very essence of Dragon age. So no beautiful environments or gorgeous hair or technical performance can overshadow it. It's going to linger as the biggest heartache of my art loving side...
Wow... Finally something interesting. But damn, it's painful to watch... When I went through the game, I couldn't help but feel a sense of loss, as the whole game felt like a parade of missed opportunities. Well, after this video, I can see why I had that feeling..... and now it's even more painful to watch this game. ... I was hoping until the end that the whole game was Rook's deathbed delirium after she hit her head in the prologue. Or that it's Varrick's cringe story T_T now I just want to cry....
Actually, if you think about it, they could say something like - "Alright, folks, sorry about this. We kinda messed up here, but let’s just imagine that this was a “Varric's fanfic” and now we are officially announcing Dragon Age 4 as we originally envisioned it..." and so on. The issue is that there is no precedent for something like this. Of course, just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it never will. But I don’t believe today’s BioWare is the kind of studio capable of taking such... a bold step.
@CineGameAV Yes, you're right, it was too bold... And corporations don't like to admit failure. I once saw a joke before the release of The Veilguard that played off the events in the game, and then suddenly it turns out that it was all a joke that Varric was telling Cassandra)
@CineGameAV Hold on, yes there is! Final Fantasy 14 did EXACTLY that. The game (an MMORPG) launched to widespread criticism and rejection by fans, but Squeenix actually went, "You know, you're right. Hold my beer." They took three years, remade the game with a far deeper story and better gameplay, and relaunched it to widespread acclaim. It went on to become a smash hit that still supports millions of active, daily players.
The plot we eventually got with Veilguard feels like the writers caved to Solasmancers writing fanfiction on AO3. Heck, probably the only meaningful choice we could import from past games is whether or not the Inquisitor romanced Solas. Something probably went seriously wrong in the writing department and the writers purges must have left no one senior enough to stand up to corporate management. It feels like when David Gaider left in 2016 he just took all the good writing along with him.
Losing Mike Laidlaw was probably an even bigger hit. He wrote for both mass effect and dragon age. After anthem and Andromeda flopped, Bioware lost most of the staff that made it gear
I think most true Solamancers, like myself, just wanted a deep, meaningful conclusion. However tragic it ended. 3 out of 5 of those endings sounded good to me, and even the other 2 would have had me searching them out. *sigh* I think they did Solas dirty in Veilguard though. He seems so... second fiddle.
As a Solasmancer, I was happy I got my happy ending with him by talking him down and going on to wander the Fade together. But there should have been more choices incorporated into DAV than whether you romanced him or not. Disbanding the Inquisition or giving it to the Chantry played no part other than it being brought up in some dialogue. The game should have been built in a way where both people who romanced Solas and those who didn't could be satisfied.
A "Solasmanser" here. I am pretty sure this is not what the majority of us wanted. This is shallow slop, and we wanted a good story. Not my Inquisitor commiting suicide (because staying physically in the fade for too long will do weird things to a mortal) with a guy who killed Varric after the player suffered theough 70 hours or so of terrible terrible gameplay&dialog.
This game should have been the thing that brought almost all past choices and characters together. The lore, locations, and events justify it. Imagine seeing Zevran in the Crows quests or Sten in the Quinari quests. Hell, imagine seeing the hero of Ferelden at the Warden HQ or Hawke in the game. It would have been great, but they fumbled it. Taash is littearly a self insert. She makes Vivienne look like a good character.
@@SeventhheavenDK compared to taash, yes. However, Vivienne shares a lot of the issues people have in taash. You're unable to really influence or talk to her at all. Every conversation with her is one-sided, and you are unable to call her out or challenge her on anything without the game overtly taking her side.
Im out of words. This story concept was so intetesting, it had so much potential... imagine all the protagonists in the same game or toegether in a scene... they could have done this, but something happened. Solas being the focus would make the game 100x better, old characters would be more relevant too... what a bad feeling man By the way the pace of your vídeo is insanely good and joyful to watch
Elementary school teaches simple concepts because brains aren’t developed enough to handle more nuanced or detailed information. Doesn’t make it an excuse for not knowing English history correctly as an adult. Regardless of whatever your personal ideologies are.
So I guess only anglophones can be non binary. As the "they" concept doesn't exist in most languages. Even if there is a neutral form like in Latin, they don't want to use it, I guess they think it's more for things.
They REALLY messed up on unimaginable scale with the veilguard I can't believe it 10 years!!! Nobody there cared for fans of the game and it shows I'm just disgusted
As someone who has worked in game development I can tell you that the issues with this game were not out of "lack of care" lmao. 10 years is an insane development cycle - the fact it was coherent at all actually floored me. See Final fantasy XV for a similar mess - I actually think DAV did a better job just finishing the damn thing.
the lgbt themes are nothing new. dragon age has always been known for it's diversity by including lgbt characters in all the main games. it's just that in the past it was actually written well and didn't make that the characters' whole personality/story
I think the problem is, they've started treating LGBT people like A Very Special Episode material. Instead of just letting them be people living in the world, they've turned the characters into walking Teachable Moments. I don't need LGBTQ Theory 101. Just allow the characters to be who they are, doing cool, dramatic BS, while also being LGBTQIA+. We don't need one person to represent and entire community. We just want them to be there, in that world, because they're also here in ours.
Dragon age used to do progressive themes super well, Dorian is one of my favorite characters. Veilguard did it so poorly and preachy, it comes off almost southpark episode level caricatures. It used to fit the world of DA, now it’s all just self insert first drafts, like someone was trying to “own the chuds” not write a fantasy story. It’s really sad. VG writing is so badddd
It's all in the execution. Dorian confronting his father is a master class of writing and scene composition. The voice actors put on a fantastic performance in that scene and the LGBT topics was very well integrated into the world and lore of dragon age. It makes complete sense that a Tevinter Magister would be homophobic due to their obsession with bloodlines. In comparison Taash's scene with her mother felt so.... immature.
Ur acting like all the companions makes being bi or pan their whole story. Taash’s story is about accepting who they are and all that, being non binary is apart of that, they don’t bring it up in ever bloody convo they have dude, just a lot bc it’s a new thing for them
@@Remi-ri7io have you played the game? they literally do bring it up in every conversation at a certain point. once taash comes out as nonbinary EVERY single companion quest for them is centered around that
As I was playing Veilguard, I was looking back and saying how so many things set up in Inquisition and Trespasser were completely dropped. The united elven clans would have been an amazing thing to cover! And the idea of a big ship/submarine being the base of operations sounds unique. Gods. I'd settle for a novelization of THIS story and take it as canon over the garbage "quick fix" and "simple explanation of why this is this" we got. I knew it was going to be bad when they dropped the whole "prior choices matter" thing.
Nothing would change for Morrigan if Inky drunk from the Well in regards of being a new host of Mythal. Inquisitor would be just her servant, unless she sets them free. Dev.notes for DAI already solidified that she's going to be next host willingly, regardless of the Well choice, and art book only proves it "Designer's Notes: This is Flemeth from the previous two games. In this game, Flemeth's story comes to a head -- she knew that Solas would summon her, and that he would need to steal her power to further his plans. She knew that because they are both elven gods...yet Solas has slept for a thousand years and his power dwindled, while she was killed long ago and a spark escaped from her into the body she now holds. She has nurtured that spark, and knew that Solas would need it. He was once her oldest friend, but she knows in his drive to save the elven people he will kill anyone -- even her. She intends to let him have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her god-hood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.". And what cutscene actually shows, when Solas comes to her, that before this she sends piece of Mythal through eluvian towards Morrigan. Besides, Inky could be male non-elf/human non-mage, probably not something Mythal eager to be hosted by. She always have been with women.
Man, this hurt to watch. Dreadwolf sounded amazing, and it made me despise Veilguard even more now. It's such a shame, but great video. The only thing I'm not with you on is that Veilguard doesn't deserve the hate. It, in fact, deserves all of it. Veilguard isn't just a game that stands on its own merit, of which is poor anyway in my opinion. It's a game that was supposed to serve as an epic conclusion, culminating the events of 3 prior games, and it failed miserably. The fans deserved more.
Okay, Taash in the concept art looks amazing and the fact she's more of a rebel that goes against teachings of the Qun makes her original incarnation fresh. Not to mention she's hot in her concept art. Why couldn't we have had her?
Whether or not Taash embraces the Qun or their Rivaini culture is up to you so they can still be a rebel by your decisions. Also, Taash's design is way better in-game. Hotter =/= Better.
@@theobell2002 No it's not. Not only is it a narrative downgrade as her character was specifically designed to be sensual, it also just looks plain _ugly_ . Even the version of the in-game design in the concept art looked far better.
This is a really good video, but it also made me incredibly upset... Oh, what could've been. On a side note. Calling an individual they/them has always been acceptable under the rules of pronouns. In the absence of gender, we use they/them/their. For example: If someone says, "My friend is bringing over food.", you could reply with, "What kind of food are THEY bringing?", since THEIR gender was not specified in the conversation. That is precisely why non binary people use they/them.
Except, you get to say “She's bringing mac n cheese” or “He's bringing lasagne”. Pronouns are what people use to refer to you, when you're not present. You don't get to choose your pronoun.
Thank you for piecing this together. Now I feel like I heard the real dragon age 4 storyline and it brings me closure for the story we were left on at the end of inquisition. I’m glad to take your outline as my new canon. It’s really sad so much of it was scrapped, the people in charge really had no vision.
I think i figured it out the timeline to how Veilguard turned out the way it did. I remember reading an article awhile ago about the early development of Dragon Age 4. In it, the creators stated how they were working on the game in secrecy while EA's attention was on Andromeda. It talked about how the game would have been of smaller scale featuring stealth and heists. Clearly, this has been confirmed by the artwork in this video. Sadly, however, EA got wind of the game like a year or two in development and forced the team to take the project in a different direction. This was when they were going full mast into Anthem, trying to make it the new flagship for Bioware. As such, EA focused entirely on the concept of live service gaming and wanted their other properties to follow suit. So Dragon Age 4 was scrapped and redesigned into a live service game as well. This was also mentioned in that article i read, for which the creators had early misgivings. You can tell by the gameplay there are a LOT of elements of live service gaming as well. The loose story structure and quests; the Fill In The Blank lore drops; the random loot drops. All hallmarks of live service that are 'popular,' eg. tedious. Then Anthem dropped. And bombed. Pure chaos. EA finally realizes too late that nobody gives a flying shit about live service in a Bioware game. So everyone is just scrambling as they go complete 180 in turning Dragon Age 4 back into a single-player RPG. But by the time they've realized it, there's no going back; they've already committed to the gameplay design. So in a complete Hail Mary attempt, they have Bioware go back and pull some of the early concepts, throwing them together with the gameplay to see if they stick. During that time, they release the Mass Effect Trilogy to great acclaim while secretly analyzing all the choices we made throughout the game so they may be implemented into DA4. Eventually it comes close to the ten year mark since Inquisition was first released, and crunch time forces them to get the game out as soon as possible so the team can redirect to Mass Effect 4 (pure speculation here, don't quote me). All in all, it's no wonder this game has been so divisive. One half of the game has got great concepts of a single roleplaying game while the other half has all the safe casual gamer BS associated with live service gaming. Two completely different games melded into one. Hardly ever pans out. While i am disappointed to realize what we missed out on, i must recognize the creators' efforts in doing their best to translate their EA overlords' demands into something tangible for audiences. I still like the game warts and all, but I'll now always look back and wonder what could have been. At least i finally understand the method to the madness. Still wish they let us have a fucking greatsword.
Your interpretation would explain why Bioware keeps changing main protagonists in each game. Since it's easier for narrative to keep one protagonist. All of them coming together for the final battle, that would have been amazing.
"Oh man... what could have been, indeed... Now, a proper close to this series will only exist in the 'canon' of our minds. It's heartbreaking how they discarded such rich lore and left us with a shallow, superficial story...
