Dragon Age Veilguard: A rook can only move horizontally or vertically

[Humanoid]

I have a bit of an itch to try the character creator to see if the characters I see in reviews are outliers or if that's really the best they can manage with the tools. But it's not an itch worth burning 80GB+ of download quota on just yet. The EA Play trial will be there forever anyway so no rush.

33 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

What Dragon Age was supposed to be the "good one/s," anyway? I vaguely recall the early ones coming out and I wasn't interested in those way back then either, because of my personal interests.

DA1 was earnest in that Bioware put in a lot of time and effort to make the best game they could while the company was still independent. For me it didn't hit, but I respect it. Conceptually another "save the world" story was not what I was after, and in terms of narrative the game made me actively not want to save the world with the way the origin stories are written.

DA2 was the opposite, in that it was extremely cynical where DA1 was earnest. Conceptually I thought it was a great idea, a smaller-scale, more personal game with lower stakes than usual. The implementation though was just cobbling stuff together in order to meet EA's extreme deadlines and it's just a procession of reused content and waves of enemies spawning out of thin air.

DA3 was a single-player MMO.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, MrBrown said:

Most people seem to prefer DA:O. At least those are the ones that make the most noise, maybe the people who prefer the others don't make youtube videos about it.

I'm in the camp of people who quite liked DA:O. The combat and spell combos where you had to explore was just fun (a very subjective thing, I know). Didn't care for the romances and if I had to mention my single biggest grievance it was the npc with the big yellow exclamation mark over his head screaming PURCHASE THIS DLC!!!! in your camp

That aside, I quite enjoyed it enough for several repeat playthroughs. I later got an edition with the various dlc's etc. so at least this most obnoxious guy disappeared.

[melkathi]

Imho Dragon Age allowed for a great first play through of Origins. Very enjoyable and fun and some good moments.

But BioWare did not have a good further Dragon Age game in them. The setting may have had more potential , but BioWare was not the company to explore it.

2 was simply bad. The experimentation in chapters years apart not working well, causing the player to stand still while the game moved on. The spawning of enemies was silly. The evil high Templar was comical in how bad she was written.

Inquisition was a single player MMO with all the bad of an MMO without the potential benefit of sharing fun with strangers.

And as in so many BioWare Games, in both 2 and Inquisition there was the disconnect with what your character should say, what you thought your character would say, and the soppy cringe they did say.

 

They should have left it at origins and made that StarWars MMO a series of single player titles, one for each class in each faction.

They would have made a dozen great games instead of a couple bad single player ones and a mediocre mmo.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I think the biggest problem with Dragon Age is a lack of consistency in design goals. There's a disconnect between DA1 and future games in the series that seemed to jettison more of the "rpg elements" in favor of more action focused gameplay and cinematic experiences, in addition to jumping between smaller personal story to single player mmo with a multiplayer minigame slapped on. By itself that isn't a problem but I think that Bioware just isn't good enough at either gameplay or cinematics to really make a good action-rpg, looking back now I remember next to nothing about actually playing DA2 or DA3 beyond silly stuff like the "ANOTHER WAVE" yells or spamming the magic sword power to reflect projectiles. While this new one does look like it's doubled down on action it just doesn't look good, like an inferior Dragon's Dogma with less enemy variety or real options.

[Raithe]

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/rs-gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-john-epler-interview-1235147001/

[MrBrown]

On 11/3/2024 at 6:23 PM, Raithe said:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/rs-gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-john-epler-interview-1235147001/

"During early development of The Veilguard, BioWare experimented with multiplayer once again, however, Epler insists that there was never a mandate from parent company Electronic Arts to implement any specific online or live-service modes; the devs were just exploring different ways to tell the story."

Reeeeaallly? 

Edited November 5 by MrBrown

[melkathi]

It says so on the internet. It must be true.

[Zoraptor]

There was also 'never any mandate' to use Frostbite for Andromeda or for DA2 to have such a short development cycle. And Bioware did exactly what it wanted with Anthem too!

