#god. da2 would be such a fucking good game if it was good :(
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excited to start da2 for anders :) remembering the timeline inconsistencies :(
#god. da2 would be such a fucking good game if it was good :(#THE WAY HE MUSTVE LEFT **THE DAY** OF THE JUSTICE MERGER#in order to get to kirkwall like. 2 weeks after amaranthine#THATS THE ONLY WAY IT MAKES SENSE. FFS.#oc: elspeth#tay plays dao#altho in saying that i am obsessed with a very tense/suspicious goodbye#immediatly after the merger (which i hc happens like. in the deep roads after the final battle or whatever lmao)#wherein elles immediately notices smth is up#and its not like the wynne situation. like she has a Bad feeling abt this and like she's lost both anders AND justice as she knew them#and yet more guilt for letting it happen <3#and then she catches anders sneaking away and shes like im not going to stop u but if u leave then the wardens wont be cant help you#i wont be able to help you anymore :/#anyway she puts out feelers anyway bc she cares about him and she doesnt want him to get himself hurt but#yeah. i dont think she'd be happy about any of it :(
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If you could undo any of the retcons in DA, what would you choose and why?
the inquisition.
i mean, this is a short answer, but as time goes by, i understand that this is an honest one. this is a tangent, but i guess dai is just an example of electronic arts' production hell if bioware planned the second game only as a bridge for the inquisition's main conflict, and then we get this regarding the mage uprising. like, it's reasonable to assume that since da2 was supposed to be a preamble, the dai's initial main focus was the mage rebellion? and then it's just one main quest in the beginning of the game, and that's it.
but this is not about retcons, it's just me being annoyed. it's just the dai is the most fruitful regarding the topic.
hawke suddenly hating on blood magic. they tried so hard to push it with leandra's death, and then just decided to take the matter in their own hands, ig.
whatever the fuck hawke and varric say about anders. this is not their point of view, at least not in every case, in da2??
whatever the fuck they did to dalish.
like, vallaslin? i guess it's cool if you get inspired by real-world peoples, and then decide to make vallaslin slave marks.
or make their gods powerful slavers Just Like The Nations that inflicted the genocide on them. nothing about andrastianism, tho.
dalish actually kick out the mages is the obvious one.
the point of view on the red crossing. same reason. i count it as a retcon because of the implications that elves actually did that (i.e. the exalted march) to themselves.
also iirc they changed relationships between dalish and city elves/ made it worse to shit on elves again. stop that wtf!! they won't, ofc.
i dunno if it's a retcon or just conscious disinformation, but the presentation of celene and briala in-game. no spoilers, but did they suddenly decide that celene actually didn't do anything she did in the masked empire?
whitewashing of alistair, fiona and briala. they don't look like that, you fuckers???
make these cullen endgame sliders canon again and work from here, cowards. i actually got them in my playthrough even tho they deleted them, afaik. (the ones where he snaps and kills three mages.)
actually, the whole cullen arc. i won't say anything new here, his story was supposed to end in dao, da2 at most.
and i think there are other sliders from dao they retconned and put aside, like with the circle that mages built near orzammar? do it, cowards! it would make such a good plot point in a normal version of dai where your focus is the mage rebellion.
the ending of dragon age absolution. i'm sorry, did anyone find it satisfying? did anyone go, like, hell yeah finally? or i knew that!
the wardens. of course they're suddenly all that stupid to fall for cory's lap dog's lies and shenanigans!
i dunno if the last one counts as a retcon, but it surely falls into the same line of crimes against the previous lore. suddenly bioware felt an urge to shit on every group da:o players held dear. because grey morality. but, you know, even without "i like diversity and opportunity to be a dick, i don't appreciate when the game tries to push an agenda in defense of the oppressors and you can't fucking escape it", sooner or later one should understand that trying to mix grey with every colour in the picture will lead only to it looking dirty and messy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
thank you for your question! :)
#dragon age inquisition#dragon age#bioware critical#cullen critical#i guess#just should label it#ask
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rank the dragon age companions by how likely they are to fuck a transformer and which one. you pick the game.
oh my god. this is so powerful.
you KNOW I have to go with DA2. Starting from least likely to most:
#9 Sebastian: His body is for the Maker only 🙏
#8 Carver: He won't let himself be open-minded enough, for one thing. And I don't think he'd get off on multi-million year old war criminals. I don't think he would fuck Armada Starscream, but I think he should fuck Armada Starscream so they can work out their inferiority complexes together.