I'm at 16 minutes out of 43 and when he said "morrigan introduced rook to the hero of ferelden" i simply crumbled in tears... what could have been this game... i feel sick
@@nemesisazuraIt doesn't make sense to make Solas sound so heroic and good in this scene when he was literally open to sending a personal demon to everyone 10 minutes earlier, they could have gone with(my opinion): "Magic is magic (inquisition reference), but I am powerful enough, I don't need to use a trick for weak minds (small biased reference to Dorian)" He would still be lying and the dialogue wouldn't be as expository and heroic, but writing made for children is a problem with the entire game.
@@muronooo. It makes sense, he was lying, simple as that. Also, he doesn't care about the world, he cares about the elves. And Rook doesn't know him, so he could tell whatever he wanted to Rook to manipulate them, and Rook would have no means to know. In any case, at the end of the game is revelad he is a blood mage. This is one of the few things in this game that actually made sense.
This kind of scenarios are exactly what I wanted in a long series games like DA, where protags of each games joined together for a finale, similar to Nihon Falcom series Trails of games. Your scenarios would have made something that truly epic.
"Originally, the heroes would do corvet work in a mobile base in the sea with the help of the inquisition" Man, some elements in this sounds like they were doing ME 2 in a end of days scenario of ME 3...
The Veilguard felt like a game missing a huge chunk. The first 2 acts referred to here would have made the story more coherent. The whole story, I would say, could alternatively have been two games. Acts 1 and 2, where we would try to stop solace making the one and Act 3 where we would be fighting the Evanuris would have been a sequel. The Veilguard that we got is basically the Act 3. Without Acts 1 & 2, it feels disjointed and incomplete.
I agree with most of what you said, but the ‘elementary school taught me’ commentary was very cringe. The singular they has existed for hundreds of years, as have non-binary identities across cultures. There is so much to dig into concerning the failures of Taash’s character writing without being lazy and not even attempting to understand the real life equivalents. It’s boring and not thought provoking to critique something on a “I don’t get it so I don’t like it” The Oxford English Dictionary goes through the historical precedent for the singular they-first seen in publication in the 1300s. I’d hope we could engage with language beyond an elementary school education. I also have a psychology degree along side a neuroscience degree. Being trans is in and of itself not a mental disorder and using perceived plural pronouns is not inherently indicative of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Mental illnesses generally involve distress caused to those around you or to oneself, simply being nonbinary is not a mental illness and definitely not in the DSM.
Thank you so much for this. I commented on this video for the same reason. Id need an 8 hour seminar to explain exactly why all of what he said in that part of the video was just wrong, ignorant, and harmful.
And that nonsense is why you will continue to lose. Sane people are finally pushing back against this mentally ill leftism that has infected our society.
Absolutely agree. Dude shouldn’t have made the video without this context and mature approach to alternate worldviews and cultures. You can critique veilguard without disrespecting nonbinary people.
Yeah, the creator seemed respectful earlier in the video (when he pointed out the issue with the creator wasn't choosing pronouns or the option to give Rook surgical scars) and then straight up said that using they/them pronouns was indicative of "split personality" which ALSO isn't the appropriate terminology for the disorder he's referring to. I can even understand wanting Taash's storyline to perhaps focus more on their mixed background and have their gender identity be more of an offshoot of that, but there's no excuse for being transphobic, especially towards the real person behind the characters you claim to enjoy so much. It's like "please write more cool characters for me, but absolutely do NOT put your own personal experiences into your writing! I cannot understand these things, because I have the critical thinking skills of a child" apparently.
Bruh… So basically you’re not an anglophone and completely lack any societal context on this matter but then you decided that Patrick is crazy for not conforming to Eastern European society that they’re not part of anyhow?
Agreed. Had me disliking and stopping the video the moment this dude couldn’t get his tiny mind around respecting non binary people and misgendering actual human beings.
What are the odds larian buys dragon age from EA the next story can start with Cassandra complaining that verrica writing has gone down hill as she burns a book called the veil guard the whole hole game was just a horribly written stody by verric 😂
No way EA gonna sell dragon age unfortunately. I'd rather hope for bioware (if they even survive) change their director. I believe veilguard main problem is their director have no brain.
@Account2-ng6hr I'm not sure about any of the directors you can just tell it was written by a non binary atheist they destroyed all of the world building around the religions in the game and focused on gender... 🤬
@@Account2-ng6hr It's the whole studio, completely different people in the halls than the ones who made DA:O. That means completely different ideas and direction, even if they did try to keep it in line with what came before. Just look at how completely different BG3 is from BG2/BG1 narratively, it's the same thing here only thing that stays the same is the studio name. Bioware is in reality gone forever.
Not much :) I have already shared my thoughts on this in another comment. In theory, it is possible, but as far as I know, there haven’t been any precedents for it yet. A studio acquiring another studio - sure, that happens. But for them to decide to release what we would call a 'remake' of an unsuccessful project - that hasn’t happened before.
@CineGameAV I know just wishful thinking maybe some day a really talented modding team would just make a sequel I don't even need voice acting just good dialogue
I believe I also saw concept art with Imshael as a companion. Having two former antagonists, as companions one of which was from the Masked Empire would’ve made the story even more memorable to me. As we haven’t had such an opportunity since Origins with Loghain. After all I loved Cole in Asunder, so way back when I learned he was going to be a companion in Inquisition, my mind raced with how he would interact with the rest of the characters. Imagine the conversations Calpernia and Imshael could’ve had with each other.
Yep, there are Imshael arts in the book. He was supposed to be a "double agent" and join us during the fight in Arlathan Forest in Act 2. But he disappears entirely from future art, so I just forgot about him while writing the script for the video.
No, Imshael was planned as a separate, full companion. "Her" concept art can be found on page 90, if I remember correctly, at the bottom left (the girl with the sword). She also appears in the second act’s plot, when Rook and her group are ambushed by elves and Imshael (in the form of woman) helps Rook in the fight. So this isn't related to Lucanis. Although it would be interesting to have an obsessed character and one demon from the Forbidden Ones in the group.
I was with you all the way up to the transphobia. You don't have to understand why someone is trans to still respect their name and pronouns. Saying a person needs help because they don't fall into the binary is incredibly demeaning ESPECIALLY when dealing with an actual real-life person. I agree that Trick's personal life didn't need to bleed into Taash's writing. It's not Taash being non-binary that's the problem, it's that their entire personality and storyline was their discovery of and being non-binary. They also wrote Krem, a transman, in Inquisition and did a much better job handling a trans character with him. But at that time I don't think they had come out yet so writing Taash's transness became a focal point when it didn't need to be, ergo the personal life bleeding into Taash's character. Anyway, rest of the video is great, please work on the transphobia.
I am so glad to find this comment. I was watching but had to stop at that part. I do wish Taash’s character didn’t fully center around them discovering themselves, on the other hand it is nice to have that representation of self discovery and finding your identity. I dunno. BioWare fumbled Veilguard hard, as much as I like most of the companions, what was scrapped would have been way more unique and intense. 🫠
Felt like I was going crazy with how few people in the comments are holding the creator accountable for the sudden whiplash of transphobia at the end. Such a terrible way to end a stellar video.
Ok so, this video is very good and honestly the initial plot and character ideas sound very interesting and cool. However I'm a bit confused why you're confused about Taash's gender identity. I'm also from Eastern Europe and gender identity is not something difficult to understand - it's how you see yourself and what gender role you play in society. In fact strange and subversive gender role changes have been a part of European cultures (like the Albanian burrnesha or sworn virgins). Also the "they" pronoun was at one point in the history of the English language used singular, to refer to one person. I just think it's so silly and quite frankly boring when people keep complaining about non-binary characters. The problem with Taash is that they're poorly written and annoying, not that they're non-binary. Aside from that, great video.
Thanks for calling this out as someone from a similar background! Goes to show the creator lacks maturity and capacity to understand other perspectives that aren’t his own.
This was a fantastic video aside from your comments on non-binary identities. You criticized the writers for including their personal views on gender in this game, then hypocritically did the exact same thing in this video. There was no need to criticize the concept of being non-binary as a whole when your point only pertained to the lackluster writing behind Taash. I also urge you to do your research on non-binary identities. In the context of being non-binary, "they" is not used because it refers to multiple people, but because it is a pronoun which is separate from male or female association by nature. In other languages non-binary people use gender-neutral pronouns that AREN'T plural, such as "ele" in Spanish. I have personally met non-binary people from Eastern Europe, so I do not consider that a good excuse. If they can be understanding given their origin, so can you. Regardless of your personal opinions, it is considered rude and disrespectful to call someone by a pronoun they do not attribute to themselves; it was extremely unnecessary for you to do that when speaking about the writer behind Taash. It is doubly disrespectful to describe someone's gender identity as a "mental illness"; that description has caused a great deal of misunderstanding and suffering for those who identify as transgender or non-binary, and continues to do so thanks to comments like yours. Once again, I urge you to do your own research on the definition of non-binary and on how one can be respectful to non-binary people. That is all I have to say. Great video aside from those comments.
Top tier video with a super weird dive into your take on the tash situation, perhaps the worst/strangest take I've seen. Like particularly strange you'd record that segment listen back still hit publish and think that'd go down well is crazy
I screamed "YES YES FINALLY SOMEBODY MENTIONED IT" when you talked about Gaider and the characters he wrote. He's actually talking about the characters he wrote on bsky and my god, his writing seems so subtle and now I value the characters and the challenges he wrote for them more. "If personal frustrations start bleeding into character arcs, it's a cause for concern." Beautifully put.
Thank you for this. I kept telling people on reddit the pacing and story was so disjointed - and you answered it for us. Appreciate the closure you have given fans of this series. What could have been EA. What could have been.
So I agree with you on the Taash criticisms, got a couple responses to that part: -One, it's really cringe to go on about how using they/them is a big deal and a bad thing, because really, it isn't. I don't understand that supposed gender concept myself, but that anecdote is just incredibly unnecessary, and you could've just addressed how Taash was clearly just a self insert, with no nuance to her identity and terrible character writing. -Also, when talking about how Dorian's sexuality doesn't embody his whole character, and that his arc is completely different, you completely ignore and don't bring up how his sexuality is waaaay more nuanced as a character when his entire personal quest arc is about how he didn't conform to Tevinter demands and lineage because that required him to be with a woman, when he didn't want to because he's gay. Dorian's character is about changing the outlook of magisters, sure, but completely misrepresenting his character and his personal arc is kind of stupid when you're trying to make comparisons to him and Taash.
You mean the ideas voiced in this video? Yes, of course, why not. If you were asking about the concept-arts, then everything there is standard in terms of copyright.
Imagine...if they thought it through and the Elven Artifacts you activated on Solas' request in Inquisition...was secretly those weapons scattered around the world.
Thanks for making this video. Seeing the concept art and what the team was originally envisioning helps put into prospective what we lost. They didn’t set out to give us Veilguard, they wanted Dreadwolf and outside influences killed that dream
This might sound sad but after playing 2 hrs the day it came out I cried. I'm 34 and I cried because I was so disappointed in DAV. Then watching your video based on the concept art, I cried again. This series has meant a lot to be since origins and I absolutely hate DAV. I am so disappointed with the story and how different it was from what it was supposed to be. I would have absolutely loved it if they had stuck with dread wolf instead of veilguard. Thank you for taking the time to make this video, I really appreciate the time you went through to do this.
This actually makes me really hopeful for Dragon Age 5, if the studio survives till then, because most of dragon age inquisition was actually ideas left out of dragon age 2 exalted march dlc. So these could make it in although altered.
I also bought the Artbook and had the same thoughts! I was shocked at how much was left out of the final Veilguard game. You did a very good detective job here! I would have liked a Dragon Age like that too! In the art book you can also see that even more companions were planned - an Arlathan elf or a Kal Sharok dwarf. And they were planning on having a lot of companions reappear - Sten/Cole etc. I think this was supposed to be something like Marvel's End Game just for Dragon Age.