(Funny thing being that just makes both sets of execs dumb; the Bioware ones for consistently making bad decisions, the EA ones for not intervening in the bad decision making. At least EA execs imposing the bad decisions could have the Bioware ones being competent but overruled)

[bugarup]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

[...] the EA ones for not intervening in the bad decision making. At least EA execs imposing the bad decisions could have the Bioware ones being competent but overruled)

Hey, maybe Bioware's execs let EA's execs write Veilguard out of gratitude, judging by general opinion on its story

 

Anyway. All this talk of DA made me reinstall Origins, which I don't think I need to spend more time with, since it's one of very few games I collected 100% cheevos for, but here I am. I love how things make sense in it. It's also less brown than I remember it.

 

[melkathi]

Have fun.

But remember:

Swooping is bad.

[Hurlshort]

41 minutes ago, bugarup said:

Hey, maybe Bioware's execs let EA's execs write Veilguard out of gratitude, judging by general opinion on its story

 

Anyway. All this talk of DA made me reinstall Origins, which I don't think I need to spend more time with, since it's one of very few games I collected 100% cheevos for, but here I am. I love how things make sense in it. It's also less brown than I remember it.

 

I played DA: Origins a couple months ago, and I was surprised how well the graphics have held up.

[Hurlshort]

40 minutes ago, bugarup said:

Hey, maybe Bioware's execs let EA's execs write Veilguard out of gratitude, judging by general opinion on its story

 

Anyway. All this talk of DA made me reinstall Origins, which I don't think I need to spend more time with, since it's one of very few games I collected 100% cheevos for, but here I am. I love how things make sense in it. It's also less brown than I remember it.

 

I played DA: Origins a couple months ago, and I was surprised how well the graphics have held up.

[melkathi]

I heard Hurls-h/n-o(r)t played DA: Origins a couple of months ago, and was surprised how well the graphics have held up.

 

 

(People who have played Champions Online will also know that they have to shut down all those beacons. They emit a high frequency signal that drives the Qular crazy).

[Sven_]

On 11/2/2024 at 2:51 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I think the biggest problem with Dragon Age is a lack of consistency in design goals. There's a disconnect between DA1 and future games in the series that seemed to jettison more of the "rpg elements" in favor of more action focused gameplay and cinematic experiences, in addition to jumping between smaller personal story to single player mmo with a multiplayer minigame slapped on. 

 

The entire Dragon Age series is a mirror image of Bioware's existence. Which is one of following market trends.

Origins (initially announced as Dragon Age in 2004) was pitched as a "back to the roots" project. Not late into their careers, like an aging Rock band would. But rather barely two moons after Throne Of Bhaal had shipped. Why is that so? Because the only thing consistent with Bioware games is/was their authors. Everything else was up for grabs, targeting whatever's currently hot. Neverwinter Nights? Multiplayer. Jade Empire? Console action-adventures. Mass Effect? Gears Of War. The Old Republic was clearly meant to be a World Of Warcraft Killer -- and Inquisition went bigger becuz Skyrim. And even BG wore its RTS influences on its sleeve (in particular Warcraft 2 at that time, which James Ohlen et all were big fans of). "We want Call Of Duty's audience" is one of the most infamous quotes in RPG history -- as if id Software would announce to target (or at least try hard to not alienate) Monkey Island fans next.

Edited November 5 by Sven_

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, bugarup said:

Hey, maybe Bioware's execs let EA's execs write Veilguard out of gratitude, judging by general opinion on its story

May also have been a way for the Bioware execs to guarantee this is the end of the road for the franchise. Bioware creative director Epler has repeated in multiple interviews that there will be no DLCs/expansions for DA:V, and that this is because the game is "story-complete." He's even confirmed that the DA:V devs have shifted to the next ME game, and only a small team will be kept to work on a limited number of patches and updates. Me thinks Bioware is done with the DA franchise.

[MrBrown]

About 35 hours in, felt like writing something.

Not sure how long this game is, seems like there's still lots more

Overall impression is "kinda ok". Probably wouldn't play this if I wasn't interested in the DA world.