#7 Fenris: He's so bitter and intolerant I can't imagine him getting this close to a robot but given the opportunity... IDW Drift.
#6 Aveline: I mean, I feel like she'd shoot the idea down initially, but if she were properly wooed, she could definitely get down with a good robot fuck. She likes 'em boring and honorable. Definitely IDW Ultra Magnus.
#5 Bethany: She's tenderhearted and open-minded. She would definitely fuck a Cybertronian if they showed her some kindness and understanding in turn. Also, mages aren't shy about xeno in my humble opinion. TFP Arcee. -nods sagely-
#4 Varric: He's down. It would make a good story. Like how can he even top a story like this. TFP Predaking for pure virtue of the fact that he's both a robot and a dragon and that makes the story even better.
#3 Anders: He's a tortured soul but he's got his kinks so I'm gonna say TFP Soundwave.
#2 Isabela: Naturally. Why wouldn't you fuck a Cybertronian if you were given the chance? Like, just to say you did? Right? Someone high profile, too. But still sweet. She would be the one to land IDW Optimus Prime.
#1 Merrill: This freak would fuck Unicron himself.
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Thess vs Pronouns
Leaving off from the liveblogging for a minute ... let's talk ... gods, I don't even want to call them 'gamers'. I guess Gamers (TM) does well enough. Or TEH GAMERS, I dunno. Something suitably sarcastic about those who make gaming and toxic masculinity their entire personality.
So Baldur's Gate 3 comes out of early access and onto general release and TEH GAMERS start freaking out about the character creation menu. Why? Because pronouns - and how you can choose the genitalia of your character separate from said pronouns and overall gender presentation. Most of them are tearing their hair out about party members flirting with your character whatever gender you're playing and "feeling like they're forced to sex up men" and not understanding how just plain optional all that shit is. But there's still a certain air of, "Hey, at least we've got Starfield coming! Starfield won't go woke on us! Todd gets us! It'll be okay!"
And then Starfield also lets you choose your pronouns separate from gender presentation. And the freak-out redoubles. They bitch moan whine about how "Bethesda's gone WOOOOOOOKE!" and how it's disgusting and why would they do that and blah.
I'm just trying to figure out why the option offends and scares them so much.
Like ... you don't want your character to bone a guy? Just ... have your character say they're not interested. It's fine. Never comes up again.
As to the pronouns ... well, I mean ... just ... match pronouns to gender presentation, and then never think about it again, maybe? If you're getting wildly, hair-tearingly offended by the character creation screen, over one little option that need never be considered again...
I mean, it's ludicrous, honestly, the mental gymnastics they do. Like, someone said, "Well, they need to know the pronouns. What are NPCs going to call you?" and the response was, "...Our name?" Now, I don't know if Starfield sticks you with a generic character name. But in games where they don't stick you with a character name, say like Baldur's Gate 3 ... how the fuck much coding and voice acting would it take to include every single name that has ever been, especially those that people just made up because that collection of syllables sounds good, and implement it in dialogue? And even then, we don't use people's names at all times when we're talking about them. Like, Hawke is Hawke. So when NPCs and companions refer to Hawke, that's the name they use. But there's a reason that DA2 never refers to Hawke by their first name, despite being able to choose it at character creation - not even their family! You get "Brother" or "Sister", Gamlen sticks with, "That troublemaker of yours", and Leandra sticks with pet names. Either way, whether your character has a standardised name or not (like "Hawke" or "Shepard", or a title like "Warden", "Inquisitor", or "Pathfinder"), eventually you're going to get to a point where NPCs need to use a pronoun because no one uses someone's name repeatedly in conversation when a pronoun exists. And TEH GAMERS would just freak out if people used "they/them" for their precious character. Because "MORE WOKENESS", when that's literally all we have to refer to someone whose gender is unknown or uncertain.
Plus it's the hypocrisy that gets to me. For decades I've been hearing these people be all snotty about those of us who are tired of playing YAGWD in every single damn game, and long for character creation screens. They're all, "Well, playing it is optional" and "ARTISTIC VISION" and all of that.
Well, TEH GAMERS? Playing these games is optional for you too. If having more options in character creation than you are personally unwilling to use upsets you so fucking much? Maybe this game isn't for you. I don't pretend that games studios, AAA or not, are actual friends and allies. But they're seeing where the money is and going for our cash instead of yours. They don't need your cash. If you think the gaming industry is dying by becoming more inclusive? Then do what you always tell us to do when we're begging for scraps of representation - either tolerate the way the gaming space is now, or leave it.
