Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[strawberry15]

With how much Failguard has butchered both the lore and worldstate of Dragon Age, I'm asking myself where can Bioware go from here? Fereldan, Kirkwall and most of Orlais have been destroyed.

East, and they will connect Thedas to Jade Empire as a setting.

 

[Soi Woh Jak]

Sophia Narwitz is a detransitioned pooner. If you want to know more about her you can read her posts made by her @sophnar0747 account.

Minor correction - "she" is a hsts mtf who is a games journalist for a minor outlet and also an actual journalist who I think was in the Chicago riots back in 2020.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

Sophia Narwitz is a detransitioned pooner. If you want to know more about her you can read her posts made by her @sophnar0747 account.

Was about to say what soi said. Even on video he admits he was "born male".

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Well, i ended Inquisition.
Pretty anti-climax the final fight against Corypheus... Maybe if i don't used a custom two-handed critical build could be more challenging.
Did i say i done 10k+ in pure damage only with Pommel Strike? Yeah.

Now i'm into Tresspaser, but only the beggining. Maybe when i finish it, replay Origins to do the Arcane Warrior playthrought.

 

[Drain Todger]

Just wanted to share this scathing review of the game by @sophnar0747 who 100%'d the game, for those interested.

Oh my god.

The opening to that review nearly made me gag. How do the dipshits who write this stuff not realize that using that style of modern sassy dialogue makes shit immediately, irretrievably dated and lame? You don’t have to go completely in the other direction, with archaic shit like in Dragon’s Dogma, but for fuck’s sake, there’s nothing wrong with just having your characters speak and act normally.

Then, of course, there is the in-your-face bluntness in the dialogue. You don’t just have a character say, literally, “I’m genderspecial”, to the camera. That’s not good or bad politics, it’s just plain fucking awful writing. You could have made it into a touching moment by having a character show a private moment of vulnerability where they explain why they feel the way they do, but instead, they just announce it to everyone over the dinner table like someone in an SNL skit.

This is just too retarded for words. Interns with actual mental disabilities wrote the dialogue for this fucking game.

 

[30+GameOvers]

This is just too retarded for words. Interns with actual mental disabilities wrote the dialogue for this fucking game.

You're giving the interns too much credit, this is the Bioware A team now.
I mean, I have no clue what people expected after Andromeda and Anthem, the writing was on the wall.

 

[ZMOT]

Obligatory "evil cannot create" Tolkien quote. A less pozzed Bioware already tried to do new IP. It was called Anthem and it failed spectacularly. Their last resort is to bank on IP that was once successful but cannot recreate because the people who created and nurtured them already left over ten years ago.

tbh anthem was actually "fine", it bombed because it was a technical mess, not because of it's writing (which you could ignore once you were done with the main story, and it wasn't as atrociously bad either. otoh also not "great", but serviceable enough to set things up if you were able to ignore all the mystery meat).
I'd go as far and say destiny these days is much much worse, but still pulls 30k players daily on steam alone.

EDIT:
checked it out of curiosity if I remember it less bad. it got all the hallmarks of a 2019 bioware game, but the millenial writing wasn't as bad, even with a snarky brit (portal 2 was a fucking mistake in that regard), at least in my opinion

if anyone's curious...

 

[Brap God]

tbh anthem was actually "fine", it bombed because it was a technical mess, not because of it's writing (which you could ignore once you were done with the main story, and it wasn't as atrociously bad either. otoh also not "great", but serviceable enough to set things up).

I'm pretty sure it also had a complete joke of an endgame for a looter shooter.

 

[00R-Gundam]

What i find funny is that Inquisition did a better job with all the faggy shit(Krim, Dorian) but Failguard failed miserably. Mind you Krim's whole gender thing is optional and unlike this retard quanari, krim just casually tells you without making it part of its identity and has an actual reason. Unlike the temper tantrum of Traash. As for Dorian, he might take it up the ass, but goddamm he was fun to be around, with all the quips.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

How do the dipshits who write this stuff not realize that using that style of modern sassy dialogue makes shit immediately, irretrievably dated and lame?

To give a very honest answer, this, vs kiwi farms are polar opposites and not even in terms of being "politically correct" but that places like bioware are toxic positive hugbox, while kiwi farms is a hurtbox, almost.

In bioware, or similar places, NOBODY is mean, nobody criticizes, and nobody calls out stupid bullshit unless criticism is EXPLICITLY asked for, and even then, its sugar coated, and anything "problematic" is avoided. This removes social friction (which isn't the same as social tension), but also makes stopping stupid ideas almost impossible

In kiwifarms, people are fully able to call you a fat nigger faggot tranny upon meeting you if they want, EVERYONE has a voice, and ANYONE can rate ANY post as "dumb" visible to all. And while this is certainly more hostile, and perhaps makes more social friction (look at an interaction from an average guy in gorltalk) This also means stupid ideas generally get lynched as soon as they walk in the door.

