Multiplat Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[DougieJones]

The quality of games in this series can best be explained by the Enron ride...

 

[WhiteMousse]

I wouldn't leap to be too bearish on this. The real tell is in retention and in-game spending, which I think will take a hit, based on my own exposure to the game, because I was oblivious to all the woke stuff until after it launched, and I do believe it hurts games. Still, even the reviewers who hesitate to praise its story do praise its mechanics, and that is usually what keeps players engaged, and retention healthy. As far as EA breaking it's all-time record on Steam, that barely means anything, because they didn't even start launching their games on Steam until June 2020. Here they all are:

• EA Sports College Football 25
• Dead Space
• EA Sports FC 24
• Madden NFL 24
• NHL 24
• EA Sports PGA Tour
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Super Mega Baseball 4
• The Sims 4: For Rent
• EA Sports UFC 5
• GRID Legends
• Need for Speed Unbound
• Battlefield 2042
• Mass Effect Legendary Edition
• Project CARS GO
• Bejeweled Champions
• Dirt 5
• Command & Conquer Remastered Collection
• Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

So basically it outshined Jedi Survivor and Battlefield 2042. Nothing else there where you'd expect a major splash. Star Wars Survivor had a slightly lower concurrent player peak at launch, but it was one of two games that drove EA's revenues in late 2023. Those revenues reached all-time highs, but profit was barely in the green for the year because costs were so high. It had a $200 million development budget which is lower than believed for Dragon Age. Also, Dragon Age has perhaps a stronger franchise base on PC, respectively (the first game hit #1 on Steam's sales chart).

One thing is clear. EA is in the red in 2024 so far. If this doesn't turn that around...I suspect EA will tamp down on the political coloring. This could explain the machine being in overdrive attempting to manufacture a success, here.

Non-Buynary

 

[mb23100]

Gender crap aside, this game just looks bad to me. It looks like a Pixar movie and the voice acting seems flat with boring writing. Having never played a Dragonage game before maybe i'll play one of those before considering.

 

[Cole train]

Gender crap aside, this game just looks bad to me. It looks like a Pixar movie and the voice acting seems flat with boring writing. Having never played a Dragonage game before maybe i'll play one of those before considering.

Play origins even if graphics are rough nowadays

Inquisition is alright as well

 

[GearSolidMetal]

 

[GtehMVP]

Is it really a solid launch for an iconic IP with near 10 years of dev time and hundreds of millions $$ in costs... It's the Sat night after launch, with no DLC planned. 84k is prob the best it's going to get. This has no DRM, no origin requirement, and regardless of how reviewers felt about the game, I've only seen certain Steam reviews complaining about any performance issues.



Compared to other high profile games, that all time peak is pretty weak. I can't imagine EA suits are happy it internally atm, unless it has good legs.

 

[Ruprecht]

Gender crap aside, this game just looks bad to me. It looks like a Pixar movie and the voice acting seems flat with boring writing. Having never played a Dragonage game before maybe i'll play one of those before considering.

A narrative driven, fantasy action-rpg was never going to be targeting me as it's audience, but I was interested in whether Mass Effect had any chance of a decent revival.
Doesn't look like it. The dialogue I've seen is like some sort of Disney+, coming of age, "Young Adult" fiction. I had to skip through the review out of second hand embarrassment for both the voice actors and the writers.
Hard to tell what the gameplay feels like, although the "puzzles" appear to be reminiscent of coloured keys and "rotate the statues" from '90s gaming.
Doesn't look like they've pulled off meaningful dialogue options either, and their "solution" to bad facial animations seems to be simply not having any.
Art direction looked more Disney Princess than Pixar to me, reminded me of The Black Cauldron animated movie.

 

[mb23100]

A narrative driven, fantasy action-rpg was never going to be targeting me as it's audience, but I was interested in whether Mass Effect had any chance of a decent revival.
Doesn't look like it. The dialogue I've seen is like some sort of Disney+, coming of age, "Young Adult" fiction. I had to skip through the review out of second hand embarrassment for both the voice actors and the writers.
Hard to tell what the gameplay feels like, although the "puzzles" appear to be reminiscent of coloured keys and "rotate the statues" from '90s gaming.
Doesn't look like they've pulled off meaningful dialogue options either, and their "solution" to bad facial animations seems to be simply not having any.
Art direction looked more Disney Princess than Pixar to me, reminded me of The Black Cauldron animated movie.