You want to play a MANLY MAN? Then go ahead! That option still exists too! But please for the love of fuck shut up about pronouns. EVERYTHING HAS PRONOUNS. Gendered beings have gendered pronouns, so your MANLY MAN has fucking pronouns, okay? Most of us would say your pronouns are "he/him" but I personally think your pronouns are "ass/hole". Now take a breath, put on your big boy undergarments, and either put up with there being options that aren't there for you, or leave. There's the door.
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Also like this is my recurring problem with video games in general, I tend to try the girl options and then settle on a boy option simply bc I like the boys better. I used to be really torn up about it bc I thought I was a bad queer lmao.
Like I romanced Liara in Mass Effect and she just.... Wasn't my type at all, and when they radically changed her personality it made things worse. Meanwhile, Garrus is one of the best romances in gaming and actually makes me feel good as a queer person. So, whoops. (I would have loved romancing Jack but noooooooo. 8C)
Then in Dragon Age, Alistair gave me a rose and I was like "well, fuck, Gaider, that's not fair." and Leliana wouldn't stop talking about her personal relationship with God, so yikes on that!
In DA2 I was gonna romance Isabella but she LEFT THE STORY and I fell off the game whoops. Wish Aveline was an option.
In Inquisition I fully romanced Isabella first time and I think I enjoyed that the most, but it was her or Sera wasn't it? And like jfc I hate Sera. Frankly the most important relationship I have in DAI is with Dorian, the queerplatonic love of my life. THE DREAM was Cassandra obviously but she's STRAIGHT I guess.
But I keep coming to the same problem, which is that I prefer an archetype that is sadly either locked to boys only or is boy. I want the hypercompetent workaholic who will fight at your side and needs to be grounded a bit. I like that shit. But it's usually boys! 8(
If i stuck with Andromeda I would have thrown myself at Vetra. Alas, that game...... Was really fucking bad. 8C
Anyway. Sorry Aigis, but /gestures at Akihiko
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more musings courtesy of this fantastic post; originally was gonna put it on my n/sfw blog but it didn't end up getting deep in that territory after all. that's for another post, it seems.
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honestly, my first time playing da2, i struggled a little with how merrill was written. her romance was the one i was least interested in, because, in some kind of way, it felt like i would be taking advantage. i love this game a lot, but the narrative does infantilize merrill a bit, and even though i dislike that it does that, i did pick up on it and instinctively internalize the idea that she should be something more like a little sister to my hawke rather than a romance option. the writing makes her seem so innocent and naive. there's dialogue about her not understanding what a mugging is, and banter about how varric has to protect her from harm while she's out and about in the city because she's ignorant of the danger. the narrative treats her use of blood magic as mostly foolish, destined to bring her tragedy, like she doesn't understand what she's toying with, and eventually she will be punished for it.
but the thing is, merrill absolutely knows what she's doing. merrill is all about learning and understanding and making things work. you can remark on how dangerous blood magic is, and she's like "yeah i know, but i've got this, its fine" which you can take as naivety / foolishness or even bravado maybe, but i wouldn't say the rest of her characterization supports that. merrill's smart, and she's more correct about the eluvian than marethari is. she literally does know what she's doing. the game spans 6 years for her and she's doing just fine. in my playthrough i dodged the potential slaughter of her clan--thank god because fuck that--but even in the routes where things devolve to violence, i'd personally say the conflict has much more to do with the rest of the clan misunderstanding her and driving her away, turning their backs on her, than her being "naive". merrill doesn't need to be punished, she doesn't need to be taught a lesson, she needs someone to have faith in her.
she's an adult, she's fully aware of what she's doing, she's smart, and powerful, and she deserves better. i'm working through the fact that the writing set me up to view her much more innocent (in a child-like way) than she is, and having a good time thinking about her having very fun, very adult escapades.
all this to say: let merrill fuck.