Story setup felt interesting, like I said before, but after that it's felt a bit meh. Some of the factions in the game world have been changed, and IMO in a boring way. Can't avoid change, I guess, but the Qunari just feel like basic baddies now and the Crows like a vigilante group. Apparently this mostly relies on stories from non-game DA products, but doesn't save them from being boring choices. Main baddies are boring, hoping they'll shape up by the end. Most of the NPCs are either immediately on your side, or your enemies, without too much in between.

Dialogue is the usual Bioware fare of quipping and one-liners. The main difference is there's no massive interrogation trees with important characters anymore, most of dialogue is either in party banter or in specific quests for them. Lots of just text stuff around to flesh out things, like in most RPGs.

Exploration is quite parkoury and 3D. There's always things to fiddle with, or loot to get. It's quite smooth overall, but you can spend 30mins trying to reach a chest without figuring it out. But it does feel meaningful, in that what you find ties into the rest of the game fine.

Combat grew on me a bit. At the start it felt like I was just dodging 90% of the time, but it feels quite smooth now. I don't play that many games with actiony combat like this, so not sure how other games  do it. I'd still prefer the more party based approach of older DA games.

[marelooke]

21 hours ago, kanisatha said:

May also have been a way for the Bioware execs to guarantee this is the end of the road for the franchise. Bioware creative director Epler has repeated in multiple interviews that there will be no DLCs/expansions for DA:V, and that this is because the game is "story-complete." He's even confirmed that the DA:V devs have shifted to the next ME game, and only a small team will be kept to work on a limited number of patches and updates. Me thinks Bioware is done with the DA franchise.

Phew, at least the last ME games were great successes that were clearly better handled than the Dragon Age games. Can't wait to see what the next one brings!

[melkathi]

I reinstalled that Ink-uisition thingy. Maybe this time I'll last through it?

[BruceVC]

15 hours ago, melkathi said:

I reinstalled that Ink-uisition thingy. Maybe this time I'll last through it?

Its worth playing, the War Room has some nice mechanics and there is always something  to do 

I enjoyed the party interaction  but I didnt Romance anyone. I tried with Josephine but she is a NPC and it didnt work out anyway despite how I followed the Romance dialogue options 

[melkathi]

Yeah, last time I accidentally romanced the Red Jenny lady, and the whole romance thing I just found so off-putting. So this time I'll pay more attention so that I keep everyone at arm's length. I loath Bioware romance more than most other romance things I have encountered.

[majestic]

How does one "accidentially" do the romances when every interaction that leads to a romance has ginormous red heart as interaction symbol? I mean, really, having a negative opinion of video game romances (Iron Bull + male MC is complete hilarity though) is fine, but you can't do them accidentially Inquisition or Veilguard. They're marked with a giant warning symbol reading "don't click if you dislike romances", after all.

[kanisatha]

57 minutes ago, majestic said:

How does one "accidentially" do the romances when every interaction that leads to a romance has ginormous red heart as interaction symbol? I mean, really, having a negative opinion of video game romances (Iron Bull + male MC is complete hilarity though) is fine, but you can't do them accidentially Inquisition or Veilguard. They're marked with a giant warning symbol reading "don't click if you dislike romances", after all.

I don't remember exactly, but in DA:I were there not some dialogue choices where one may end up clicking the romance option just because all the other options were rude/stupid/ridiculous? I seem to recall feeling 'forced' to click the romance option because clicking any of the others felt like you were being a jerk.

[MrBrown]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

I don't remember exactly, but in DA:I were there not some dialogue choices where one may end up clicking the romance option just because all the other options were rude/stupid/ridiculous? I seem to recall feeling 'forced' to click the romance option because clicking any of the others felt like you were being a jerk.

DA2 famously had one for Anders. Can't remember if it was either not labeled with the heart symbol, or was just placed where usually the friendly(-but-not-that-friendly) option was.

Don't think there were any for Inquisition.

