Dragonage The Veilguard - Tween RPG

[FakeSympathy]

I genuinely don't care if the companions are of different race, sexuality, and gender identity. As long as they are well-written

I mean in DA:O both Leliana and Zevran were bisexual, and they were really well-written characters. In DA: I, Dorian is Gay, Sera is Lesbian, and Iron Bull and Josephine are bi. Most of these characters I found to be really well-written. They have their own personal conflicts that you can help to resolve, and their character development depending on your choices are pretty damn good to watch as you progress through the game.

But I have to draw the line where the dialogs and characters are entirely built around being of different sexual orientations and gender identities.

I just feel like stuff like this being the only thing special about the characters is doing a huge disservice to the actual people of LGBTQ+ community. I have met a few of them, and all of them certainly bring fun personalities to the table. They don't build their entire identity around it, but rather as part of it.

DA: V seem to stop at a surface-level exploration, and quite stereotypical and condescending if you ask me. Is this really what being part of LGBTQ+ is about? How about a quest where they have to put down their former lovers who were brought back to life via necromancy? Or help them hunt down their former lovers who betrayed them?

Not to mention, would words like "non-binary" or "transgender" really exist in a fantasy world like this? If you are gonna write racism and hate, make it in-world friendly and part of the lore.

For example, in DA:O and 2, mages receive horrible treatment especially when they are apostates. They don't choose to be mages, but just are born with their powers. I actually felt really bad for mages who were tranquilized, but with the likes of Ulred or Orisino proves just how dangerous they can be if left unchecked. This is the type of representation of opression/segregation that I expected to see from dark fantasy, not this "did you just misgendered?!" crap.

 

[CriticalGaming]

@FakeSympathy i agree. I feel like people are defending this pigslop writing just because they have to defend the lbgt elements of it.

But take away the LBGT aspect and pretend they're talking about something else with that same writing and it is still terrible. The way it communicates to the player is like that of a middle school teacher presenting information easily and without metaphor so that literal children can understand it.

Except it is a M rated game. It is for adults. There doesn't have to be this stupid explanation for things. And everything doesn't have to be so literal as you said. It is a fantasy world so these emphasis on gender don't really fit. And a clever writer could have blended the same themes into a fantastical way in order to push the same ideas in a way that fit and doesn't scream "modern day bullshit" at us.

Veilguard's writing sucks all the way through because it is all presented in that same juevinelle way. While also at the same times removing the dark fantasy appeal the series used to have. Leaving a game with a very jarring tone and presentation that just stinks.

Veilguard isnt a bad game because it has heavy LBGT pandering. It is a bad game that just so happens to have that pandering, which unfortunately ruins a lot of criticism because chuds blame it the badness on the pandering when they shouldn't.

What is worse is that all the LBGT defenders will rush to this game's defense and prevent any reasonable discussion of the game being shit. Which really doesn't help the industry learn anything and only provides ammo to activism.

 

[BrawlMan]

What is worse is that all the LBGT defenders will rush to this game's defense and prevent any reasonable discussion of the game being shit.

I wouldn't go that far. There are plenty of those from the L-T community that can spot the difference between good and bad writing. You're always gonna have blind defenders on some angle or whatever politics, but most of them have it together. The worst you're gonna get as a vocal minority.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Yeah not all rpgs these days are like this game. BG3 is the obvious example but also Pathfinder 2 was incredible and it came out only a couple years ago. And recently there's been a game by the pathfinder people set in the 40k universe called Rogue Trader, which I also hear great things about, though I've yet to play it myself.

Honestly, I feel like we're living in kind of a golden age for story-focused CRPGs.

I don't think Dragon Age as a series was ever actually that good, but for a while around the early 2010s it was the high point because there just wasn't much else around, and a lot of what was around was bad and forgettable.

But we've had a whole bunch of really strong RPGs since then. I get that BG3 is kind of an impossible standard to hold other games to, but as you say, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is still amazing. We've had stuff like Disco Elysium which has really pushed the boundaries of what the genre can be. Go a few years further back and we had Tyranny, which was kind of a mess but also full of really interesting ideas. Heck, fucking Elden Ring has lore so deep you literally need to know dead languages to get the references.