#jazz plays da2#this is more personal experience w/ the game and random thoughts than meta so not gonna tag it
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god, anders and anybody who’s an apologist for him is an idiot. he should have blown up meredith, not a highly sympathetic civilian who was uninvolved in the conflict. it was a completely vicious act of political terrorism, and the fact he expresses a degree of regret after is totally out of character for someone so ideologically driven that they thought doing such a thing was a good idea in the first place. just very odd writing overall.
elthina sucks, although not in a way that makes blowing her up a rational decision. the whole “oooh, that chantry can’t take sides” is bullshit when the templar are an arm of the chantry (and nominally the circles, too). it’s the definition of chantry business, and letting civil unrest simmer bc you don’t want to be unpopular is shitty leadership.
meredith is obviously an asshole--massacring an uninvolved faction because a third party committed an act of terrorism is moronic also. basically everybody involved in the kirkwall conflict is 1) an asshole, 2) an idiot from a political standpoint (except maybe anders, since he *did* get what he wanted out of it), and 3) also kind of awkwardly written.
this includes hawke! obviously if you’re the champion of kirkwall and the second most powerful person in the city, you don’t let a power vacuum fester for three years. personally, i would send out feelers to the nobility and work on creating a second center of power; i would use my mine money and go in with my buddies on bolstering the strength of the city guard whose captain i am extremely good friends with, and then force the question of either appointing a new viscount (especially with the help of ferelden’s obviously sympathetic king!), or implementing an alternative power structure like the city council that the bureaucracy and the guard can report to.
then even if meredith does try a coup, there’s a leader with some alternate legitimacy in place, and you have the means to resist her by force of arms. yes, the templar are in theory backed up by the chantry as a whole, but the chantry leading coups in independent states is going to make other rulers very squirrely about letting the templar operate in their territory, so i think they will be reluctant to support meredith and her would-be dictatorship. plus, then i could call on the mages for support!
oh and obviously i assassinate sebastian and make friendly overtures with the other cities of the free marches. this is only mostly bc sebastian is annoying and judgemental. but also bc he’s a dogmatism who will literally invade kirkwall in DA:I if he doesn’t like the outcome of DA2. so fuck that guy!
anyway, it’s really frustrating that there’s nobody with political savvy in kirkwall. the city badly needs a vetinari. but you don’t need to be a vetinari to prevent the end of act 3 nonsense, you just need to be mildly competent as a public figure. and i wish the game would let you try!
#dragon age#dragon age 2#if i am supposed to be nobility#let me act like it!#instead of just (or only) faffing about doing murder hobo stuff
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finally sat down to watch da: absolution and i have Some Brief Thoughts and Jokes and absolutely NO political discourse bc fuck that shit i wanna talk about LOVE
the good
tevinter architecture my beloved
A SQUAD doing a HEIST aka my fave and why da2 is forever my fave game
little tidbits and easter eggs to the games for Lore Nerds
and then SOME BIG ASS CALLBACKS to the games
hawke continues to be incapable of killing their villains, next is the arishok or orsino ig ??
THEY GOT THE ELVISH NOSE BRIDGES RIGHT. MY BELOVED BIG NOSES.
terrible french orlesian accents
rezaren, this matt mercer looking mf, was an excellent villain. because like. he’s sympathetic. he has good intentions but he’s HORRIBLE and SELFISH and the story doesn’t shy away from showing him as horrible and manipulative. like yes maybe he doesn’t know better and he does care for miriam and neb in his own twisted way. that doesn’t make it right. doesn’t make it okay. doesn’t make him not a slave owner. and this really comes to a head in the dream sequence where he’s completely incapable of understanding why miriam doesn’t want to return to him, and then completely disrespecting her wishes, her autonomy, when she refuses him. he just cant see her and neb as real people even tho he cares about them in a childish selfish way. road to hell is paved with good intentions etc etc etc. like he’s so fuckin bad but also still sympathetic until maybe 2/3 of the way through the show when he goes full villain.
rezaren, had things played out slightly differently, could have been a dorian. dorian has some GOD AWFUL opinions in da:i and some deeply ingrained privileges and prejudices, esp re: slavery. he learns and grows and becomes better in the inquisition, and possibly leaving tevinter (even under such horrible circumstances) was the thing that saved him from becoming terrible because he didnt know any better. rezaren in many ways is a mirror of that, but slightly worse, slightly to the left, with fewer allies, never having his position of power challenged, etc etc etc. tldr i just think it’s neat :) it’s an arc i really enjoy and im just. obsessed with sort of well intentioned but also horrible people becoming better (or like. dying as full villains in the grave theyve dug for themselves and refuse to exit. either or yknow)
like blind privilege rather than outright malice is how 99% of the irl world’s evil happens and yet it is also where the most irl grace and atonement and forgiveness and betterment is possible. im fascinated by tevinter characters and tevinter in general. im never gonna shut up abt this.