Never heard of this channel but this popped up on my feed today and i listened to some of it on my way to work. It is pretty funny listening to it get destroyed from a writers perspective.



TLDW: It's awful

 

[Ruprecht]

Never heard of this channel but this popped up on my feed today and i listened to some of it on my way to work. It is pretty funny listening to it get destroyed from a writers perspective.



TLDW: It's awful

He's an Aussie, he's taking the piss.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Doesn't look like they've pulled off meaningful dialogue options either,

From what I've heard, there are no 'rude' or 'evil' dialogue options in the whole game. As best you'll have a few 'snarky' replies to a few companions.

A real role-playing experience.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

He's an Aussie, he's taking the piss.

I don't speak Aussie.

Does that mean 'exaggerating?'

 

[mb23100]

He's an Aussie, he's taking the piss.

I know. He's still a writer though.

 

[Ruprecht]

I don't speak Aussie.

Does that mean 'exaggerating?'

Dead pan mockery.

Edit: Didn't realise it wasn't showing in my sig anymore: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PissTake

 

[Ruprecht]

I know. He's still a writer though.

Solo dev isn't he? That's why he can wear all the hats and it's technically true.

 

[mb23100]

Solo dev isn't he? That's why he can wear all the hats and it's technically true.

Not sure. He reads from his upcoming novel in the video though.

 

[Ruprecht]

Not sure. He reads from his upcoming novel in the video though.

Looks like he's got one already.
I thought he just did retro games.

 

[blaseblase]

Next up on well duh gaming news: a long time progressive game developer continues to be progressive. The same people who put a butch lesbian and a flamboyant gay dude as companions into their last entry into the series now have included trans people. Culture warriors are as outraged as they were last time.

 

[Contempt]

Dead pan mockery.

Edit: Didn't realise it wasn't showing in my sig anymore: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PissTake

They sound like a bunch of cunts to me...

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Dead pan mockery.

Edit: Didn't realise it wasn't showing in my sig anymore: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PissTake

That's a LONG video to do dead pan mockery.
I watched about a third of it, could watch more later, and he didn't say anything wrong. He was disgusted by the level of quality within a Triple-A fantasy narrative.

I have a background in writing, which includes 255K words of an outline, notes, and character analysis & arcs for a fantasy trilogy best described between a cross between The Witcher (Books & Games), Game of Thrones, and Mortal Kombat.

I can tell you that dialogue is the trickiest aspect of writing, especially in a narrative with over a dozen characters which one of them requires a specific way of speaking unlike the others.

And from the cutscenes I've seen of Veilguard, modern social politics aside, all of the writing is millenial live-action-roleplaying. That's just a small tier over fanfiction-quality dialogue.

Its that horrible.

 

[Ruprecht]

That's a LONG video to do dead pan mockery.
I watched about a third of it, could watch more later, and he didn't say anything wrong. He was disgusted by the level of quality within a Triple-A fantasy narrative.

I have a background in writing, which includes 255K words of an outline, notes, and character analysis & arcs for a fantasy trilogy best described between a cross between The Witcher (Books & Games), Game of Thrones, and Mortal Kombat.

I can tell you that dialogue is the trickiest aspect of writing, especially in a narrative with over a dozen characters which one of them requires a specific way of speaking unlike the others.

And from the cutscenes I've seen of Veilguard, modern social politics aside, all of the writing is millenial live-action-roleplaying. That's just a small tier over fanfiction-quality dialogue.

Its that horrible.

He's not lying, but he is taking the piss. Everything from the costume, the "grab a seat" to the, "this is purely educational, nothing negative to say about dragonage" followed immediately by, "I want to apologise to my regular viewers, as I know you prefer it when I make videos about games that are actually good and interesting, or at least have some redeeming qualities, rather than Dragon Age Veilguard".
Then on with, "We need to analyse why the writing has reached such an unanticipated level of catastrophic failure", and then basically going on to say that the writers have no skills what so ever and blames a complete lack of experience with actual human interaction and the belief that twitter interactions are equivalent to real human dialogue ("we can learn from this, so the next generation of writers aren't emotionally and developmentally stunted").
Taking the piss (including with his dialogue edits), but his criticism of why it's so awful, and basic techniques that could have made it better, are still on point.