I also thought that the room with the piece of sea came to the end result from somewhere else. So if you remember, there was a movie "the 6th sense" with Bruce Willis. There is a "plot twist" with the fact that the hero is a ghost - played perfectly. The problem with this in VG - that they messed up this trope - and HERE's HOW - The first scene shows us that the Main Character is talking to Varick. That we have no doubt that Varick is alive. For the trope to work correctly, there should not have been a "real version of events" shown in the modified video at the end. And so it turns out that the Main Character is struggling with schizophrenia. And everyone around can see him talking to the carpet. "Our boss is a little f*cked up, well, what can I do! Let him save the world." The problem is that the Hero NEVER OVERCOMES SCHIZOPHRENIA. In the last credits, the voice of the late Varick tells him the story again)
I spent my money on the artbook rather than the game and I'm very glad I did. Joplin was the true sequel to the series even if we never got it. I'm pretty sure the HoF is the ghoul in the artwork. It's been decades since the 5th blight and they're the one who has been resisting the calling due to their mission. Who else but a HoF who romanced Morrigan would hold up a note saying "don't let her see me like this"? It would also have been a way to get around the lack of a set voice. The ceremony between a Warden and the Kal Sharok dwarves is possibly related to them carrying the taint.
I doubt that's the Hero of Ferelden. That surely is just any Warden that became a Ghoul, something that they actually still had in the final version of the game with the Gloom Howler's arc. Also, the HoF has been a Warden for 20 years, they still have at minimum another decade more to suffer the calling. If something I imagine the Hero of Ferelden is precisely with Rook because they are one of the few Wardens that are still free of the calling. If they were a Ghoul then they couldn't even be able to help. It also doesn't make sense for that Ghoul to refer to Morrigan if she is the one that introduced the HoF to Rook. Also, it seems you forget not all of us romance Morrigan, or even play with a Male Warden, so I doubt they would use something so specific as that as a plot device. Nothing in the artbook depicts anything so specific in another instance. It has the mention of the Here lies the abyss character, but it doesn't even have any artwork of it, and especially of Hawke. If we go with "canon" (or better said default) worldstates, the Warden is a female Dalish elf who died in Origins.
@@SeventhheavenDK Wardens become corrupted faster during blights, especially if they've spent a large amount of time around the taint, which certainly applies to the HoF. The calling is also separate from the body shutting down because of the taint. It's been speculated one of the reasons the Wardens have a tradition of answering the calling is to spare younger Wardens from seeing them turn into ghouls. The Gloom Howler arch wasn't part of the Joplin story, so it can't apply to any ghoul wardens in the art at that time. There's also only one of them. Morrigan being the one to introduce us to the HoF is speculation, and art is obviously going to choose one version to depict. If any plans for the HoF survived further than the initial planning stage, that's the art that fits the bill.
I do think making the HoF part ghoul would be the best way to include them without having to voice them and give them a set personality. Though I don't think the one in the concept art was them lol
It kind of sounds like there was a team working in dreadwolf's sequel and something behind the scenes caused dreadwolf be dropped and the sequel adapted to fill the original role.
While I agree with you in multiple ways in regard to the game and the choices made where the concept art shows a vastly more interesting story and greater design choices... Your pure disrespect towards someone's chosen gender is really destroying this whole thing for me. How much does it take to be empathetic and nice to one another? How much to accept that our perception of norm and the things we learned as a given can and do in fact change, and that gender and its expression in and off itself do not harm anyone and also do not seek to do so. The only thing we as queer and nonbinary people want is respect and acceptance, and not to be used as scapegoats or targets to subjugate your hate and frustration upon. This could have been a great game critique, and it really was, and I saw myself mourning the things lost to us... But when you started the last bit of the video and misgendering a writer purposefully, I really felt sad... I do not write this to fight anyone, just in hopes of perhaps cultivating more empathy and acceptance towards others in those regards. (English isn't my first language and i am from Europe myself) I myself also think the ground problem is with the disregard to the players intelligence and the way how on the nose Taash was, especially given the use of modern language even tho a word form the Qun had been established in the previous games to describe exactly what they were feeling. Someone's own experience and battle with gender expectations and expressions, as well as feelings, aqun-athlok. SO as you say, the issue is with them making their gender the only thing that defines their personality, even tho gender and sexuality (even tho deeply interwoven in a person) do not solely define their being. Their behavior. And they forgot that in the game.
I agree, that comment was very unnecessary Regarding the grammar topic, a quick google search will also show that "They is also sometimes used instead of the pronouns he or she to refer to non-binary people or an individual person whose gender is not known or mentioned (see Teaching Tips for further information). This pronoun takes a plural verb, despite their singular referent.". But then he mentioned he's from eastern europe, so I got the gist lol
in this particular case, one remark doesn’t destroy the rest of the message. If you can’t differentiate and separate the two then that’s your problem :)
Agreed. It was such whiplash. I didn’t love the misgendering of Taash as they are in the game, but then to misgender an actual human being had me disliking and stopping the video. Absolutely ruins the message and critique when transphobia comes into the picture.
This was a good video, until you completely shat on all non-binary people as mentally ill. Taash, just like every other character, was poorly written around a single characteristic (coffee, whittling, etc). They became one note and their entirely personality was flat. All the companions felt cliche and flat, Taash got singled out because theirs was controversial (whereas coffee and whittling are just whatev). 17:07 SPOILERS It doesn’t "go nowhere." If you unlock the secret ending after the credits, you do see that this subplot is likely the core of the next game by the unknown "?????" And hint that this unknown guided Varric's brother Bartrand's hand in betrayal, the architect's hand, Flemeth's hand, and even was the reason for Loghain's betrayal. It will be a new interesting thread to pull, but it sucks they cut out so much from allnour previous choices.
I’m only seeing this video now just after finishing the game yesterday. And honestly this hits all the points I felt about the game entirely. As someone who has played through mass effect and dragon age since the beginning, you hit the nail right on its head. Great video sir
I’d pay thousands to play this game as you described it, and not what we got… I actually feel so sad about this game and how unenjoyable it’s been. The only thing saving the series for was is pretending it ended at inquisition… but now I can just make this my canon.
I feel so sad now that I finished the game, I feel betrayed as a long time loving this series, lore, characters. They took out the mystery, the interest of me guessing and thinking about stuff. I don't have the desire to replay it, there's nothing there to pay more attention to. I would pay for a proper DA game.
You guys are getting on my nerves... I was talking about binarity. I understand that "they" can be used for a singular object (for example - I met someone at the party last night. They seemed nice). I was saying that Taash became non-binary because Patrick considers himself non-binary. I don't understand how one can be neither a man nor a woman, given that in my system of coordinates, there is Male/Female. Patrick is a man. And I was taught to refer to a man as 'he,' not 'they.' Since people got triggered by my stance, next time I will just say it outright. No more beating around the bush. That way it will be easier.
@@CineGameAV So you're saying even if it was better written, you would've had a problem with it regardless? Because what were you yapping about multiculturalism being better when it was just another form of identity crisis?
If you think I am "yapping" right now, I can only imagine the horror you would feel if you met me in person. This isn't even yapping, it is more like... a barely audible voice. What I am actually saying is the opposite. I gave the example of Dorian (though it is not entirely accurate, because sexual orientation and gender are different things), but the point stands - I am not gay. But I find Dorian likable because his character arc, which I talked about in the video, is what's most important. If David Gaider had written Dorian’s storyline around his emotional struggles and whether he was gay or not, then I wouldn't have liked the character. But David didn't do that. He gave him this trait. Great. It is his defining feature and that's cool. But with Taash, this is the core of the character's arc. Do you think most players hated Taash because of her non-binary identity? No. It happened because the author's personal struggles were embedded in the character in such a blunt way that it feels alien. She could have been a dandelion. If it were done well, there wouldn't be any issues. But if all you think about are how others perceive you/don’t understand you in a real life and it hinders your actions like creating character - that's wrong. This is what happened with Taash and Patrick.
@@CineGameAV Do you even read what you're typing? Because you're contradicting yourself. Initially it's all about "you can be either but never neither." Now you're all talking about writing. Make up your mind.
@@CineGameAV As I said, it's clear you're going to have a problem regardless of how well written a character is. Just own up to it instead of trying to hide behind "writing bad." And FYI concepts are always better than the final product. Even with the best products you could think of.
To see this glorious opportunity failed badly, it hurts me deep inside. you made my eyes watery with your honest and detailed review truly this game could have been a phenomenon, such a disappointment.
This video could've been so good, had the creator kept their personal opinions on the validity of non-binary people out of it. I do agree taash is poorly written, but that shouldnt discredit the lived experience of non-binary people. It's common courtesy to refer to people how they want to be referred to. To go out of your way to refer to them in a different manner is a dick move
Watching this I can see why they shelved it and went with what they released. It's a huge task and I don't think they were up for it especially with all the departures and layoffs
Especially after 10 years. I got two degrees since trespasser. To be honest I give it credit arriving in its current state. I was disappointed with a lot of the story but the last act at least closed the solas story. All I can ask is next game, learn from this one’s mistakes.
@navyrotc2012 true. Unfortunately I don't see the next game having the same potential this one had being the culmination of events that's happened over 3 games. On the plus side, it'll mean the bar is lower
THEY are the reason they had layoff all they care about is their prono..uns they probably bullied all this people out according to sources they bullied str@ight whyte men, they are r@cists and sexist
@@navyrotc2012. If there is another game, I doubt they will learn from this. They will just make Veilguard 2.0. And that said, I don't think there will be another game, especially in how badly Veilguard has flopped.
If you are here for Game of Thrones, that is coming in the next video. At the start, I will definitely explain why it's been taking so long.
If you are here for Dragon Age, you can find the concept art book (Dragon Age Project Joplin) or at least a preview of the first chapters - on Google Books. The quality is good, so feel free to check it out yourself.
So weird that you happened to upload today because I just randomly searched for this again to see if it was finished yet, after not thinking about it for well over a month.
So what you saying is
DA:O - Wandering Party
DA 2 - City Party
DA: Inquisition - Fortress party
DA: Dreadwolf - Ship crew.
I have to say the idea of traveling with ship all across Thedas coasts or even if it was reduced to map locations
it would have been great.
I really appreciate this video. You've pulled off a neat Sherlock Holmes feat. Very intriguing premise and while I didn't mind Veilguard even with its flaws, it's clear that what was originally planned would have been a more compelling experience truer to the franchise.
am i a loser for liking Veilguard
should i kms for liking Veilguard?
I'm crying. The moment you mentioned that we'd reunite with who we left behind in the fade via inquisition I'm just... Ugh. We were robbed. We were so robbed.
NEVERMIND NOW I'M CRYING AT THE MENTION OF THE HERO OF FERELDEN 😭
@@elliebronte1779 😂. Me too, I wanted to cry at that moment.
So much true fan service potential... we got robbed bro. Imagine the potential with heartbreaking scenes with Hawke and Varric
The decision to abandon Dragon Age Keep was the moment that sealed Veilguard's fate. Since the developers were no longer bound by the choices we made in the past, they did not have to treat them with any kind of significance. It was no longer our story. We were now just participants in another's story, and that is the greatest sin a Dragon Age game can make.
The people that cared about that all got laid off or left long ago.
Yep, no Dragon Age Keep was literally game braking for me.
I agree. It took away all the choices we made and all the development of our own worlds. It demeaned our bonds to past characters.
100% this.
And not only that. They even went out of their way to destroy the South, which felt like an insult.
That was the last straw for me.