cassandra cameo my beloved
as much as i hated the overabundance of quips (see below) roland is just. handsome. funny. charming. i saw a man so beautiful i started crying
tassia. her relationship with tevinter is complicated, much like dorian’s and i just. really love the whole ‘the place im from does horrible things and many would call it irredeemable and i understand that but also i think there’s a kernel worth saving there and i am going to work my whole life thanklessly trying to save it even if it wont try to save itself and even if that makes me the bad guy to both those opposed to and those loyal to my homeland’, i just think it’s neat and not at all a personal thing for me and religion :))))
‘no one ever saves us. so we save us’ maybe im sentimental and crying ok. whos to say. big believer in small kindnesses save the world.
the bad
negative points bc elves are wearing shoes and i like to think of them like hobbits and im v irrationally attached to this
qwydion is just. tall conventionally attractive woman with horns. not a vashoth qunari. where is my giant qunari woman. i demand a giant qunari woman.
suffers from mcu-funny quip disease. like fun quips can be enjoyable. in moderation. not constantly. we’re ALLOWED to have moments of genuine emotion, not everything needs to be counteracted and made light with a quip
some of the crew are caricatures but like. it’s a miniseries. i’ll forgive them. even if qwydion is comic relief and ofc lacklon (the dwarf) is the ‘suspicious untrusting one’
how could they kill fairbanks hes my da robin hood fave minor character and how dare they make me spend SEVERAL EPISODES thinking he was a traitor
the tevinter templars were....effective??? and had influence??? how does tassia have the authority to order rezaren around when in canon they’re just glorified bodyguards and only do what the magisters tell them? why are they actually effective against demons? why the fuck is tassia all like ‘oh no blood magic is evil im gonna report u to the divine’ like????? MAAM THIS IS TEVINTER AND THIS IS A MAGISTER not like. a soporati or laetan mage. how tf did u get the position of knight commander in tevinter if you arent willing to look the other way when magisters do blood magic
haha hawke is human disaster joke but also FUCK MEREDITH SO BAD I HATE THIS BITCH the joke is funny but i dont want her backkkkkkkk even if she WAS such a good villain UNLESS the da2 squad comes back but they cant do that bc anders’ fate is entirely up to the pc. also isnt varric the viscount of kirkwall. what the FUCK is going on in this city
ppl are saying miriam is ‘fenris but better’ but i resent that statement the show tried to do his 7 yr arc in 6 eps and it didnt work (understanably but STILL) and also im a fenris girlie first and foremost forever and ever so i will not stand for any besmirchment of his nearly perfect arc. he’s the PERFECT ‘character made to be a tool learns to be a person and love and be loved’ arc ok.
ik it’s been said but holy shit the dragon animation was BAD
#da:a spoilers#da absolution#da absolution spoilers#not discourse in the insufferably da fandom way lmao#just THOUGHTS bc i have a love hate relationship with tevinter#long post#dorian feels abt tevinter the way i do abt christianity send tweet#yes im a redemption for all truther#for better or for worse#ppl arent wholly evil even tho it is easier to think that way#and im just. i got a big heart and it is full of love but also so much anger
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not a head cannon question exactly, but who did you romance across the bioware games (mass effect and DA)? and who do you wish you could romance?
oh damn this is a good one, and the answer for dragon age is literally everyone at least once lmao. I played the games with a small armada of wardens, hawkes, and then a smaller number of inquisitors, because I just was not as into dragon age inquisition as I was da:o and da2. but if you made me choose my favourite romance option for each individual game, then I'm going to be horribly predictable about it: morrigan narrowly beats zevran out as my favourite origins romance (like by the thinnest of possible margins, mind you, they might as well be tied); in da2 I am absolutely trash for anders, tho I have watched playthroughs of his romance with lady hawke and do not vibe with it as much as I do with dude hawke; annnnd in inquisition, yeah, I love the egg elf ok. he's horrible and arrogant and condescending and I love him, and also my lavellan low key wants to kill him now, so maybe I don't romance him properly lol
in terms of who I wish I could have romanced in dragon age, oh hell, who doesn't want to romance varric? but also since I loved the awakening expansion, I absolutely would have thrown myself off a cliff for the legion of the dead companion that game gives us, sigrun, and maybe I wrote a few little stories about her with my lady aeducan warden!! just a few, more like drabbles honestly. anyway I hope we see her again even if she isn't romanceable.