I know absolutely nothing about Veilguard because I haven't felt any need to follow it. I feel like the genre has moved on from Joss Whedon dialogue and self-congratulatory references to swooping being bad.

I just feel like stuff like this being the only thing special about the characters is doing a huge disservice to the actual people of LGBTQ+ community. I have met a few of them, and all of them certainly bring fun personalities to the table. They don't build their entire identity around it, but rather as part of it.

I have to agree. The standard of representation has actually improved dramatically and frankly, this kind of stuff feels archaic, weird and borderline fetishistic.

 

[bluegate]

To my defense I didn't say anything about wokeness. This game is just plain bad without even worrying about that stuff.

Wasn't directed at you specifically, but at the grander discours as implied by posted videos and links.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Wasn't directed at you specifically, but at the grander discours as implied by posted videos and links.

Sadly it is bound to happen. Try not to pay it much attention. People do have a right to push back against content or themes they don't want in their games.

If the developers were more clever about the inclusion, these complaints would be far more minimal. You have to admit the dialog and pandering is pretty poorly done

 

[Terminal Blue]

If the developers were more clever about the inclusion, these complaints would be far more minimal. You have to admit the dialog and pandering is pretty poorly done

I'm pretty sure that's the point.

It's the standard woke brands grift. Rile up a bunch of thin-skinned lolcows who lack the self-awareness to realize they are the joke. Watch as the few surviving twitter libs who also lack the self-awareness to realize who owns the platform they're on eviscerate those cows in a desperate attempt to find someone to feel superior to. Congratulations, people now know your otherwise utterly forgettable game exists. Your masters degree in marketing communications was not a terrible waste of money.

The thing is, I don't think this actually works any more. Right wing youtube/tiktok has disappeared so far up its own grift-hole that noone pays any attention to it, and even if they did there just aren't enough insufferable liberals left on Twitter to generate much of a counter-response.

Maybe EA will adopt the Disney method and get a bunch of bots to post about how Veilguard gave them literally all the feels, but I'm not sure that's working either any more. The dead internet is real. The kind of people who are very online enough to do free marketing in their spare time have probably seen this kind of low-effort attempt at virality before.

As it is, I have seen nothing that convinces me that anyone is going to remember this game existed in a couple of months time, and again we just don't have to settle for that any more. There are a lot of really good CRPGs people could be playing instead.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I'm pretty sure that's the point.

It's the standard woke brands grift. Rile up a bunch of thin-skinned lolcows who lack the self-awareness to realize they are the joke. Watch as the few surviving twitter libs who also lack the self-awareness to realize who owns the platform they're on eviscerate those cows in a desperate attempt to find someone to feel superior to. Congratulations, people now know your otherwise utterly forgettable game exists. Your masters degree in marketing communications was not a terrible waste of money.

The thing is, I don't think this actually works any more. Right wing youtube/tiktok has disappeared so far up its own grift-hole that noone pays any attention to it, and even if they did there just aren't enough insufferable liberals left on Twitter to generate much of a counter-response.

Maybe EA will adopt the Disney method and get a bunch of bots to post about how Veilguard gave them literally all the feels, but I'm not sure that's working either any more. The dead internet is real. The kind of people who are very online enough to do free marketing in their spare time have probably seen this kind of low-effort attempt at virality before.

As it is, I have seen nothing that convinces me that anyone is going to remember this game existed in a couple of months time, and again we just don't have to settle for that any more. There are a lot of really good CRPGs people could be playing instead.

You're alive! Am bad at compliments or anything positive, sorry, but is good to see you around again.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's the standard woke brands grift. Rile up a bunch of thin-skinned lolcows who lack the self-awareness to realize they are the joke. Watch as the few surviving twitter libs who also lack the self-awareness to realize who owns the platform they're on eviscerate those cows in a desperate attempt to find someone to feel superior to. Congratulations, people now know your otherwise utterly forgettable game exists. Your masters degree in marketing communications was not a terrible waste of money.

You think they purposefully wrote bad "woke" dialog to rile up a hate mob of youtubers? In what world would that make good business sense?