I had only one criticism of the game as far as gameplay went it was great but then again that is just my opinion however I find it annoying that no matter which faction you choose the story of how you meet varric and arrive in tevinter always has you painted as a rebellious person who gets I trouble for doing going against a plan you know won't work or will cost more lives than going against what your superiors tell you. Personally find that offensive more so than the non-binary Taash. That is a problem yes but not as much as problem of doing what you know as right and being criticized by your own faction for doing so.
Holy shit, that’s starts exactly like my head canon, well at least chapter 1.
I love that the person we left in the fade in DAI would help Rook out of the fade. This could somehow lead to The Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor and Rook end up in this game together
Yeah I already fanfictioned story where they someone gets in danger just to be saved by Fade Hawke
can you imagine them all squaded up in a line facing down a single big threat together for one scene, omg
Remember flemeths advice to hawke in DAII?
"We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly."
I'm fairly certain that this was foreshadowing to Hawke's fate, to be the one left behind in the fade during inquisition canonically. Add to it the fact that a mage hero of ferelden is also a Amell family member, in fact a cousin to hawke, I'm certain they had plans for tying the history of the Amell family to ancient events. Keep in mind, Flemeth - Mythal - saved both Hawke and the Hero of Ferelden from the blight, and upon meeting hawke in DAII, she hints at the irony, saying "Is it chance or fate? I can never decide", and then proceeds to hand hawke her life insurance, bringing her back to life later, in case the hero of ferelden will kill her.
All that potential for intricate narrative design, washed away by one dumb decission, to completely throw out any past choices the player made in previous games, save for 3. Mods can't fix the damage the devs did to their own series, but here's hoping that bioware actually goes backrupt, and fan projects will eventually realise the full potential of what was otherwise a great story, slaughtered on the altar of political activism.
But what if the Inquisitor had chosen to let Hawk fight the angst Demon in Inquisition and let him/her die? So this option should also be within.
@@Anna.K.. Hawke would never die such lame death
Can we please finance THIS Dragon Age to substitute the current fourth game we have and properly call "Dreadwolf" please? The very beginning is exactly what I was imagining ever since I finished Trespasser, Solas forming a army of loyal elves while Leliana (my choice for Divine) act setting a new exalted march formed by the remains of the Inquisition to stop Solas.
My brother said modders or indie studios could make it, all we have to do is raise enough aware for this
I'd finance it
I would honestly donate to a project like that.
Plz I would toss money at this plot.
Yeah but can we be honestly surprised they didn't go with the race war route
God, the potential setup was amazing! The elves flocking to Solas would have been amazing and the ritual scene in the concept art was PROPER Dragon Age!
Agreed. And honestly many of the artworks are beautifully drawn (especially in terms of composition). Pity that most of them will remain on paper. It could have been epic.
Gosh I would have taken 5 more years of development if it meant we'd get this gem instead. What a love letter to the fans it would have been.
Oh yeah, i can only imagine the extra dialogue you would have if you chose Rook to be an elf, when a lot of elves would be fighting for Solas.
With Lucanis, I was hoping he would suffer from what Anders did -- the constant battling to keep control over his senses. And eventually we could push Spite to completely take over, or get Anders as a cameo to help balance him in some quest. It's still weird that Lucanis can simply live like it's nothing, without any magical knowledge or control.
The fact that it ended with just "so I'm now besties with the demon inside me and there are no negative consequences whatsoever" was hilarious and so disappointing
Fr I wish the lore carried and he was jnow as the mage that started the mage v templar war in kirkwall that spread all over the south. If davrin/neve/harding said "I hope you and spite don't have plans like that kirkwall mage"
Spite was certainly frustrating, they turned what is supposed to be a powerful demon up there with Pride, into a jealous dog. There were so many ways they could have played that out, having him embrace Spite or flip over to Determination instead. Could have even had the two go completely nuts if you decided to ignore them, certainly would have made the decision whether or not to keep him around more of a head scratcher. I don’t think we’ve seen a character ever cured of possession before either, so that could have been a new route to explore. Anyway, I just found it weird that you could have a Spite demon wandering your home base the entire game and nothing went wrong.
@Geronimo_89 won't lie in my playthrough he hated spite and actively vowed to rid him from his body. They only ever agreed on fulfilling the mission and my ending slide detailed that he left to find a way to seperate spite from his body.
I think they had plans for Anders like all the previous companies were meant to be part of the game, I feel like Dragon age 4 was planned to be the greatest technically and storytelling masterpiece with characters storyline’s depending massively on what happened in previous games but EA came into the picture and we got this
- A more serious, epic story with diplomacy and war
- return of the hero of ferelden and hawke
- Solas at least for the first half being the main villain
- deal with tevinter and qunari leaders
- campatible with dragon age keep and our choices.
- Actual flashbacks from the elf- titan war, the primitive dwarves and elven story in general.
- another origins for the archdemons apart from being elven gods pets i think.
- elven rebellion
- multiple endings even one where solas wins and one where a titan awakens.
- ride griffons
-Taash being a atractive amazonian warrior and in a way heir and maybe aprentice of isabela and instead of a gender dilema a cultural dilema between the qun and rivain.
- A FUCKING SUBMARINE.
- lore accurate tevinter, antivan crows and qunari/ tal vashot.
- blight and the elven gods feeling like a threat to the point of posible conquer tevinter
- religous dilema respect the elven gods, the chantry and the imperial chantry
WHY THE FUCK WE GET VEILGUARD AND NOT DREADWOLF?
I'm jaded from companies ruining good stories and set pieces, but this one specifically hurts the most, between the games, comics and books, this game was supposed to be the magnum opus of Dragon Age as a whole, returning heroes, possibly even played at some point and an epic conclusion to an otherwise wonderful story.
The titans situation could've been left as a possible sequel in the future if Bioware wanted something more, but seriously, I would love to see the community attempt to recreate this story line as a mod, adding back the Dragon Keep, and bring back choices from all previous games and DLCs in some capacity, it would be beautiful at least as a what could've been.
The biggest things I'd wanted lore wise would have been more ambiguity in the deep lore, to give room for the Chantry to have some of their mythology actually be accurate in some way.
By making all the big questions "Solas did it," it makes the world less magical and fantastic, more boring and mundane.
That is, the fade and Golden City existed before the elves did and they don't really know who made it or why it's empty. This could be where the Chantry says that the Maker abandoned it when the elves took on flesh by trading a part of their souls to the Old Gods (Titans) they thereby worshipped them and gained flesh via blood magic (consumption of lyrium).
The Blight would be something not created by Solas using a dagger, but the natural consequences of disordered spirits, in particular the elven pantheon. They've now disordered the Fade through the Tevinter Magisters and their so-called Old Gods that the Fade is tainted such that it can't go back.
The Veil was created as a means stop the Evanuris, by Solas sending thousands of souls from bodies to the Fade to serve the purpose of protecting the elves. And then we can have the gaps filled in by of the rest of the lore.
The short answer: because EA f**king sucks, that’s why.
Maybe because the people making the game knew that they weren’t good enough to deliver on this.
Because we live in the worst timeline
Ok now I'm just sad, gonna be mourning what could've been for a while now
I thought the same thing. I'm genuinely mourning the "original" story. I'm torn 💔
Heartbreaking honestly, I've been burnt by companies ruining good stories in the past with games such as Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Halo, Mass Effect to some extent but this one hurt the most.
Comics, books and games all setting everything up to this game alone...reduced to what feels like mockery.
Making the "tearing down the Veil" ritual a giant Blood Magic slaughter makes complete sense when you think of it.
All 3 games state that the Veil is thinnest at the site of battles/massive loss of life.
And Solas doesn't "abhorre the use of blood magic". He is a-ok with it. To quote him in Inquisition: "Magic is magic. It matters only how it's used."
This entire concept is very sad to learn about because it just proves how DA4 could have been on par with Inquisition or even Origins in quality.
Instead we have this soulless slop.
Edit:
32:50 Taash's design here is so fucking cool it hurts. Why couldn't they stick to it ffs?
With regards to the I abhor BM line
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He says that because he's lying. You find out in the finale that he's been subtley using blood magic on Rook the whole game to make Rook see what he wants to nudge Rook to his side and not freak out or go against him for Varric's death
Also-also if you say to Stolas, when he asks how you feel about Blood Magic, that “it’s just another form of magic”, he approves. Whoever wrote Veilguard obviously never played Inquisition
@@ZenJestrWas Rook always alone? Or nobody realized that Rook said weird things in conversations?
Funny. I guessed Varric would die in the prologue just from the gameplay demo.
@@LadyLeomon Solas is lying in Veilguard. the game has a lot of writing problems but this particular moment isn't one of them if you get to a certain reveal
@@nicolasferreiro4492 yea only Rook saw Varric. if you go back and watch all the cutscenes with Varric nobody acknowledges him. any time Varric is mentioned by another character, their wording and tone implies that he's gone.
This is my canon now.
The original premisse alone is so amazing. A new exalted march, probably issued by Cassandra or Leliana, the political intrigue from Inquisition paying off in a massive way from the get-go as if you are playing the Witcher 3 right after 2, Rook having a clear reason to exist instead of making us wonder why we're no longer playing as the Inquisitor.
Dreadwolf could have been such a fantastic game, shame we got Veilguard instead.
This is IMMEDIATELY more interesting to me than Veilguard. Veilguard started halfway through the story. Rook just shows up and we’re supposed to care. But we don’t care, because Rook hasn’t been established as a significant character in the DA universe. The ritual is the climax of a whole story arc - an arc which the game completely skips. It just tells us, again and again, “you should care about this ritual”. How about constructing a narrative in such a way that we DO actually care about it? It’s bitter sweet to hear how much work had already done in that regard, only for it to be thrown away. Sad, sad. What a wasted opportunity.
Right?? This just hooked me and I watched the whole thing like a movie! Ugh when I finished Veilguard I was left with this feeling of mourning… because it was so unbelievably underwhelming and lazy.
It's nice to see what could have been. As for me, there are only three Dragon Age games. I knew that anti-woke youtubers would blast Veilguard no matter what, as they hate everything that's not Conan the Barbarian, and I was prepared to embrace it despite of certain annoyances, but I didn't expect it to be an ultra-safe, ultra-pandering, disneyfied mockery of a sequel.
I waited ten years, and all I got was a slap in the face by EA. But at least your video provides some sort of closure.
So thank you.
Same feeling here... Same feeling.
Well put. I’m so disappointed
Same here
Very well said. I feel the same, this felt much more like what the story should have been. I just feel sad now, knowing we'll never get it. This franchise is dead now and the magnificent mind-blowing story shown here is dead with it.
Also good job calling out that crowd on UA-cam that just farms outrage and hate for cash. I always want to love games and stories and it's disappointing when they turn out like this.
Because they have a functioning brain. Most people are sick of this dei stuff being forced into games and movies.
It was feeling like we are starting in the middle of the story rather than the beginning. I would have liked to play through my back story and the meeting of the veilguard and chasing after Solas, rather than starting the game as we catch up to Solas, and people around just saying that yeah remember when you did this in the past?
Me too but EA probably gave a green light to one DA game for BW , so they told us the ending and everything else was chopped and sliced to support somehow the finale.
Literally the entirety of Neve's story could have fit Calpernia better. It's like they swapped out the character in the last moments. She even had Neve's prosthetic leg - I assume it could have been a consequence of being beaten by the Inquisitor and jumping off a cliff to escape / confronting Corypheus if you talked her down or sided with the mages. Neve's story felt so out of place to me, she literally came out of nowhere and acted like the city's batman.
And so many opportunities for engaging banter! Imagine, one of DAI's main villains having to work with Harding, Dorian and the Inquisitor alike. So much sass potential.
What a waste!! I'm such a sucker for redemption stories.
you cant have a blond huuuuuuuwhite women as a companion, everyone has to be non huuuuuwhite
...you bigot
Having the HoF and Hawke return and complete their arcs, possibly with their friends and LI sounds so good. I really wanted a conclusion for those characters, the Calling really should have played a bigger role in DAV.