for mass effect, I have romanced all the original me1 squadmates and don't feel particularly wow'd by any of them because I am ride or die for both garrus vakarian and tali'zorah until the end of time 🙌 back when I still played the games on pc I specifically modded my game to make tali romanceable by female shepard and still am annoyed over 10 years out that she and garrus are apparently down to fuck aliens but they draw the line at being gay about it. anyway tl;dr I tried to romance other squadmates in the original trilogy, i really did, but even tho kaidan and male shepard do have a sweet arc in me3 and I found the payoff for romancing miranda successfully from me2 into me3 compelling (her carmen san diego energy is very sexy), I just. I know the type of trash I am, and I am trash for relationships between people who derive transparent joy from each other's company, have each other's backs even when they disagree with each other, and also who need help from a doctor when it comes time to fuck because they come from different planets and might accidentally poison each other if they 'ingest.'
....shit I actually forgot that mass effect andromeda existed for a moment but that doesn't really change my answer much lmao. I romanced vetra but uh, hand to god I can't remember much else about the game because it didn't really do much for me, so I don't know if there's anyone else I really *wish* I could have romanced.
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You lamented the loss of Aerith in your party btw and I feel that too
I remember playing the second The World Ends With You game and a character from the first game joins your party early on and his stats are so good, he definitely carries you hard. It makes sense within the lore that he'd be good, but he was also just really good
Also he's hot, so that was great, I had a lovely time
But then after the first week, like a third or so into the game homeboy just up and leaves to do his own thing and I was heartbroken and also fucking struggling without my resident muscle, how could you do this to me, man
Oh my god 😭😭
The classic "this character was overpowered to carry me and now i miss them" moment. How could they.
In my ff7r playthrough im struggling with that yeah, and the OG is even worse because let's say, to stay vague, that every characters have very specific built, and... there is a Major Character Death mid game from a character from your party that had a very unique role that no one else can fill. And it's linked to the theme of really showing loss and how you can't replace the people you loved. So it hurts :^)
But my funniest story about that is actually from Dragon Age 2, i need to share.
So in da2, you encounter different characters from different class, and once they become members of your party, you're the one who decide everything about their stats or their skillset. You unlock everything with love and care to make them as strong as possible.
And then, midgame, you have a quest where you have to go into the realm of dreams, where demons roam to tempt you, to save someone. And you decide who to take with you on this trip. If incidents happen no one would die, they'd just wake up and leave you alone in the dreamworld tho.
And so i decide to bring my boyfriend Fenris, the two handed sword warrior elf with ghost abilities to rip people's heart from their chest (💖💖💖 he's so dreamy), whom i have lovingly leveled up so he was the strongest most healthy character of my party.
And during that quest, we run into a demon. Who makes Fenris a proposition. And Fenris is like. Damn actually sounds good. And then he turns on you. I had to watch my fucking boyfriend i had lovingly leveled up have a gigantic health bar as he's one shotting me because /I/ MADE HIM OP AS FUCK. WHY.
And then i have to kill him to wake him up. And you have to continue this quest without your warrior. And the remaining of your party is still susceptible to turn on you. So you can reach the big boss of this section with only one party member and it's likely not going to be any of your tank/heavy hitter.
Your name is Hawke and your life is a fucking nightmare.
Gaming is cruel 💔
#ichareply#anonymous#ichafantalks ffvii#ffvii spoilers#juuust in case#ichafantalks da#for this. anecdote.#for the record once you wake up your friends who turned on you apologize and it's fine#poor Fenris was feeling so bad about it. its okay. i took him on a date killing people and we kissed.#as you do after your boyfriend betrays you and tries to kill you obviously#sighs lovingly. Fenris....
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i finally finished da2 and while the credits are rolling all i can see is my reflection in the computer screen. those are the eyes of a broken woman. this game broke me. holy fucking shit.
