Multiplat Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[Hog-train]

I missed the part where the game is "filled" with modern politics and unrecognizable. But hey, I only have played it a fair bit, I must be wrong.

So far there was Solas, Varric, at least one dragon, dark spawn, venatori, people complaining about shit happening to the sky, deep stalkers, nugs, morrigan, Harding... Most of the dialogue has been about who to kill and why, what this faction needs.

Any of this sound like a Dragon Age game?

Well I don't play it so that's fair.

But I counted several scenes where they injected this cringey dialogue - nonbinary mother confrontation scene, doing pushups for misgendering, character choice with male character where they realize they're trans, etc. It's definitely there.

It's just quite frankly laughably stupid. But hey I'm not a consumer of the game so whatevs for me.

 

[Fury]

Well I don't play it so that's fair.

But I counted several scenes where they injected this cringey dialogue - nonbinary mother confrontation scene, doing pushups for misgendering, character choice with male character where they realize they're trans, etc. It's definitely there.

It's just quite frankly laughably stupid. But hey I'm not a consumer of the game so whatevs for me.

I have hit some bad writing, almost every game has this, but so far none of the identity stuff.

I do a lot of exploring though and maybe I'm not far enough in the story.

 

[Blayt7hh]

LMAO WTF I can't believe this is real. I don't play the game, but why TF does a character just all of a sudden have a temper tantrum and say "I'm nonbinary" in a medieval fantasy RPG?

This is some obvious self insert trauma dumping by some dipshit trans storywriter. The writing is juvenile and cringe as fuck.

It annoys me that all the response options are either consoling her or getting mad at the mom. You don’t have any “mean” or “bad guy” options to the dialogue. That’s very out of character for these games. But yeah that is just all around hacking writing

 

[Hog-train]

It annoys me that all the response options are either consoling her or getting mad at the mom. You don’t have any “mean” or “bad guy” options to the dialogue. That’s very out of character for these games. But yeah that is just all around hacking writing

Dialogue options

A. You're stunning and brave.
B. Your mom's a TERF.
C. Your mom's a TERF whore.
D. Let's get a septum piercing.

 

[GtehMVP]

It annoys me that all the response options are either consoling her or getting mad at the mom. You don’t have any “mean” or “bad guy” options to the dialogue. That’s very out of character for these games. But yeah that is just all around hacking writing

Yeah, everything I've seen from this game makes it look like you can't be a prick.

I miss OG Bioware


I like how she learns from this. Like many, I got KO'd in ME3 lol

 

[Zazen]

Jesus this thread has become unhinged. I thought there was a culture war thread for this stuff lol. There's 16 pages and one guy is talking about actually playing the game haha

 

[Fury]

Jesus this thread has become unhinged. I thought there was a culture war thread for this stuff lol. There's 16 pages and one guy is talking about actually playing the game haha

And the game still hasn't touched my dick or tried to make me gay.

False advertising in this thread

 

[Ruprecht]

Jesus this thread has become unhinged. I thought there was a culture war thread for this stuff lol. There's 16 pages and one guy is talking about actually playing the game haha

You've been here this long and you're still using 20 posts per page?
You do have to go well out of your way to find apolitical reviews for this game, although increasingly it seems hard to find any English gaming content which isn't tied to the US culture war in some way.
VR is a lot less burdened with it than flatscreen gaming though.

 

[The Clark]

You've been here this long and you're still using 20 posts per page?

How do you change it? I couldn't find the option after they updated the forum last time.
Edit: Found it in two seconds, and now I feel dumb.

 

[Ruprecht]

How do you change it? I couldn't find the option after they updated the forum last time.
Edit: Found it in two seconds, and now I feel dumb.

Click on your name in the top right and then preferences.

You've got the options for:

The number of threads showing in page
Posts per page
Conversations per page
Conversation messages per page

Max is 50.