35:42 came so out of left field and with such force that I had to rewind to see if I misunderstood everything that came before.
I literally just got to this part and absolutely agree. It's like dude has never said "who are they? " when talking about a single person they don't know.
IE: "I'm bringing a friend. "
"Who are they? "
@@SwogglesFroggles There are tons of ways to express the same without using plural. Like "Who do you intend bring?" or "Who'll that be?". In addition keep in mind he's from eastern Europe, English will not be his first language, and a lot of languages actually make it impossible to abuse the plural to refer to a singular person.
Yeah ! I more or less agreed with what he was saying and then he started to say that
It's doesn't cost you anything to be respectful
Same. I didn’t love when he misgendered taash but it’s a whole other story to disrespect a fellow human being.
Yeah, the sudden and swift turn to bigotry was intense in this video. Nasty work.
Matt Rhodes (Art Director of Veilguard and senior concept artist of previous DA games), posted on his Artstation regarding the "waking up Titan" concept: "An artist's pitch for a potential end-game. Solas has raised the titan upon which the city of Minrathous had been built, in order to use its strength to tear open the veil."
Got it... Read it, understood it, thanks for the information
I wish Bioware/EA see this and go "Oh yeah, we'll recon this piece of shit we released, we'll release this instead"
More likely they'll go "Its not selling well, time to kill Dragon Age in it's entirety and never do anything with it again except more soulless cash grabs"
Let’s hope they learn from real critiques like this for whatever they do next.
I'd have mad respect for Bioware if they could actually just face reality and realize DAV sucks, then retcon it with what Dreadwolf was supposed to be.
@@Howler452Hehehehe... Solas Cash Grab... ... ... Leave me alone 😭😭😭
there is no Bioware anymore. There is only EA. And it doesn't care about anything that doesn't help its stock price go up.
Bellaras story should be the continuation of Merrills story and i am going to die on that hill
Well, yeah...Bellara does remind me of Merrill in some ways. Though, when I played through her questline, I imagined her story unfolding a bit differently.
Below is a massive wall of chaotic fantasies - read at your own risk :)
Imagine this: her quest could have been structured like this:
-She and her brother are searching for archives.
-Her brother becomes so obsessed with his goal that he is willing to go further and further - both morally and literally.
-At one point, in one of the elven temples, he "sets up" a team that was also exploring the ruins, perhaps to disarm traps. Most of them die, but one member and Bellara survive. (This could raise a question without a definitive answer: was he willing to sacrifice Bellara too?)
-In the end, since one team member survived, their clan learns about the incident. Her brother, frustrated with their caution and old-fashioned ways, decides to go even further (possibly seeking answers in the Fade with demons). He leaves on his own, but Bellara faces the backlash as people believe she was complicit (after all, why would her brother betray his own sister?).
(All of this would be revealed through dialogues as you progress through her quest.)
-Then, as in the game, she finds a new clan that takes her in without asking too many questions. During the game, we come across traces of her brother. By this point, he is already possessed by a demon and discovers an archive that can be "unlocked" using a blood magic ritual. The ritual would extract knowledge from the Fade and seal it into some sort of device (similar to what we find in the game).
-Eventually, he reaches Bellara’s new clan, manipulates the young and ambitious elves (much like he himself once was), and leads them astray. Bellara hears about this, and we set out to rescue her clanmates. BUT!
He manages to complete the ritual, believing the ends justify the means, and binds spirits (or souls) to the archive, cutting them off from the Fade.
-We defeat her crazed brother, but then we face a difficult choice:
On one hand, destroy the archive to free the spirits and let them rest.
On the other hand, acknowledge that her brother was partially right - desperate times call for desperate measures. Since the ritual is done (and the demon is dead, so it can't be repeated without further sacrifices), maybe the archive should be preserved?
Yes, the trapped spirits would suffer as long as the archive exists, but, as her brother might have said, "Knowledge has a price." (Or something along those lines.)
This would make the choice ambiguous and challenging.
It could go even further: if you choose option 1) Bellara might have a lower chance of surviving the final act or one of her clanmates could die. If you choose option 2) you would face the decision of whether to tell her clan the truth about what happened and the price paid to make the archive work. Her personality and behavior will become much stricter and significantly change - something similar to Shadowheart from BG3, where she acts quite differently depending on whether she remains a devotee of Shar or turns to Selune. But in this scenario, Bellara would have a better chance of succeeding in the finale, as she’d be equipped with the secrets of the Fade.
And since her brother technically achieves his goal, Bellara would need to decide whether to accept his victory and use it for good or uphold her principles, rendering the young elves' sacrifice meaningless and losing the archive’s potential answers.
*end*
So, I mean, it is mostly the same as what we saw in Veilguard, but I think the ending could have been a bit more... ambiguous. For instance, her chances of surviving the finale could have depended on the choices you made throughout the game. That would have changed the structure of the game, making both the ending and the entire story feel more dynamic.
Imagine having something like the War Asset system from Mass Effect 3. Depending on your companions' loyalty and the "strength of the forces gathered across Thedas," you would get different endings.
In short, they could have made the events much more grand in scale and tied everything together even more intricately.
It would have been neat if Merril was the leader of the Veiljumpers it would make a lot of sense for her. They brought Isabella back as leader of the lord of fortune why not to the same with Merril
Merrill just should have been among Veiljumpers. I am okay with Bellara, but I would prefer if Veiljumpers had Merrill in it. Merrill should be one that is expert on eluvians. I would totally swap Strife and Irelin into Merrill. Merrill by end of DA II was determined to help ANY elves. Not just dalish. And the Veiljumpers clearly have anybody who is interested in Veil study in them.
@@cracmar03 Bellara does not really work for me...she is just too much adorkable trope but without the substance...the funny thing with Merril was that you sometimes didn't know if she was actually as naive as she pretended to or if she subtible trolled again...
I’m actually replaying too and it’s very obvious Bellara was inspired by Merrill. If they continued with solas having followers, I could see bellara having been the next mage apostate that betrays you to give her people the greatest gift of all, knowledge and immortality.
I think my biggest dream for a dragon age 4 was a mission, a single mission, when you could use all the protagonists of all previous games in one team, The Warden, Hawke, The Inquisitor and Rook, just imagine AWESOME that would be? And it would make sense, that's the only team who could stop a god like Solas is a team of 4 protagonists.
Exactly.
With Mythal shattered into pieces, and Titans basically dead/lobotomised,
Elgar'nan is probably the most powerful being that ever existed in Thedas.
Solas could not defeat him alone, but imagine the badass cutscene of HoF, Hawke, Inquisitor, Solas and Morrigan with Flemeth's influence and Kieran's old god soul taking down Elgar'nan, as anything less than that would not be enough.
@@silver7knight389. Kieran doesn't have the Old God's soul since Inquisition.
@@SeventhheavenDK Yes, Mythal sent it through the eluvian before meeting Solas, so its somewhere.
Would have been a fast game tho 😂
The creators of inquisition went over the struggles they had incorporating Hawke into the game let alone incorporating the HoF. It just wouldn’t work. Even Kieran was supposed to have a bigger role in inquisition but there were too many variables it would be too hard while staying faithful to each players campaign.
Oh, this fan pieced-together story is much better than the actual product. This actually feels like dragon age.
Appreciate it! Glad you liked it.
@@CineGameAV
Really appreciate your work to made this video. Thank you very much.
Larian Studios should acquire the rights to Dragon Age, remaster the first 3 games and make a new game called Dragon Age IV: Dreadwolf
PLEASE!!!!!! 😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Fr fr. We deserve a dragon age game that is on par with bg3. I mean they gotbalders gate ip from BW why not dragom age. I wouldn't mknd waiting another 10 years for a game deserving of our free time to play.
YES!!! Considering they did BG3 which was a BioWare game.. SOMEONE DO SOMETHING
We need saving.
For real. Larian would have done Dragon Age justice if it had rescued it from EA/Bioware's clutches (just please don't make it purely turn-based though!)
@@Lilith38252 agreed. I am having an awful time playing BG3 because of it being turn based and I reaaallllly love the story and choices.
I almost wish I hadn't watched this. See, in the old days brilliant concepts fallen victim to the corporate cutting room floor always left me with hope. Hope for modders to take up and restore these ideas, like they did for so many Troika and Obsidian games. But nowadays, with full VA and sky-high production costs, that hope is gone, and nothing but emptiness remains. It really hurts to think how so many of the impossible decisions in DA:V (the complete absence of politics, the Qunari siding with Elven gods while Elves are nowhere to be seen, the infiltration missions so at odds with the Marvelesque escalation of stakes from the very beginning...) have their roots in and could have worked so much better with this version of the story. It would have made so much sense for the two layers (Tevinter vs Qunari and Elven Gods vs everyone) of war to be detached on the surface and only connected through Solas' machinations behind the scenes.
In all honesty, I think Veilguard should just be made non-canon and just try again with the original idea because this is just so much better. Especially with the return of the Warden and the use of Dragon Age Keep.
It's over, they are not going to spend another 10 years in Dragon Age, not even 3 years at all.
This was the only chance they had, and they blew it away. The budget for Dragon Age was used in Veilguard.
I don't think they can just say. "Hey, we already wasted millions on this game, but let's make it again from scratch."
The team has already moved to Mass Effect anyway.
@SeventhheavenDK Oh, no doubt, but for the first time, I'm not looking forward to a new Dragon age game if it's just going to work of Vielguard and not the other dragon age games. I think they should wait and see if the new Mass effect is a win because if it fails, I don't think things are going o get better. But if it is good and it does succeed, they should just call Vielguard Non canon. Keep it around for those rare few who still play it and just make new games from Inquisition trespasser and use, Dragon age Keep with it.
It's truly tragic that the Joplin project hasn't made it to the final game. The story you imagine with the art concept seems so much better! And although I disagree that the veilguard is criticized too much I'm on board with your opinion on Joplin. I hated the writing of Veilguard. And no technical perfection can cover this for me. The problem is that da fans had forgiven a lot of things for the story and characters in these games. And this team destroyed the very essence of Dragon age. So no beautiful environments or gorgeous hair or technical performance can overshadow it. It's going to linger as the biggest heartache of my art loving side...
"da fans had forgiven a lot of things for the story and characters in these games" & "this team destroyed the very essence of Dragon Age" 200% agree
Wow... Finally something interesting. But damn, it's painful to watch... When I went through the game, I couldn't help but feel a sense of loss, as the whole game felt like a parade of missed opportunities. Well, after this video, I can see why I had that feeling..... and now it's even more painful to watch this game.
... I was hoping until the end that the whole game was Rook's deathbed delirium after she hit her head in the prologue. Or that it's Varrick's cringe story T_T now I just want to cry....
Actually, if you think about it, they could say something like - "Alright, folks, sorry about this. We kinda messed up here, but let’s just imagine that this was a “Varric's fanfic” and now we are officially announcing Dragon Age 4 as we originally envisioned it..." and so on.
The issue is that there is no precedent for something like this. Of course, just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it never will. But I don’t believe today’s BioWare is the kind of studio capable of taking such... a bold step.
@CineGameAV Yes, you're right, it was too bold... And corporations don't like to admit failure.
I once saw a joke before the release of The Veilguard that played off the events in the game, and then suddenly it turns out that it was all a joke that Varric was telling Cassandra)
@CineGameAV Hold on, yes there is! Final Fantasy 14 did EXACTLY that. The game (an MMORPG) launched to widespread criticism and rejection by fans, but Squeenix actually went, "You know, you're right. Hold my beer." They took three years, remade the game with a far deeper story and better gameplay, and relaunched it to widespread acclaim. It went on to become a smash hit that still supports millions of active, daily players.
The plot we eventually got with Veilguard feels like the writers caved to Solasmancers writing fanfiction on AO3.
Heck, probably the only meaningful choice we could import from past games is whether or not the Inquisitor romanced Solas.