#welp time to play it again!!#no not yet i’ve got an inquisition playthrough to get back to#she speaks#da2#dragon age 2#help me please this game made me feel so many emotions#i’m just really bad at making decisions and i’m always hyperaware of how people are gonna react to the things i day and do anyway#so da2 had me..... stresst#but god it’s so good and i had so much fun and i love all of the characters with my whole ass heart#and i would literally die for fenris#but y’all knew that already#just..... holy fuck y’all
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It’s time for Cygna’s opinions
okay I cannot stop thinking about that DA metapost that has a chart w high-low fantasy as one axis and dark-epic as the other
and places the DA games as starting at the low-dark end and moving steadily toward the high-epic end
even though: the final boss of Dragon Age: Origins is a zombie dragon god. The final boss of Dragon Age II is...a human woman. Her name is fucking Meredith. Yeah, there’s lyrium and moving statues, but...Meredith. We fought a fucking Karen as the final boss. I don’t know how to tell you this, but “zombie dragon god that destroys the soul of its killer” is, uh. the more epic of the two.
first, “dark” and “epic” aren’t the ends of a spectrum, as I’ve mentioned; they’re two separate qualities. dark fantasy is often small-scale, and epic fantasy is often triumphant, but - look. the Lord of the Rings is The epic fantasy, right? ...the one where the hero is unable to live in the world he has saved due to the physical and mental trauma he sustained in the saving? the one where in the last chapter he departs the earth, dying metaphorically if not literally? that one? (or the Silmarillion, which is arguably even more epic, but in which everyone dies horribly and also the tale of the children of Hurin is in it?)
second, the DA games simply do not, factually, increase in scale, in epicness/high fantasyness, in a linear fashion. Dragon Age II is fantasy noir; it takes place in a single city and its environs, and while events in the climax spill out politically/religiously to the rest of Thedas, the threats to the safety of Kirkwall are individuals and institutions. mages-templars-et cetera, but also: racism, classism, xenophobia. the Qunari are a fantasy race but they don’t present a fantasy threat; they have an army, an ideology, and gunpowder. serial killer may be using magic but the magic is incidental to the, uh, serial killing. even Anders’ big show was - that was just fucking gunpowder. the ingredients were given fantasy names, but I know the components of gunpowder when I am sent to collect them. the only magical part of that bomb was the remote detonation mechanism.
whereas! while DA:O was indeed dark in a lot of its storylines (hello there f!Tabris. goodbye f!Tabris.) the actual structure of the plot is classic fantasy. they don’t even - they don’t even fucking subvert “the Good Noble blond young king is betrayed by his Bad dark advisor who ~mysteriously~ has somewhat Semitic facial features” in the least! that’s not Dark, and it’s not - it’s not even interesting! it’s always what happens! anyway, you and your ragtag bunch of misfits have to go from place to place gathering allies to defeat the rampaging zombie army, and also place the rightful ruler (whoever you decide that is) on the throne. it could not get more classic fantasy than that!
I mean, I also have issues with the idea that adding rape (only committed by men against women) and slavery and hamhanded depictions of racism to a fantasy story makes it either meaningfully darker (please, just...read more fantasy) or “deeper” emotionally or intellectually. Especially given some of DA’s more egregious lack of consequences, ESPECIALLY in DA2 - you can sell Fenris back into slavery, and absolutely nothing bad happens! I genuinely liked how in DAO there were some acts various party members would absolutely refuse to have any part of, and they would leave your party or literally fight you if you did them. There were 100% canon paths where the Warden died forever!
And those things changed not because the games got “more epic” or “more high fantasy”, but because they became a profitable series which must be protected. DAO could take more risks because they weren’t constantly having to think about whether they would need to use something later.
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Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.
BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”
The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”
A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”
BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied
DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line
Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together
In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success
By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games.
DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that
DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”
After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks.
For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled
BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”
It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition
BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW
Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”
FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.
Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”
The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet.
EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously
BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.
One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’”
Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.
“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue.
Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.
Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.
MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.
The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”
DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.
In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.
By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.
The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.
The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.
Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.
“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”
Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.
They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”
At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.
During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.
By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”
MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”
At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.
DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.
“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.
“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”
Read the chapter for full details of course!
#dragon age#bioware#video games#SW:TOR#mass effect#I've seen plenty of this info discussed in articles/thinkpieces and on online communities over the years#but it's nice to read it first hand#some very insightful stuff here#these behind the scenes looks are very valuble#a lot of DAI's elements make sense given the context and what was going on in the background and the tech challenges they faced etc#be kind and respectful to devs folks they're human beings#also in general this book is really interesting and easy to read#funny in places too#it has lots of other chapters on lots of other games including Stardew Valley#I def recc buying it#anyway hope this post is useful/interesting to someone!#oh and as always support good treatment of game devs#crunch culture in the industry is harmful and exploitative
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So....Cherik Drqgon age.