[bringingyouthefuture]

Been playing for a few days, the intro to the game/story is a little off at the beginning which is interesting, I am gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say they took a creative approach to the intro/tutorial trying to set the pace for the game and make it feel fast and upbeat, but fell short on getting the pacing of the cut scenes to action to backstory just right - pacing is super important and they just missed the beat slightly.  After the beginning and once the world map opens up the game is pretty great, totally got the bug where I don't want to put it down.  Mostly due to the plot picking up, as well as solid character building, the exploration and combat mechanics.

I am kind of into the art style, kind of sick of realistic people moving and speaking weird, in a lot of way the art style feels better for a video game, but I also think the art style isn't for us older folk who have been playing RPGs for far too long.  And in that vein the writing is a little easier and geared towards a younger audience, which isn't terrible, as they have done a pretty good job at flushing out the characters' personalities and motivations, and the plot so far is interesting, in a good against evil lets save the world way.  The character side quests so far have been good, and they opened up the story while also adding to the stakes, obviously haven't finished the game.  I feel like the companion interactions in DA:O were a little to overt and outside the story, where DA: I they felt more embedded in the game, and so far in my experience this has trended positive and the companions and backstory feel even more part of the game.  The only outlier to this in my memory is Morrigan / Alistair in DA: O, those two characters were so tied into the story, and I am curious if any of the Veilguard characters can capture that same sense of consequence.  But totally geared towards a younger console generation.

I am gonna go out on limb and say DA: O use of dialogue I enjoyed, but only because it led to real consequence, and I think they stepped a little away from this in DA: I, so my best guess from what I have read is this might be a little further diluted.  But for me that doesn't take away from enjoying the story or the game, it just makes the storytelling device different.  I mean Origins did such a good job with consequences, I can't think of many other RPGs in the past 20 years that have come close or been better.  BG3 possibly, the main difference being in BG3 with so many types of characters/races and story options it felt a little diluted.  CyberPunk 2077 Phantom Liberty would be the other game where the consequence of actions was that intense.  Elden Ring had its moments in this regard too, though they buried some of these so deep in side story that I would say they are more Easter Eggs for the diehards vs actual story devices.  Lot of people will also point to Disco Elysium as an example, but its consequences and story were way more subtle and buried in modern day criticism of society, which makes it comparing it difficult as we all know modern day ennui and failure means little, while high fantasy dilemmas are extremely important, world ending stuff.

In regards to exploration and world map, pretty much the same as DA: O and DA: I, basically areas you visit where there are quests, major story events, etc.  Maps are a decent size and packed with things to do.  Not a huge fan of the way they locked off areas in the world, not against doing this but they could have done a better job tying the unlocking to animations and items in the game, but if we are talking about a balance between open world exploration and more story focused content, they did a pretty great job so far.  Every area feels meaningful, the maps have hidden secrets, and the game gives you reasons for being there.

My best guess is much of what I read, that if you have hangups over the art style, the writing geared towards a younger audience, and the action orientated combat then you might be better off skipping.  I just came off playing Final Fantasy 16 which was terrible in terms of story, graphics, gameplay, character, writing etc ... and this is miles above that, but if I was to make a comparison between the two it would be that they are both targeting the younger console audience.

[BruceVC]

On 11/7/2024 at 7:07 PM, majestic said:

How does one "accidentially" do the romances when every interaction that leads to a romance has ginormous red heart as interaction symbol? I mean, really, having a negative opinion of video game romances (Iron Bull + male MC is complete hilarity though) is fine, but you can't do them accidentially Inquisition or Veilguard. They're marked with a giant warning symbol reading "don't click if you dislike romances", after all.

You cant really, I actively engage in Romance arcs when they applicable and its very easy to avoid Romance with any NPC that you dont want to initiate Romance 

 

Thats one of Bioware criticisms that is typically exaggerated, Romance is not forced down on you.  You can easily avoid it

 

And that applies to DA2, I had Anders in my party and when he  started flirting with me I just shut it down and it ended 

 

But I did pursue Romance with the liberated, beautiful   and amazing Isabella