This idea alone would imply that developers are purposefully making terrible content just to rub it in the face of the anti-woke sector of social media, meanwhile the silent majority simply don't buy the game and the lack of sales tanks the studio.

Wouldn't the better plan be to make quality content with clever and well made LBGT content that becomes hugely successful, and thus proving to everyone that those things belong in games? Instead you not only make a bad game, you also make bad examples of LBGT inclusion, as some sort of "gotcha" to the anti-woke youtube crowd.

Meh, I think it's more likely these writers are incompetent.

 

[Terminal Blue]

You think they purposefully wrote bad "woke" dialog to rile up a hate mob of youtubers?

Even when they were making supposedly good games, Bioware always had an extremely social-media-centric worldview which could, at times, be pretty cringe. A lot of the egregious fanservice in their games was made up of intentional references to the meme culture around them. That Bioware doesn't exist any more, all the people who made it what it was have gone and all that's left is EA wearing its skin, but I think EA still has a very particular concept, rooted in social media stereotypes, of who Dragon Age as a series is for and by extension who it isn't for, and I think with that idea comes a belief that setting those groups against each other will create drama and thus publicity. The problem is that both those demographics stopped being culturally relevant years ago.

So yes, it is incompetence. They actually do think they're being brave and groundbreaking, because their understanding of LGBT discourse is based on listening to a sad and mercifully dwindling bunch of cishet people on Twitter who think the frontline of the culture war is some middle aged dude complaining about pronouns in video games, rather than protecting trans people's right to legal recognition or access to healthcare.

 

[Dreiko]

Honestly, I feel like we're living in kind of a golden age for story-focused CRPGs.

I don't think Dragon Age as a series was ever actually that good, but for a while around the early 2010s it was the high point because there just wasn't much else around, and a lot of what was around was bad and forgettable.

But we've had a whole bunch of really strong RPGs since then. I get that BG3 is kind of an impossible standard to hold other games to, but as you say, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is still amazing. We've had stuff like Disco Elysium which has really pushed the boundaries of what the genre can be. Go a few years further back and we had Tyranny, which was kind of a mess but also full of really interesting ideas. Heck, fucking Elden Ring has lore so deep you literally need to know dead languages to get the references.

I know absolutely nothing about Veilguard because I haven't felt any need to follow it. I feel like the genre has moved on from Joss Whedon dialogue and self-congratulatory references to swooping being bad.

You're most likely right. Back in the time of Origins I wasn't much into Crpgs outside of fallout 2 because most of them did the real time with pause thing which I really hated back then, but nowadays more and more of them embrace being fully turn based, which as a Jrpg fan primarily is instantly fun for me.


I will say though, I did really love Origins back then, and it wasn't even a Crpg for me cause I played it on ps3 which lacked the isometric view. It felt like FFXII to me due to the programmable behaviors and autoattack. But I just loved the setting and choices and all the cool characters. I must have replayed it the most out of every game besides legend of dragoon.





The first such game I played in recent times that reinvigorated my interest was Divinity OS 2. Which makes sense would be great cause the same dev would go on to make BG3. But yeah after that one I was hooked. And honestly I may like the main plot in Pathwalker WotR more than BG3 because of all the supernatural beings you can end up becoming. My golden dragon playthrough was so damn satisfying.

I genuinely don't care if the companions are of different race, sexuality, and gender identity. As long as they are well-written

I mean in DA:O both Leliana and Zevran were bisexual, and they were really well-written characters. In DA: I, Dorian is Gay, Sera is Lesbian, and Iron Bull and Josephine are bi. Most of these characters I found to be really well-written. They have their own personal conflicts that you can help to resolve, and their character development depending on your choices are pretty damn good to watch as you progress through the game.

But I have to draw the line where the dialogs and characters are entirely built around being of different sexual orientations and gender identities.

I just feel like stuff like this being the only thing special about the characters is doing a huge disservice to the actual people of LGBTQ+ community. I have met a few of them, and all of them certainly bring fun personalities to the table. They don't build their entire identity around it, but rather as part of it.

DA: V seem to stop at a surface-level exploration, and quite stereotypical and condescending if you ask me. Is this really what being part of LGBTQ+ is about? How about a quest where they have to put down their former lovers who were brought back to life via necromancy? Or help them hunt down their former lovers who betrayed them?