Something probably went seriously wrong in the writing department and the writers purges must have left no one senior enough to stand up to corporate management. It feels like when David Gaider left in 2016 he just took all the good writing along with him.
Losing Mike Laidlaw was probably an even bigger hit. He wrote for both mass effect and dragon age. After anthem and Andromeda flopped, Bioware lost most of the staff that made it gear
I think most true Solamancers, like myself, just wanted a deep, meaningful conclusion. However tragic it ended. 3 out of 5 of those endings sounded good to me, and even the other 2 would have had me searching them out. *sigh* I think they did Solas dirty in Veilguard though. He seems so... second fiddle.
You can also blame that "council of fans" that meddle in the development of the game.
As a Solasmancer, I was happy I got my happy ending with him by talking him down and going on to wander the Fade together. But there should have been more choices incorporated into DAV than whether you romanced him or not. Disbanding the Inquisition or giving it to the Chantry played no part other than it being brought up in some dialogue. The game should have been built in a way where both people who romanced Solas and those who didn't could be satisfied.
A "Solasmanser" here.
I am pretty sure this is not what the majority of us wanted. This is shallow slop, and we wanted a good story. Not my Inquisitor commiting suicide (because staying physically in the fade for too long will do weird things to a mortal) with a guy who killed Varric after the player suffered theough 70 hours or so of terrible terrible gameplay&dialog.
This game should have been the thing that brought almost all past choices and characters together. The lore, locations, and events justify it. Imagine seeing Zevran in the Crows quests or Sten in the Quinari quests. Hell, imagine seeing the hero of Ferelden at the Warden HQ or Hawke in the game. It would have been great, but they fumbled it.
Taash is littearly a self insert. She makes Vivienne look like a good character.
It would have been amazing but too ambitious. DA always worked against itself compared to mass effect with story continuations between games.
Vivienne is an excellent character.
Don't even compare Taash to her.
@@SeventhheavenDK compared to taash, yes. However, Vivienne shares a lot of the issues people have in taash. You're unable to really influence or talk to her at all. Every conversation with her is one-sided, and you are unable to call her out or challenge her on anything without the game overtly taking her side.
Im out of words. This story concept was so intetesting, it had so much potential... imagine all the protagonists in the same game or toegether in a scene... they could have done this, but something happened. Solas being the focus would make the game 100x better, old characters would be more relevant too... what a bad feeling man
By the way the pace of your vídeo is insanely good and joyful to watch
Elementary school teaches simple concepts because brains aren’t developed enough to handle more nuanced or detailed information.
Doesn’t make it an excuse for not knowing English history correctly as an adult. Regardless of whatever your personal ideologies are.
So I guess only anglophones can be non binary. As the "they" concept doesn't exist in most languages. Even if there is a neutral form like in Latin, they don't want to use it, I guess they think it's more for things.
They REALLY messed up on unimaginable scale with the veilguard I can't believe it 10 years!!! Nobody there cared for fans of the game and it shows I'm just disgusted
As someone who has worked in game development I can tell you that the issues with this game were not out of "lack of care" lmao. 10 years is an insane development cycle - the fact it was coherent at all actually floored me.
See Final fantasy XV for a similar mess - I actually think DAV did a better job just finishing the damn thing.
Fans are loving it. You’re not a fan, it was never for you.
Stay mad retards 😂😂😂😂
the lgbt themes are nothing new. dragon age has always been known for it's diversity by including lgbt characters in all the main games. it's just that in the past it was actually written well and didn't make that the characters' whole personality/story
I think the problem is, they've started treating LGBT people like A Very Special Episode material. Instead of just letting them be people living in the world, they've turned the characters into walking Teachable Moments. I don't need LGBTQ Theory 101. Just allow the characters to be who they are, doing cool, dramatic BS, while also being LGBTQIA+. We don't need one person to represent and entire community. We just want them to be there, in that world, because they're also here in ours.
Dragon age used to do progressive themes super well, Dorian is one of my favorite characters. Veilguard did it so poorly and preachy, it comes off almost southpark episode level caricatures. It used to fit the world of DA, now it’s all just self insert first drafts, like someone was trying to “own the chuds” not write a fantasy story. It’s really sad. VG writing is so badddd
It's all in the execution. Dorian confronting his father is a master class of writing and scene composition.
The voice actors put on a fantastic performance in that scene and the LGBT topics was very well integrated into the world and lore of dragon age. It makes complete sense that a Tevinter Magister would be homophobic due to their obsession with bloodlines.
In comparison Taash's scene with her mother felt so.... immature.
Ur acting like all the companions makes being bi or pan their whole story. Taash’s story is about accepting who they are and all that, being non binary is apart of that, they don’t bring it up in ever bloody convo they have dude, just a lot bc it’s a new thing for them
@@Remi-ri7io have you played the game? they literally do bring it up in every conversation at a certain point. once taash comes out as nonbinary EVERY single companion quest for them is centered around that
As I was playing Veilguard, I was looking back and saying how so many things set up in Inquisition and Trespasser were completely dropped. The united elven clans would have been an amazing thing to cover! And the idea of a big ship/submarine being the base of operations sounds unique. Gods. I'd settle for a novelization of THIS story and take it as canon over the garbage "quick fix" and "simple explanation of why this is this" we got.
I knew it was going to be bad when they dropped the whole "prior choices matter" thing.
Nothing would change for Morrigan if Inky drunk from the Well in regards of being a new host of Mythal. Inquisitor would be just her servant, unless she sets them free. Dev.notes for DAI already solidified that she's going to be next host willingly, regardless of the Well choice, and art book only proves it "Designer's Notes: This is Flemeth from the previous two games. In this game, Flemeth's story comes to a head -- she knew that Solas would summon her, and that he would need to steal her power to further his plans. She knew that because they are both elven gods...yet Solas has slept for a thousand years and his power dwindled, while she was killed long ago and a spark escaped from her into the body she now holds. She has nurtured that spark, and knew that Solas would need it. He was once her oldest friend, but she knows in his drive to save the elven people he will kill anyone -- even her. She intends to let him have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her god-hood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.".
And what cutscene actually shows, when Solas comes to her, that before this she sends piece of Mythal through eluvian towards Morrigan. Besides, Inky could be male non-elf/human non-mage, probably not something Mythal eager to be hosted by. She always have been with women.
If only the stuck with this they could’ve topped Baldur’s Gate 3.
Oh man lemme tell you about all the shits they cut from BG3 too
Man, this hurt to watch. Dreadwolf sounded amazing, and it made me despise Veilguard even more now. It's such a shame, but great video. The only thing I'm not with you on is that Veilguard doesn't deserve the hate. It, in fact, deserves all of it. Veilguard isn't just a game that stands on its own merit, of which is poor anyway in my opinion. It's a game that was supposed to serve as an epic conclusion, culminating the events of 3 prior games, and it failed miserably. The fans deserved more.
Okay, Taash in the concept art looks amazing and the fact she's more of a rebel that goes against teachings of the Qun makes her original incarnation fresh.
Not to mention she's hot in her concept art. Why couldn't we have had her?
This question is better directed to Patrick. Maybe he will have an answer.
Whether or not Taash embraces the Qun or their Rivaini culture is up to you so they can still be a rebel by your decisions.
Also, Taash's design is way better in-game. Hotter =/= Better.
@@theobell2002 No it's not. Not only is it a narrative downgrade as her character was specifically designed to be sensual, it also just looks plain _ugly_ . Even the version of the in-game design in the concept art looked far better.
@@theobell2002 Taash in Veilguard looks and acts like a teenager, Taash in the concept art is an sensual adult with confidence. Big difference
@@theobell2002 no
This is a really good video, but it also made me incredibly upset... Oh, what could've been.
On a side note. Calling an individual they/them has always been acceptable under the rules of pronouns. In the absence of gender, we use they/them/their. For example: If someone says, "My friend is bringing over food.", you could reply with, "What kind of food are THEY bringing?", since THEIR gender was not specified in the conversation. That is precisely why non binary people use they/them.
Except, you get to say “She's bringing mac n cheese” or “He's bringing lasagne”. Pronouns are what people use to refer to you, when you're not present. You don't get to choose your pronoun.
@@MegaMilenche Yes, you do get to choose your pronouns
Thank you for piecing this together. Now I feel like I heard the real dragon age 4 storyline and it brings me closure for the story we were left on at the end of inquisition. I’m glad to take your outline as my new canon.
It’s really sad so much of it was scrapped, the people in charge really had no vision.
I think i figured it out the timeline to how Veilguard turned out the way it did.
I remember reading an article awhile ago about the early development of Dragon Age 4. In it, the creators stated how they were working on the game in secrecy while EA's attention was on Andromeda. It talked about how the game would have been of smaller scale featuring stealth and heists. Clearly, this has been confirmed by the artwork in this video.
Sadly, however, EA got wind of the game like a year or two in development and forced the team to take the project in a different direction. This was when they were going full mast into Anthem, trying to make it the new flagship for Bioware. As such, EA focused entirely on the concept of live service gaming and wanted their other properties to follow suit. So Dragon Age 4 was scrapped and redesigned into a live service game as well. This was also mentioned in that article i read, for which the creators had early misgivings.
You can tell by the gameplay there are a LOT of elements of live service gaming as well. The loose story structure and quests; the Fill In The Blank lore drops; the random loot drops. All hallmarks of live service that are 'popular,' eg. tedious.
Then Anthem dropped. And bombed. Pure chaos. EA finally realizes too late that nobody gives a flying shit about live service in a Bioware game. So everyone is just scrambling as they go complete 180 in turning Dragon Age 4 back into a single-player RPG. But by the time they've realized it, there's no going back; they've already committed to the gameplay design.
So in a complete Hail Mary attempt, they have Bioware go back and pull some of the early concepts, throwing them together with the gameplay to see if they stick. During that time, they release the Mass Effect Trilogy to great acclaim while secretly analyzing all the choices we made throughout the game so they may be implemented into DA4. Eventually it comes close to the ten year mark since Inquisition was first released, and crunch time forces them to get the game out as soon as possible so the team can redirect to Mass Effect 4 (pure speculation here, don't quote me).
All in all, it's no wonder this game has been so divisive. One half of the game has got great concepts of a single roleplaying game while the other half has all the safe casual gamer BS associated with live service gaming. Two completely different games melded into one. Hardly ever pans out.
While i am disappointed to realize what we missed out on, i must recognize the creators' efforts in doing their best to translate their EA overlords' demands into something tangible for audiences. I still like the game warts and all, but I'll now always look back and wonder what could have been. At least i finally understand the method to the madness.
Still wish they let us have a fucking greatsword.
I would play the shit out of this version of things, such a shame...
Your interpretation would explain why Bioware keeps changing main protagonists in each game. Since it's easier for narrative to keep one protagonist. All of them coming together for the final battle, that would have been amazing.
That's what happens when you got Sims devs working on an rpg.
"Oh man... what could have been, indeed... Now, a proper close to this series will only exist in the 'canon' of our minds. It's heartbreaking how they discarded such rich lore and left us with a shallow, superficial story...
I'm at 16 minutes out of 43 and when he said "morrigan introduced rook to the hero of ferelden" i simply crumbled in tears... what could have been this game... i feel sick
Solas in Inquisition: "magic is magic just as water is water
Solas in Veilguard I ABHORE the use of blood magic
It's a spoiler, but Solas in this scene is just lying. He was using blood magic on Rook the whole game to play with his mind.
well, he was lying
Me when the god of lies.. lies 🤯
@@nemesisazuraIt doesn't make sense to make Solas sound so heroic and good in this scene when he was literally open to sending a personal demon to everyone 10 minutes earlier, they could have gone with(my opinion):
"Magic is magic (inquisition reference), but I am powerful enough, I don't need to use a trick for weak minds (small biased reference to Dorian)"
He would still be lying and the dialogue wouldn't be as expository and heroic, but writing made for children is a problem with the entire game.