Another way to look at it, is the phrase "as iron sharpens iron, a man sharpens another man". And this occurs via social friction. You remove social friction, and EVERYONE will be fucking dull.

 

[ZMOT]

I'm pretty sure it also had a complete joke of an endgame for a looter shooter.

no, it was fine. there was enough casual grind that always lead to character improvement, even if small. you never had the feeling you had wasted the last two hours of playing the game like games where progression is a single digit chance, not the baseline.

however it was bit sparse at some point since EA dropped development after it bombed. the problem is a live service game means fuck all if the live service stops, and there was no reason to "trust" EA anymore after that stunt. even ubisoft of all companies has a better track record when it comes to that.

the core gameplay was great after they fixed it, however not many people cared anymore at that point and EA in true corporate fashion was dumb enough to think they had to retool the whole game to get back players instead of you know, add more content to generate word of mouth.
biggest irony if you remember what happened in 2020 and how everyone was forced to stay indoors, it would have worked in the games favor even more when your only alternative was warframe or destiny and people desperate to kill time, especially when no other game offers what anthem did (well besides some iron man game if it exists).

while kiwi farms is a hurtbox, almost

in my experience most posts are simply more honest, problem is truth hurts sometimes and you can't have someone's feeling hurt over the internet in [current year]+8.
eventually this will change again (if it isn't already), and given how far they pushed the overton window, the blowback will be even more severe than most people imagine.

 

[Boss Hawg]

Another way to look at it, is the phrase "as iron sharpens iron, a man sharpens another man". And this occurs via social friction. You remove social friction, and EVERYONE will be fucking dull.

From what I have seen of the game and it's character interactions, I feel as if the writers room was just one big hugbox where 'diverse peoples' inputs were accepted, no matter how bad, retarded, or out-of-place.

I feel like everyone that worked on this game are FAKE. I am sure some or maybe most of the higher-ups on this project are just REAL progressives and find nothing wrong or off-putting with the content in the game. But surely some people thought "holy shit, this is hot garbage", and didn't/couldn't say anything because of the risk of disrupting the Pozitive Vibes in the office.

This is a effect of HR departments and fear of being a 'bad human-being' as Redditors like to say. Their whole culture is one of being afraid of being negative to anyone that is of the in-group. That is very sad, if someone cannot say to someone's face that they are wrong and trying to correct them as positively as possible, that is a sad existence.

 

[ZMOT]

But surely some people thought "holy shit, this is hot garbage", and didn't/couldn't say anything because of the risk of disrupting the Pozitive Vibes in the office.

same reason battlefield shit the bed repeatedly. there's a dice dev on record saying as much (someone's fee-fees getting hurt if you criticize something). apparently no one can be fucking professional anymore.

 

[Tanner Glass]

I don't think EA will ever close Bioware. I have nothing to base it on but it is a hunch i had for a long time. Even after all those fuckups in recent years, the name Bioware still means something. And i think EA sees the value in that. What i think could happen over the years is that they restructure the studio, give it new devs, tone down on the retarded politics and try to capture the magic of the old Bioware again. The studio will change, but the name - Bioware - will always be there. There is just too much potential for money there, even after all those flops. It just needs one Hit and everyone will talk about how Bioware is back. It is less risky than starting a whole new studio from scratch and build a reputation again. The Namerecognition alone is worth a lot.

This isn't what's going to happen - it's already happened. Anyone that was considered "real" Bioware has left over last few years - no Darrah, no Laidlaw, oh Ohlen, no Giader, and so on. It's already a hollow studio pumping out mediocre garbage. Some bailed during DA2, some bailed during DAI, but all of them bailed before DAV.

The main writer for Dragon Age and Mass Effect is a they/them faggot since 2015 who is somehow (clearly) a bigger faggot then the first faggot who DAO, DA2, and DAI.

 

[CarlKingofDucks]

How long will these studios be allowed to lose money and fans until the higher ups have had enough?

 

[Drain Todger]

To give a very honest answer, this, vs kiwi farms are polar opposites and not even in terms of being "politically correct" but that places like bioware are toxic positive hugbox, while kiwi farms is a hurtbox, almost.

In bioware, or similar places, NOBODY is mean, nobody criticizes, and nobody calls out stupid bullshit unless criticism is EXPLICITLY asked for, and even then, its sugar coated, and anything "problematic" is avoided. This removes social friction (which isn't the same as social tension), but also makes stopping stupid ideas almost impossible

In kiwifarms, people are fully able to call you a fat nigger faggot tranny upon meeting you if they want, EVERYONE has a voice, and ANYONE can rate ANY post as "dumb" visible to all. And while this is certainly more hostile, and perhaps makes more social friction (look at an interaction from an average guy in gorltalk) This also means stupid ideas generally get lynched as soon as they walk in the door.