Not to mention, would words like "non-binary" or "transgender" really exist in a fantasy world like this? If you are gonna write racism and hate, make it in-world friendly and part of the lore.

For example, in DA:O and 2, mages receive horrible treatment especially when they are apostates. They don't choose to be mages, but just are born with their powers. I actually felt really bad for mages who were tranquilized, but with the likes of Ulred or Orisino proves just how dangerous they can be if left unchecked. This is the type of representation of opression/segregation that I expected to see from dark fantasy, not this "did you just misgendered?!" crap.

Yeah Sera was my fav char in Inquisition and while I was very sad you couldn't bone her I still loved her to bits. I think people are being a bit too focused on identities and use them as a replacement for personalities.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I'm also kinda surprised Bioware survived this long. Knowing EA I thought they were gonna axe Bioware after Anthem. Doesn't matter how much legacy a studio leaves, one or two fuck ups and EA axes them; Yet BW survived.

Maybe this game will be the end of Bioware?

 

[BrawlMan]

Maybe this game will be the end of Bioware?

I honestly stopped caring about their fate years ago. Nothing against BioWare, but none of the same people are even there anymore. I doubt it personally but I wouldn't be surprised if it finally happens. Then what? We're all gonna move on and not really pay much mind in either scenario. Especially when there's a whole ocean full of CRPGs out there that have already surpassed the franchise and does a much better job.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

All of that sounds like a game I'd absolutely hate to play.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Maybe this game will be the end of Bioware?

Bioware ended a while ago. All that's left is a husk that EA parades around and says "remember when they made good games? This one might be good too; gib moniez plz".

 

[Dreiko]

Funnily enough, this topic inspired me to get into warhammer 40k. I watched a bunch of videos and joined their official discord and studied up a bunch of lore during the last 3 days, ended up just now buying rogue trader and the season pass cause that shit is hype actually.

Thank you dragon age, you passed the baton in your own special way I guess. All hail the emperor!

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Funnily enough, this topic inspired me to get into warhammer 40k. I watched a bunch of videos and joined their official discord and studied up a bunch of lore during the last 3 days, ended up just now buying rogue trader and the season pass cause that shit is hype actually.

Thank you dragon age, you passed the baton in your own special way I guess. All hail the emperor!

Haven't played it myself, but from what I know Rogue Trader is absolutely the game to play if you want to get more into the lore.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I will say though, I did really love Origins back then, and it wasn't even a Crpg for me cause I played it on ps3 which lacked the isometric view. It felt like FFXII to me due to the programmable behaviors and autoattack. But I just loved the setting and choices and all the cool characters. I must have replayed it the most out of every game besides legend of dragoon.

I played the crap out of Origins too. Even then, I could absolutely point out problems with it, but it was the best entry in the genre for at least a few years and I do think in retrospect it was ahead of its time in terms of mechanics and encounter design. At a time when a lot of RPGs were trying to be single player World of Warcraft, Origins did succeed in capturing some of the feel of old infinity engine games where combat could be decisive and unfair (but in ways that the player could learn to exploit). I think one reason why the subsequent DA games weren't as engaging is because they kind of took a step back towards MMO combat.

Basically, if a wizard is casting fireball, it should feel someone just pulled out a magic bazooka in the middle of a sword-fight. Origins captured that feeling, DA2 and Inquisition less so.

The first such game I played in recent times that reinvigorated my interest was Divinity OS 2.

I still need to finish that one, but yeah.. it's very good.

Which makes sense would be great cause the same dev would go on to make BG3. But yeah after that one I was hooked. And honestly I may like the main plot in Pathwalker WotR more than BG3 because of all the supernatural beings you can end up becoming. My golden dragon playthrough was so damn satisfying.

What I really enjoy about the mythic paths is how tonally different they are.

I've seen people complain that you get "punished" for taking the lich path, for example, and I feel like the developers have spent more time thinking about what a lich is than those people have. Like, a lich is the rotted husk of a person who chose to sacrifice literally everything in pursuit of power and immortality. There should be something tragic about that.