@@muronooo. It makes sense, he was lying, simple as that.
Also, he doesn't care about the world, he cares about the elves.
And Rook doesn't know him, so he could tell whatever he wanted to Rook to manipulate them, and Rook would have no means to know.
In any case, at the end of the game is revelad he is a blood mage. This is one of the few things in this game that actually made sense.
This kind of scenarios are exactly what I wanted in a long series games like DA, where protags of each games joined together for a finale, similar to Nihon Falcom series Trails of games. Your scenarios would have made something that truly epic.
"Originally, the heroes would do corvet work in a mobile base in the sea with the help of the inquisition"
Man, some elements in this sounds like they were doing ME 2 in a end of days scenario of ME 3...
The Veilguard felt like a game missing a huge chunk. The first 2 acts referred to here would have made the story more coherent. The whole story, I would say, could alternatively have been two games. Acts 1 and 2, where we would try to stop solace making the one and Act 3 where we would be fighting the Evanuris would have been a sequel. The Veilguard that we got is basically the Act 3. Without Acts 1 & 2, it feels disjointed and incomplete.
Except dragon age will never have the same main character twice so if they split dreadwolf into two games we would have ANOTHER new mc after Rook lol
I agree with most of what you said, but the ‘elementary school taught me’ commentary was very cringe. The singular they has existed for hundreds of years, as have non-binary identities across cultures. There is so much to dig into concerning the failures of Taash’s character writing without being lazy and not even attempting to understand the real life equivalents. It’s boring and not thought provoking to critique something on a “I don’t get it so I don’t like it”
The Oxford English Dictionary goes through the historical precedent for the singular they-first seen in publication in the 1300s. I’d hope we could engage with language beyond an elementary school education.
I also have a psychology degree along side a neuroscience degree. Being trans is in and of itself not a mental disorder and using perceived plural pronouns is not inherently indicative of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Mental illnesses generally involve distress caused to those around you or to oneself, simply being nonbinary is not a mental illness and definitely not in the DSM.
Thank you so much for this. I commented on this video for the same reason. Id need an 8 hour seminar to explain exactly why all of what he said in that part of the video was just wrong, ignorant, and harmful.
And that nonsense is why you will continue to lose. Sane people are finally pushing back against this mentally ill leftism that has infected our society.
Absolutely agree. Dude shouldn’t have made the video without this context and mature approach to alternate worldviews and cultures. You can critique veilguard without disrespecting nonbinary people.
Yeah, the creator seemed respectful earlier in the video (when he pointed out the issue with the creator wasn't choosing pronouns or the option to give Rook surgical scars) and then straight up said that using they/them pronouns was indicative of "split personality" which ALSO isn't the appropriate terminology for the disorder he's referring to. I can even understand wanting Taash's storyline to perhaps focus more on their mixed background and have their gender identity be more of an offshoot of that, but there's no excuse for being transphobic, especially towards the real person behind the characters you claim to enjoy so much. It's like "please write more cool characters for me, but absolutely do NOT put your own personal experiences into your writing! I cannot understand these things, because I have the critical thinking skills of a child" apparently.
Bruh…
So basically you’re not an anglophone and completely lack any societal context on this matter but then you decided that Patrick is crazy for not conforming to Eastern European society that they’re not part of anyhow?
Agreed. Had me disliking and stopping the video the moment this dude couldn’t get his tiny mind around respecting non binary people and misgendering actual human beings.
@@MadeofMysteries Same. Immediately stopped, downvoted, and reported. Just nasty work for no reason.
What are the odds larian buys dragon age from EA the next story can start with Cassandra complaining that verrica writing has gone down hill as she burns a book called the veil guard the whole hole game was just a horribly written stody by verric 😂
No way EA gonna sell dragon age unfortunately. I'd rather hope for bioware (if they even survive) change their director. I believe veilguard main problem is their director have no brain.
@Account2-ng6hr I'm not sure about any of the directors you can just tell it was written by a non binary atheist they destroyed all of the world building around the religions in the game and focused on gender... 🤬
@@Account2-ng6hr It's the whole studio, completely different people in the halls than the ones who made DA:O. That means completely different ideas and direction, even if they did try to keep it in line with what came before.
Just look at how completely different BG3 is from BG2/BG1 narratively, it's the same thing here only thing that stays the same is the studio name. Bioware is in reality gone forever.
Not much :)
I have already shared my thoughts on this in another comment. In theory, it is possible, but as far as I know, there haven’t been any precedents for it yet. A studio acquiring another studio - sure, that happens. But for them to decide to release what we would call a 'remake' of an unsuccessful project - that hasn’t happened before.
@CineGameAV I know just wishful thinking maybe some day a really talented modding team would just make a sequel I don't even need voice acting just good dialogue
hope the franshise gets rebooted in the future and veilguard is reborn into dragon age DREADWOLF.
I believe I also saw concept art with Imshael as a companion.
Having two former antagonists, as companions one of which was from the Masked Empire would’ve made the story even more memorable to me. As we haven’t had such an opportunity since Origins with Loghain.
After all I loved Cole in Asunder, so way back when I learned he was going to be a companion in Inquisition, my mind raced with how he would interact with the rest of the characters.
Imagine the conversations Calpernia and Imshael could’ve had with each other.
Yep, there are Imshael arts in the book. He was supposed to be a "double agent" and join us during the fight in Arlathan Forest in Act 2. But he disappears entirely from future art, so I just forgot about him while writing the script for the video.
@@CineGameAV what is imshael was suppose to be the demon possessing lucanis?
No, Imshael was planned as a separate, full companion. "Her" concept art can be found on page 90, if I remember correctly, at the bottom left (the girl with the sword). She also appears in the second act’s plot, when Rook and her group are ambushed by elves and Imshael (in the form of woman) helps Rook in the fight. So this isn't related to Lucanis. Although it would be interesting to have an obsessed character and one demon from the Forbidden Ones in the group.
Ive been stewing and grieving over the concept art but i really needed someone to put it together like this.
This is now canon for me, headcanon yes, but still. Veilguard was just super wasted potential.
I was with you all the way up to the transphobia. You don't have to understand why someone is trans to still respect their name and pronouns. Saying a person needs help because they don't fall into the binary is incredibly demeaning ESPECIALLY when dealing with an actual real-life person.
I agree that Trick's personal life didn't need to bleed into Taash's writing. It's not Taash being non-binary that's the problem, it's that their entire personality and storyline was their discovery of and being non-binary. They also wrote Krem, a transman, in Inquisition and did a much better job handling a trans character with him. But at that time I don't think they had come out yet so writing Taash's transness became a focal point when it didn't need to be, ergo the personal life bleeding into Taash's character.
Anyway, rest of the video is great, please work on the transphobia.
Thank you, I was looking for this comment. Such an interesting video up to that point. Shame, really.
I am so glad to find this comment. I was watching but had to stop at that part. I do wish Taash’s character didn’t fully center around them discovering themselves, on the other hand it is nice to have that representation of self discovery and finding your identity. I dunno. BioWare fumbled Veilguard hard, as much as I like most of the companions, what was scrapped would have been way more unique and intense. 🫠
Felt like I was going crazy with how few people in the comments are holding the creator accountable for the sudden whiplash of transphobia at the end. Such a terrible way to end a stellar video.
Ok so, this video is very good and honestly the initial plot and character ideas sound very interesting and cool. However I'm a bit confused why you're confused about Taash's gender identity. I'm also from Eastern Europe and gender identity is not something difficult to understand - it's how you see yourself and what gender role you play in society. In fact strange and subversive gender role changes have been a part of European cultures (like the Albanian burrnesha or sworn virgins).
Also the "they" pronoun was at one point in the history of the English language used singular, to refer to one person. I just think it's so silly and quite frankly boring when people keep complaining about non-binary characters. The problem with Taash is that they're poorly written and annoying, not that they're non-binary.
Aside from that, great video.
Thanks for calling this out as someone from a similar background! Goes to show the creator lacks maturity and capacity to understand other perspectives that aren’t his own.
This was a fantastic video aside from your comments on non-binary identities. You criticized the writers for including their personal views on gender in this game, then hypocritically did the exact same thing in this video. There was no need to criticize the concept of being non-binary as a whole when your point only pertained to the lackluster writing behind Taash.
I also urge you to do your research on non-binary identities. In the context of being non-binary, "they" is not used because it refers to multiple people, but because it is a pronoun which is separate from male or female association by nature. In other languages non-binary people use gender-neutral pronouns that AREN'T plural, such as "ele" in Spanish. I have personally met non-binary people from Eastern Europe, so I do not consider that a good excuse. If they can be understanding given their origin, so can you. Regardless of your personal opinions, it is considered rude and disrespectful to call someone by a pronoun they do not attribute to themselves; it was extremely unnecessary for you to do that when speaking about the writer behind Taash. It is doubly disrespectful to describe someone's gender identity as a "mental illness"; that description has caused a great deal of misunderstanding and suffering for those who identify as transgender or non-binary, and continues to do so thanks to comments like yours. Once again, I urge you to do your own research on the definition of non-binary and on how one can be respectful to non-binary people.
That is all I have to say. Great video aside from those comments.
I hope we get the true whole story in an animated series or book someday, cause it to be good.
Top tier video with a super weird dive into your take on the tash situation, perhaps the worst/strangest take I've seen.
Like particularly strange you'd record that segment listen back still hit publish and think that'd go down well is crazy
HOW DO YOU FAIL SO MISERABLY WITH A STORY LIKE THIS. I hate you bioware.
I really enjoyed this video minus your opinion about gender identity. So sad we missed out on Joplin.
I screamed "YES YES FINALLY SOMEBODY MENTIONED IT" when you talked about Gaider and the characters he wrote. He's actually talking about the characters he wrote on bsky and my god, his writing seems so subtle and now I value the characters and the challenges he wrote for them more. "If personal frustrations start bleeding into character arcs, it's a cause for concern." Beautifully put.
Thank you for this. I kept telling people on reddit the pacing and story was so disjointed - and you answered it for us. Appreciate the closure you have given fans of this series. What could have been EA. What could have been.
Omg I'm not even 7 minutes in and I already love this
Why Bioware😢
So I agree with you on the Taash criticisms, got a couple responses to that part:
-One, it's really cringe to go on about how using they/them is a big deal and a bad thing, because really, it isn't. I don't understand that supposed gender concept myself, but that anecdote is just incredibly unnecessary, and you could've just addressed how Taash was clearly just a self insert, with no nuance to her identity and terrible character writing.
-Also, when talking about how Dorian's sexuality doesn't embody his whole character, and that his arc is completely different, you completely ignore and don't bring up how his sexuality is waaaay more nuanced as a character when his entire personal quest arc is about how he didn't conform to Tevinter demands and lineage because that required him to be with a woman, when he didn't want to because he's gay. Dorian's character is about changing the outlook of magisters, sure, but completely misrepresenting his character and his personal arc is kind of stupid when you're trying to make comparisons to him and Taash.
May I use this? I'm writing a fic for all my playthrough from Origins to Veilguard and I really like how you imagined the story
You mean the ideas voiced in this video? Yes, of course, why not.
If you were asking about the concept-arts, then everything there is standard in terms of copyright.
link plz
Imagine...if they thought it through and the Elven Artifacts you activated on Solas' request in Inquisition...was secretly those weapons scattered around the world.
Its so depressing to hear what could have been 🥺 this would have tied so many loose threads
We were dreadfully robbed! Thank you for the video. I could listen to another half an hour of possible story and character restorations!
Wait, they almost had a good plot? using the old plot and the player decisions? This story is amazing
wtf Bioware, how did this happen??
God the initial idea of the character of taash sounds soooooo gooooooooood 😭😭😭😭
14:29 me, the whole game: Oh look there goes lazy pants off to take another nap, really milking that injury huh Varric
Me at the reveal: ….Oh.