 

[Madmick]

So I think the game will probably break even for EA since the playerbase has been at least decent, and can claim to be EA's best launch on Steam in the past four years, the most transparent platform with player numbers, as EA began launching games on Steam in mid-2020. Perhaps they might lose money if the playerbase is stronger on PC relative to console versus Jedi Survivor, and it truly cost an additional $50m, since it is steadily outpacing Survivor's playerbase by ~20%-25%.

https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=1774580,1845910&release

The reviews seem to tell a different story if you scrutinize them. I noticed some on here highlighted the minor controversy about how some reviewers weren't afforded copies of the game prior to release, and many speculated this was because EA calculated based on these critics' known history they might be more critical of the game, or perhaps they simply don't enjoy the *cough* cordial corporate relationship with EA that so many top reviewers enjoy. So I broke down the difference in the scores between reviews that rolled in AFTER the public release date versus those published BEFORE on OpenCritic.

Open Critic Scores
PUBLISHED BEFORE RELEASE DATE --> 53 reviews = 83.0 avg
PUBLISHED AFTER RELEASE DATE ---> 36 reviews = 72.1 avg

Obviously there is a massive difference. Gaping. You might not think 10.9 points makes that big a difference, but it does once you consider the landscape of score averages as judged on a curve. A score of 83 would rank the game in the 91st percentile of games on their website (the same as Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty from 2024). Conversely, Throne and Liberty is a game released in 2024 with a critic score of 72. It ranks in the 48% percentile of games on their website. Comparatively, this would be like the difference between a 185 bench press versus a 275 pound bench press among high school male athletes.

Make of that what you will.

 

[Bob Gray]

Tbf, it is a FANTASY game, so living out your fantasy in your head on the screen makes sense. If it was a game trying to be historically accurate to a large extent, ala Chivalry or Kingdom Come, then I could see it being more of an extraordinarily dumb move. A game with dragons and spirits and such? Meh.

Theres limits to this, though. Even if the elements were fantastical, like say a new DA game and everybody just has wings and can fly for no reason, people would be like "wtf?", even though you could just as easily say "Its fantasy".

But this isn't just a fantasy element, this is an obvious shoe-horning of a contemporary, contentious, political talking point. Part of what makes fantasy enjoyable to people is how it transcends the contemporary setting and creates something, well, fantastical. Trying to ground it into political talking points breaks the immersion for many. I'd say the same thing if a character started ranting about "My right to bear swords", or "Our wealthy blacksmith corporation is paying too much in taxes to our king". I'd just be like "wtf?".

This is obvious pandering. There's no two ways about it. This isn't meant to enhance the fantasy of the world or to create a new layer of lore to what already exists. It's simply there to make a political point, and thats just clumsy and adds nothing for most players.

Just imagine for one second if there was a side quest about "Making our Kingdom great again" and King Trumple wanted to secure the borders of the city to prevent invaders. A great deal of the people that would defend the decision for this current heavy-handed, awkward political posturing would suddenly be absolutely "traumatized" from playing the game.

 

[Fury]

So I think the game will probably break even for EA since the playerbase has been at least decent, and can claim to be EA's best launch on Steam in the past four years, the most transparent platform with player numbers, as EA began launching games on Steam in mid-2020. Perhaps they might lose money if the playerbase is stronger on PC relative to console versus Jedi Survivor, and it truly cost an additional $50m, since it is steadily outpacing Survivor's playerbase by ~20%-25%.

https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=1774580,1845910&release

The reviews seem to tell a different story if you scrutinize them. I noticed some on here highlighted the minor controversy about how some reviewers weren't afforded copies of the game prior to release, and many speculated this was because EA calculated based on these critic's known history they might be more critical of the game, or perhaps they simply don't enjoy the *cough* cordial corporate relationship with EA that so many top reviewers enjoy. So I broke down the difference in the scores between reviews that rolled in AFTER the public release date versus those published BEFORE on OpenCritic.

Open Critic Scores
PUBLISHED BEFORE RELEASE DATE --> 53 reviews = 83.0 avg
PUBLISHED AFTER RELEASE DATE ---> 36 reviews = 72.1 avg

Obviously there is a massive difference. Gaping. You might not think 10.9 points makes that big a difference, but it does once you consider the landscape of score averages as judged on a curve. A score of 83 would rank the game in the 91st percentile of games on their website (the same as Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty from 2024). Conversely, Throne and Liberty is a game released in 2024 with a critic score of 72. It ranks in the 48% percentile of games on their website. Comparatively, this would be like the difference between a 185 bench press versus a 275 pound bench press among high school male athletes.