Funnily enough, this topic inspired me to get into warhammer 40k. I watched a bunch of videos and joined their official discord and studied up a bunch of lore during the last 3 days, ended up just now buying rogue trader and the season pass cause that shit is hype actually.

My big problem with 40k is that it tends to focus excessively on the most boring parts of its own setting.

There used to be a game called Inquisitor. It was the most batshit game Games Workshop ever produced and can be seen as a bit of a prototype for the pen and paper RPGs, but it made me realize that 40k kind of slaps once you focus on characters who aren't battlefield-ready human lawnmowers.

My favourite character I made in Inquisitor was an Ordo Malleus daemonhunter who wasn't a psyker and used a stub gun (a weapon that doesn't even appear in 40k and is the underpowered shit weapon you give to expendable meat shields in necromunda). He was basically just an average dude unless he was fighting a daemon. His main strength was that he knew a lot of prayers, blessed his own ammunition and was covered in protective wards. In all our games he never once fought a daemon, but it didn't matter. I loved that character because his limitations gave him an identity, as opposed to 40k itself where everyone is cool and superhuman (and thus noone is).

This is also why I find the concept of rogue trader interesting and I'll probably check it out at some point.

 

[Dreiko]

I played the crap out of Origins too. Even then, I could absolutely point out problems with it, but it was the best entry in the genre for at least a few years and I do think in retrospect it was ahead of its time in terms of mechanics and encounter design. At a time when a lot of RPGs were trying to be single player World of Warcraft, Origins did succeed in capturing some of the feel of old infinity engine games where combat could be decisive and unfair (but in ways that the player could learn to exploit). I think one reason why the subsequent DA games weren't as engaging is because they kind of took a step back towards MMO combat.

Basically, if a wizard is casting fireball, it should feel someone just pulled out a magic bazooka in the middle of a sword-fight. Origins captured that feeling, DA2 and Inquisition less so.

Origins mages were op but in a fun way. The combo spells were insane, and you could do certain combos with bloodmage and ranger where you'd use the health of the ranger's pet and kill it casting magic and not worry about it cause they could summon another one, it just had so many ways to play even with the rather narrow amount of classes it offered.

What I really enjoy about the mythic paths is how tonally different they are.

I've seen people complain that you get "punished" for taking the lich path, for example, and I feel like the developers have spent more time thinking about what a lich is than those people have. Like, a lich is the rotted husk of a person who chose to sacrifice literally everything in pursuit of power and immortality. There should be something tragic about that.

I was on the chaotic good Azata path up until I managed to unlock golden dragon one (you can only get that one as the top tier ascension and have to give up one of the good paths and switch do it), and man, it felt like a legit sacrifice for the greater good. Yeah you're near invincible cause you're literally a dragon now, but your pet dragon which had gotten huge enough to ride into battle turns small again cause she was only big thanks to your powers and leaves you (I had spent like 200 hours with her at that point), and your floating island is no longer floating and all the hippie armies you amassed up to that point are kinda sad. But it's the right thing to do so you do it to save everyone.

Gold Dragon was like neutral good, where things like forgiveness and redemption are highlighted. My chaotic good path was fun but it wouldn't save the bad guys too. Though it was really fun to trigger a slave revolt in hell and kill the entire marketplace. But hey, they stole mah dragon and tried to pawn her off. Gloves were off at that point.


Apparently, if you go to the super evil Swarm path from the one I was at, you turn the dragon into some sort of skin-corpse that is being animated by all the insects that are crawling inside of it. So yeah, tonal differences, they're definitely there lol.

My big problem with 40k is that it tends to focus excessively on the most boring parts of its own setting.

There used to be a game called Inquisitor. It was the most batshit game Games Workshop ever produced and can be seen as a bit of a prototype for the pen and paper RPGs, but it made me realize that 40k kind of slaps once you focus on characters who aren't battlefield-ready human lawnmowers.