I was like Why are you still here just go home if you're not gonna do anything
Thanks for making this video. Seeing the concept art and what the team was originally envisioning helps put into prospective what we lost. They didn’t set out to give us Veilguard, they wanted Dreadwolf and outside influences killed that dream
Ill never go through veilguard again. This is my canon ending for the series. Thank you for giving me peace.
This might sound sad but after playing 2 hrs the day it came out I cried. I'm 34 and I cried because I was so disappointed in DAV. Then watching your video based on the concept art, I cried again. This series has meant a lot to be since origins and I absolutely hate DAV. I am so disappointed with the story and how different it was from what it was supposed to be. I would have absolutely loved it if they had stuck with dread wolf instead of veilguard.
Thank you for taking the time to make this video, I really appreciate the time you went through to do this.
This actually makes me really hopeful for Dragon Age 5, if the studio survives till then, because most of dragon age inquisition was actually ideas left out of dragon age 2 exalted march dlc. So these could make it in although altered.
I also bought the Artbook and had the same thoughts! I was shocked at how much was left out of the final Veilguard game. You did a very good detective job here! I would have liked a Dragon Age like that too! In the art book you can also see that even more companions were planned - an Arlathan elf or a Kal Sharok dwarf. And they were planning on having a lot of companions reappear - Sten/Cole etc. I think this was supposed to be something like Marvel's End Game just for Dragon Age.
This story seems ten times better then the actual story we actually got for this game in my opinion
I also thought that the room with the piece of sea came to the end result from somewhere else.
So if you remember, there was a movie "the 6th sense" with Bruce Willis. There is a "plot twist" with the fact that the hero is a ghost - played perfectly. The problem with this in VG - that they messed up this trope - and HERE's HOW - The first scene shows us that the Main Character is talking to Varick. That we have no doubt that Varick is alive. For the trope to work correctly, there should not have been a "real version of events" shown in the modified video at the end. And so it turns out that the Main Character is struggling with schizophrenia. And everyone around can see him talking to the carpet. "Our boss is a little f*cked up, well, what can I do! Let him save the world." The problem is that the Hero NEVER OVERCOMES SCHIZOPHRENIA. In the last credits, the voice of the late Varick tells him the story again)
I spent my money on the artbook rather than the game and I'm very glad I did. Joplin was the true sequel to the series even if we never got it.
I'm pretty sure the HoF is the ghoul in the artwork. It's been decades since the 5th blight and they're the one who has been resisting the calling due to their mission. Who else but a HoF who romanced Morrigan would hold up a note saying "don't let her see me like this"? It would also have been a way to get around the lack of a set voice.
The ceremony between a Warden and the Kal Sharok dwarves is possibly related to them carrying the taint.
I doubt that's the Hero of Ferelden. That surely is just any Warden that became a Ghoul, something that they actually still had in the final version of the game with the Gloom Howler's arc.
Also, the HoF has been a Warden for 20 years, they still have at minimum another decade more to suffer the calling. If something I imagine the Hero of Ferelden is precisely with Rook because they are one of the few Wardens that are still free of the calling.
If they were a Ghoul then they couldn't even be able to help.
It also doesn't make sense for that Ghoul to refer to Morrigan if she is the one that introduced the HoF to Rook.
Also, it seems you forget not all of us romance Morrigan, or even play with a Male Warden, so I doubt they would use something so specific as that as a plot device.
Nothing in the artbook depicts anything so specific in another instance.
It has the mention of the Here lies the abyss character, but it doesn't even have any artwork of it, and especially of Hawke. If we go with "canon" (or better said default) worldstates, the Warden is a female Dalish elf who died in Origins.
@@SeventhheavenDK Wardens become corrupted faster during blights, especially if they've spent a large amount of time around the taint, which certainly applies to the HoF. The calling is also separate from the body shutting down because of the taint. It's been speculated one of the reasons the Wardens have a tradition of answering the calling is to spare younger Wardens from seeing them turn into ghouls.
The Gloom Howler arch wasn't part of the Joplin story, so it can't apply to any ghoul wardens in the art at that time. There's also only one of them.
Morrigan being the one to introduce us to the HoF is speculation, and art is obviously going to choose one version to depict. If any plans for the HoF survived further than the initial planning stage, that's the art that fits the bill.
Absolutely love this idea.
I do think making the HoF part ghoul would be the best way to include them without having to voice them and give them a set personality. Though I don't think the one in the concept art was them lol
It kind of sounds like there was a team working in dreadwolf's sequel and something behind the scenes caused dreadwolf be dropped and the sequel adapted to fill the original role.
While I agree with you in multiple ways in regard to the game and the choices made where the concept art shows a vastly more interesting story and greater design choices... Your pure disrespect towards someone's chosen gender is really destroying this whole thing for me. How much does it take to be empathetic and nice to one another? How much to accept that our perception of norm and the things we learned as a given can and do in fact change, and that gender and its expression in and off itself do not harm anyone and also do not seek to do so. The only thing we as queer and nonbinary people want is respect and acceptance, and not to be used as scapegoats or targets to subjugate your hate and frustration upon. This could have been a great game critique, and it really was, and I saw myself mourning the things lost to us... But when you started the last bit of the video and misgendering a writer purposefully, I really felt sad... I do not write this to fight anyone, just in hopes of perhaps cultivating more empathy and acceptance towards others in those regards. (English isn't my first language and i am from Europe myself) I myself also think the ground problem is with the disregard to the players intelligence and the way how on the nose Taash was, especially given the use of modern language even tho a word form the Qun had been established in the previous games to describe exactly what they were feeling. Someone's own experience and battle with gender expectations and expressions, as well as feelings, aqun-athlok. SO as you say, the issue is with them making their gender the only thing that defines their personality, even tho gender and sexuality (even tho deeply interwoven in a person) do not solely define their being. Their behavior. And they forgot that in the game.
I agree, that comment was very unnecessary
Regarding the grammar topic, a quick google search will also show that "They is also sometimes used instead of the pronouns he or she to refer to non-binary people or an individual person whose gender is not known or mentioned (see Teaching Tips for further information). This pronoun takes a plural verb, despite their singular referent.". But then he mentioned he's from eastern europe, so I got the gist lol
in this particular case, one remark doesn’t destroy the rest of the message. If you can’t differentiate and separate the two then that’s your problem :)
Agreed. It was such whiplash. I didn’t love the misgendering of Taash as they are in the game, but then to misgender an actual human being had me disliking and stopping the video. Absolutely ruins the message and critique when transphobia comes into the picture.
the fact this team was so open to scrap everything every new decision from EA tells a lot of the quality the new ME will have...
It's just... How much betrayal can I take? I feel like I've been stabbed in the heart.
As far as I'm concerned this is the proper canonical story, just going to pretend the game didn't happen now
This definitely works so much better. It actually feels like Dragon Age Absolution fits with this instead of just being a random show.
This was a good video, until you completely shat on all non-binary people as mentally ill. Taash, just like every other character, was poorly written around a single characteristic (coffee, whittling, etc). They became one note and their entirely personality was flat. All the companions felt cliche and flat, Taash got singled out because theirs was controversial (whereas coffee and whittling are just whatev).
17:07 SPOILERS It doesn’t "go nowhere."
If you unlock the secret ending after the credits, you do see that this subplot is likely the core of the next game by the unknown "?????" And hint that this unknown guided Varric's brother Bartrand's hand in betrayal, the architect's hand, Flemeth's hand, and even was the reason for Loghain's betrayal. It will be a new interesting thread to pull, but it sucks they cut out so much from allnour previous choices.
Liking and commenting for the algo, this is the nuanced critique of Veilguard that I want instead of angry youtube cloutchasers.
I’m only seeing this video now just after finishing the game yesterday. And honestly this hits all the points I felt about the game entirely. As someone who has played through mass effect and dragon age since the beginning, you hit the nail right on its head. Great video sir
I’d pay thousands to play this game as you described it, and not what we got… I actually feel so sad about this game and how unenjoyable it’s been. The only thing saving the series for was is pretending it ended at inquisition… but now I can just make this my canon.
I feel so sad now that I finished the game, I feel betrayed as a long time loving this series, lore, characters. They took out the mystery, the interest of me guessing and thinking about stuff. I don't have the desire to replay it, there's nothing there to pay more attention to. I would pay for a proper DA game.
You also use "they" to refer to both sexes. It's why you don't see people use "him or her" when referring to somebody whose identity they don't know.
You guys are getting on my nerves... I was talking about binarity. I understand that "they" can be used for a singular object (for example - I met someone at the party last night. They seemed nice). I was saying that Taash became non-binary because Patrick considers himself non-binary. I don't understand how one can be neither a man nor a woman, given that in my system of coordinates, there is Male/Female. Patrick is a man. And I was taught to refer to a man as 'he,' not 'they.'
Since people got triggered by my stance, next time I will just say it outright. No more beating around the bush. That way it will be easier.
@@CineGameAV So you're saying even if it was better written, you would've had a problem with it regardless? Because what were you yapping about multiculturalism being better when it was just another form of identity crisis?
If you think I am "yapping" right now, I can only imagine the horror you would feel if you met me in person. This isn't even yapping, it is more like... a barely audible voice.
What I am actually saying is the opposite. I gave the example of Dorian (though it is not entirely accurate, because sexual orientation and gender are different things), but the point stands - I am not gay. But I find Dorian likable because his character arc, which I talked about in the video, is what's most important. If David Gaider had written Dorian’s storyline around his emotional struggles and whether he was gay or not, then I wouldn't have liked the character. But David didn't do that. He gave him this trait. Great. It is his defining feature and that's cool. But with Taash, this is the core of the character's arc.
Do you think most players hated Taash because of her non-binary identity? No. It happened because the author's personal struggles were embedded in the character in such a blunt way that it feels alien.
She could have been a dandelion. If it were done well, there wouldn't be any issues. But if all you think about are how others perceive you/don’t understand you in a real life and it hinders your actions like creating character - that's wrong. This is what happened with Taash and Patrick.
@@CineGameAV Do you even read what you're typing? Because you're contradicting yourself. Initially it's all about "you can be either but never neither." Now you're all talking about writing. Make up your mind.
@@CineGameAV As I said, it's clear you're going to have a problem regardless of how well written a character is. Just own up to it instead of trying to hide behind "writing bad." And FYI concepts are always better than the final product. Even with the best products you could think of.
To see this glorious opportunity failed badly, it hurts me deep inside. you made my eyes watery with your honest and detailed review truly this game could have been a phenomenon, such a disappointment.
nah you dont have to be spiteful/hateful just because taash is a badly written character
This^^
This video could've been so good, had the creator kept their personal opinions on the validity of non-binary people out of it.
I do agree taash is poorly written, but that shouldnt discredit the lived experience of non-binary people.
It's common courtesy to refer to people how they want to be referred to. To go out of your way to refer to them in a different manner is a dick move
Watching this I can see why they shelved it and went with what they released. It's a huge task and I don't think they were up for it especially with all the departures and layoffs
Especially after 10 years. I got two degrees since trespasser. To be honest I give it credit arriving in its current state. I was disappointed with a lot of the story but the last act at least closed the solas story. All I can ask is next game, learn from this one’s mistakes.
@navyrotc2012 true. Unfortunately I don't see the next game having the same potential this one had being the culmination of events that's happened over 3 games.
On the plus side, it'll mean the bar is lower
@@navyrotc2012theyre too arrogant to even think theyvmade mistakes
THEY are the reason they had layoff all they care about is their prono..uns they probably bullied all this people out
according to sources they bullied str@ight whyte men, they are r@cists and sexist
@@navyrotc2012. If there is another game, I doubt they will learn from this. They will just make Veilguard 2.0.
And that said, I don't think there will be another game, especially in how badly Veilguard has flopped.