Another way to look at it, is the phrase "as iron sharpens iron, a man sharpens another man". And this occurs via social friction. You remove social friction, and EVERYONE will be fucking dull.

That’s an interesting hypothesis. We might say that without any filter, without any curation mechanism, the jetsam floats to the top.

However, this seems to me to be something more like a core competency issue. These are writing choices that, while politically convenient, are so appalling aesthetically that one could rightly call such writing artless. As in, these studios are having non-writers do their writing for them.

Normal, competent writers don’t need an outside enforcement mechanism by means of reflexive criticism from an editor or the public to put out an at least semi-competent draft. The moment they try committing ideas to a .docx like the ones displayed in Veilguard, their own internal cringe mechanism should be telling them to backspace and revise, without anyone prompting them to do so.

“Oh yeah, this gal starts apologizing profusely to my token enby self-insert for taking the last Pizza Hut bread stick.”

Cringe. Backspace it and try again. Or at least a normal person would. But they don’t. And then, it gets past their editors and creative directors who just nod along to this dog shit writing.

It’s as if their very notion of what qualifies as competent writing is wrong and fundamentally broken. As in, these people are motherfucking illiterate fetal alcohol baby cretins who learned how to write dialogue by Marvel capeshit osmosis.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

However, this seems to me to be something more like a core competency issue. These are writing choices that, while politically convenient, are so appalling aesthetically that one could rightly call such writing artless. As in, these studios are having non-writers do their writing for them.

Yeah part of this is competent people are ALSO kinda assholes sometimes. Think about it, if you were a john carmack level coder, would YOU take random fucking bullshit? probably not. Null is another good example, hes undeniably talented to keep kiwi farms up, but hes also the type who will criticize ANYONE.

So naturally those hugboxes EVICT or pressure out real talent, because they put the hugbox over performance.
I mention carmack because he got shit for having right wing stuff he did, and gave no fucks, and hes a LEGEND who has helped pretty much every industry hes been in, 3d graphics, coding, VR, and I think he went into AI a while back?

Meanwhile john romero is...more just a personality, who cannot stand on the merit of his talent alone, so HE will embrace trannies and shit for goodboy points. His legacy is being connected to cool shit, but his highlights are over. While anyone who kicks out john carmack for being a right wing "chud" is objectively shooting themselves in the foot, and they know it. And I think bioware HAD talent before, but slowly got rid of them, and its decline is testament to this.

 

[Drain Todger]

Yeah part of this is competent people are ALSO kinda assholes sometimes. Think about it, if you were a john carmack level coder, would YOU take random fucking bullshit? probably not. Null is another good example, hes undeniably talented to keep kiwi farms up, but hes also the type who will criticize ANYONE.

So naturally those hugboxes EVICT or pressure out real talent, because they put the hugbox over performance.
I mention carmack because he got shit for having right wing stuff he did, and gave no fucks, and hes a LEGEND who has helped pretty much every industry hes been in, 3d graphics, coding, VR, and I think he went into AI a while back?

Meanwhile john romero is...more just a personality, who cannot stand on the merit of his talent alone, so HE will embrace trannies and shit for goodboy points. His legacy is being connected to cool shit, but his highlights are over. While anyone who kicks out john carmack for being a right wing "chud" is objectively shooting themselves in the foot, and they know it. And I think bioware HAD talent before, but slowly got rid of them, and its decline is testament to this.

Well, the difference is, back in the day, BioWare had writers on staff who could actually fucking write. For Mass Effect, that was, for instance, Mac Walters and Drew Karpyshyn, and for Dragon Age, they had David Gaider and so forth. The only reason why any of Obsidian’s shit was any good was pretty much because of Chris Avellone, who they tried shoving out with #MeToo bullshit. None of these companies have any actual writers on staff anymore. They have severely mentally disabled droolers penning wokeshit instead. These people are even worse than Fagliarulo, if that could even be considered possible.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

Well, the difference is, back in the day, BioWare had writers on staff who could actually fucking write.

Yes, and im sure these writers were fired because they didnt suck the DEI dick hard enough.
Take the guy who did the cullen rant, who was canceled. undeniably good voice actor, and fired....because he didn't tow the line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tobaFRUCc2Q

I'm saying the good writers leaving CAME from the DEI bs sneaking up over the years. Not just because they couldn't find them.

 

[LazyLizard]

Yep, it's completely gone. For some reason the First Warden called all Grey Wardens back to Weisshaupt Fortress, a move that in reality would take months of in-game time and wouldn't be feasible. Every area we explored in the previous three games has been destroyed from the Blight - this is reported to Rook by a letter from the Inquisitor. The only Fereldan city holding out is Denerim I think, so even areas of the world that should be harder to conquer like Redcliffe and Orzammar are gone.

as if butchering every other part of the lore and gameplay wasn't enough lets just piss on the previous games too, seriously how did they think fans would be ok with this?