My favourite character I made in Inquisitor was an Ordo Malleus daemonhunter who wasn't a psyker and used a stub gun (a weapon that doesn't even appear in 40k and is the underpowered shit weapon you give to expendable meat shields in necromunda). He was basically just an average dude unless he was fighting a daemon. His main strength was that he knew a lot of prayers, blessed his own ammunition and was covered in protective wards. In all our games he never once fought a daemon, but it didn't matter. I loved that character because his limitations gave him an identity, as opposed to 40k itself where everyone is cool and superhuman (and thus noone is).

This is also why I find the concept of rogue trader interesting and I'll probably check it out at some point.

I'm a total noob but so far I went for an intelligent sniper with a backstory as a crime lord that hails from a forge world, true to their pathfinder games I took like 2 hours making my character cause there's so much to read if you wanna make an intelligent choice. I tend to like mellee classes in these kinds of things but I feel as a captain of a rogue trader ship I need to be more versatile so I went with a high intelligence and logic scores. I figure I can be like the criminal mastermind cause the way I understand it Rogue Traders are basically space pirates licensed by the government to do piracy, so you need to have some moxie. Oh and my ship I named the Harlock, for obvious reasons XD.


But yeah so far I'm definitely not battlefield ready, I barely was able to beat some random rabble causing a mutiny with my peashooter. It will be a long time until I'm into ass kicking gear.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Origins mages were op but in a fun way. The combo spells were insane, and you could do certain combos with bloodmage and ranger where you'd use the health of the ranger's pet and kill it casting magic and not worry about it cause they could summon another one, it just had so many ways to play even with the rather narrow amount of classes it offered.

Yeah, I think that kind of nails what was interesting about it. It had a kind of emergent gameplay that most RPGs at the time didn't really manage, so it was fun to find all the weird broken combos the developers probably didn't intend. Another obvious one was that you were supposed to get penalties for using a lot of buffs, but some people found out those penalties didn't apply to blood magic. Then there were the funny traps which noone ever used but it still just felt nice that they were there.

It feels kind of weird to be excited about that now that we stuff like BG3 which is basically a full on isometric immersive sim, but at the time it was pretty cool.

When I played the original Baldurs Gate as a kid, there's a scene where Drizzt shows up for a cameo. But he has really, really good weapons so I remember coming up with all these weird strategies to kill him and take his stuff. You clearly weren't "supposed" to do that, but I always appreciate when a game gives you opportunities to try and outsmart the developers.

Yeah you're near invincible cause you're literally a dragon now, but your pet dragon which had gotten huge enough to ride into battle turns small again cause she was only big thanks to your powers and leaves you (I had spent like 200 hours with her at that point), and your floating island is no longer floating and all the hippie armies you amassed up to that point are kinda sad.

I'm doing an Azata run at the moment (halfling fighter/duelist, which is honestly kind of hilarious - almost everything needs a natural 20 to hit). I love that dragon. Also, the path itself is a really good example. You've got this harsh world where horrible things keep happening and suddenly all this whimsical stuff starts showing up like it's suddenly a pixar movie about the power of friendship. It really gives the feeling that Elysium is leaking into the material world and changing the rules.

The most "holy shit" one I've encountered so far though is Aeon. There's a bunch of moments where you walk into situations and go "actually, that never happened." It's definitely the most high concept.

I figure I can be like the criminal mastermind cause the way I understand it Rogue Traders are basically space pirates licensed by the government to do piracy, so you need to have some moxie.

Basically, yeah.

Honestly, focusing on Rogue Traders is one of the best choices I can think of for a 40k RPG (the other one being the Inquisition). Both are groups which have basically no oversight. The whole point of rogue traders is that they can basically go wherever and do whatever they want. They supply things that noone in the Imperium is supposed to want, so everyone just looks the other way.

The Inquisition is kind of genius though. Whenever they show up in media that's not about them they're always presented as the super serious fun police who blow up planets for wrongthink, but as soon as they are the focus you realize they're a bunch of mad people exceptional individuals who are given limitless power and told to go off and come up with "good ideas" (tm) to fix the fucked up situation humanity is in. It's a very British approach, which is appropriate because Inquisitors spend a lot of time stabbing each other to death over minor disagreements.

See, I keep trying to convince myself that I don't like 40k, but to be honest I just hate the "for the emprah", "spess mehrines" stuff that everyone makes memes about. All the weird behind the scenes stuff is way more fun.