Make of that what you will.

I'd give it a 75 -80 if I was reviewing. The dialogue is hit or miss. A lot of the side conversations and team speak are fine but the main missions appear to be written by committee.

Probably a better pick up on a steam sale. It's also a good steam sale game because there's no dlc.

 

[Fury]

Theres limits to this, though. Even if the elements were fantastical, like say a new DA game and everybody just has wings and can fly for no reason, people would be like "wtf?", even though you could just as easily say "Its fantasy".

But this isn't just a fantasy element, this is an obvious shoe-horning of a contemporary, contentious, political talking point. Part of what makes fantasy enjoyable to people is how it transcends the contemporary setting and creates something, well, fantastical. Trying to ground it into political talking points breaks the immersion for many. I'd say the same thing if a character started ranting about "My right to bear swords", or "Our wealthy blacksmith corporation is paying too much in taxes to our king". I'd just be like "wtf?".

This is obvious pandering. There's no two ways about it. This isn't meant to enhance the fantasy of the world or to create a new layer of lore to what already exists. It's simply there to make a political point, and thats just clumsy and adds nothing for most players.

Just imagine for one second if there was a side quest about "Making our Kingdom great again" and King Trumple wanted to secure the borders of the city to prevent invaders. A great deal of the people that would defend the decision for this current heavy-handed, awkward political posturing would suddenly be absolutely "traumatized" from playing the game.

There's also players who don't care about the few minutes of political points and wouldn't if they were conservative points.

If either was a large part of the whole game, I would care. But I also don't watch streamers and get worked up....

Liberals get traumatized and conservatives say you're ruining families, the children and forcing them to whatever.

People from all sides whine, just not all people from all sides.

 

[WhiteMousse]

Dialogue options

A. You're stunning and brave.
B. Your mom's a TERF.
C. Your mom's a TERF whore.
D. Let's get a septum piercing.

What's a terf

 

[WhiteMousse]

There's also players who don't care about the few minutes of political points and wouldn't if they were conservative points.

If either was a large part of the whole game, I would care. But I also don't watch streamers and get worked up....

Liberals get traumatized and conservatives say you're ruining families, the children and forcing them to whatever.

People from all sides whine, just not all people from all sides.

The only reason that stuff bothers me is because it's wasted capital that could be going into making the game good. I've watched some gameplay and sadly it's not for me, at least not right now. But if this is your thing, that's awesome. It seems like it's getting the money back that it spent so it has to be stated that a good number of people enjoy it.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

What's a terf

Trans
Exclusionary
Radical
Feminist

Its a slur for feminists who want to protect women from men posing as women.

 

[Fury]

The only reason that stuff bothers me is because it's wasted capital that could be going into making the game good. I've watched some gameplay and sadly it's not for me, at least not right now. But if this is your thing, that's awesome. It seems like it's getting the money back that it spent so it has to be stated that a good number of people enjoy it.

I don't know if it's my thing but I'm enjoying playing it. Combat is good and some of the areas are really well done.

I don't have any feelings one way or another on the diversity stuff but I also haven't run into enough where I would notice if other people weren't talking about it.

 

[Fury]

Trans
Exclusionary
Radical
Feminist

Its a slur for feminists who want to protect women from men posing as women.

I forgot that acronym existed. I guess since whenever people complained about the Harry Potter game.

 

[Zazen]

You guys don't play JRPGs I take it? Bad writing and beating you over the head with its themes are common in that genre. It's pretty much a meme at this point that every JRPG is about the power of friendship and they're in no way subtle about it. Feels like this game is getting singled out when so many in the industry do this. What are you guys playing exactly that has such amazing writing? I think my biggest issue is the game goes for Marvel type humor which got old really fast after a couple of those movies.