Erik as Blackwall who somehow ended up as the inquistor with opening portals and shit. (Blackwall aka my favorite and toughest bitch)
Logan as the Iron bull
Emma....Vivienne obviously because she's THAT bitch.
Raven as Sera (I hate Raven but people hate Sera for some reason. SHE'S UNDERRATED AS FUCK! HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOWS SUE GETS TO SHOOT! THERE IS A BOW THAT WILL LITERALLY BLOW UP THE ENEMY! AND HER SPECIAL MOVE CUTS! THAT MOVE HAS SAVED MY ASS SO MANY TIMES LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE!)
If not Angel can be Sera. Let Raven be Iliyana.
Moria as Cassandra. (She gets a Lotta damage but that bitch ain't giving up.)
Charles....um Solas? I don't know. Pale smart bastard. You don't suspect him at first but once you found out the truth. You can't help but wonder. WHEN WAS THIS WHEN THE ENEMY SENT A DRAGON TO KILL US! YOU TELL ME THAT YOU WEREN'T AS WEAK AS YOU APPEARED TO BE! It's the kind of rage that you never really get over.
I don't know who would be Dorian. Janos?
Selene obviously Morragan.
Apocalypse as corypheus
Varric.....Gambit?
Cole....Peter. except you know the dead part. No dead quicksilver on this shit. I'm not Joss Whedon.
I only know Dragon age Inquisition. I don't know who else the rest would be.
Ohhhh I like this idea!! A fusion of two of my favorite things? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP
Tbh I think that in DA!verse it would make sense if mutants were mages, because they’re two opressed groups fighting for their rights, and you have Circle of Magi (controlled by the Templars) and apostate mages (which could be paralleled to Erik’s Brotherhood).
Blackwall as Erik though... lmao they do both have some sort of lumberjack aesthetic, don’t they? :D Also the fact that Blackwall tried to hide his real identity and was actually on a run!
I don’t mind Raven, and I think she could’ve been Leliana maybe? They’re both talented spies, after all!
Viviene as Emma is a perfect fit! Also LOVE Cassandra as Moira, especially since they both have kinda started their corresponding teams!
I’M STILL CACKLING BECAUSE I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE PARALLELS BETWEEN SOLAS AND CHARLES JUST THE OTHER DAY (and let’s get real, there’s at least one VERY PROMINENT parallel, ie THEM EGG). But also yeah, could’ve worked! A wise and patient mentor at first sight who turns out to be someone insanely powerful... not sure how the whole Dread Wolf thing fits Charles, but it could’ve been an interesting take on dark!Charles!
Love Corypheus as Apocalypse! Both undead/undying bastards with a god complex :DD
Iron Bull as Logan sent me cackling, makes sense too!! Although Bull seems more gentle than Logan sometimes XD Still, a huge scary looking hunk who cares for his people... sounds about right! Also iirc Logan used to have a team of his own (or at least lead the X-men at some point?) in other verses (there was an animated series, I’m pretty sure, and probably some comic runs?), so also adds up!
Cole seems a little too melancholic to be Peter for me... but I can’t think of any other characters for either of them :D
But really, speaking of Dragon Age games, I think you would’ve enjoyed DA2, I wouldn’t go into details about other characters if you don’t know them, but there you have Fenris - a runaway slave whose master experimented on him and made him into a terrifying weapon (and who kills his former master in the end), which sounds familiar huh? ;D - and then there’s Anders - a soft-spoken mage who runs a free clinic for people but who is also possessed by a spirit of Justice (that later transforms into Vengeance). Both have Erik vibes (esp with the stunt that Anders pulls at the end when he blows up the Chantry and essentially starts a war), although I think with the rivalry between the two they’d make a good Erik/Charles parallel!
#iwillshipyouman#cherik#dragon age#nope that last part doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I shipped fenders back in the day nothing at all
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a fuckton of things i want in da4
a few words censored bc tumblr will swallow this in the void if i dont. long ass fuck list ahead
a romanceable dwarf
more romanceable elves/qunari
more elf/qunari/dwarf companions
consistent writing for once
more nb representation
good hair. please just give me good hair options. give me long hair. give me luxurious flowing locks. give me braids. give me good fucking hair options
let me shittalk the chantry
dalish elf npcs that impact the plot in unique ways
dalish elf companions that are proud of being dalish
if it is set in tevinter maybe uh. maybe address the issue of systemic oppression (and slavery) of elves???????
a return of the friendship/rivalry system in da2 but improved. maybe instead of a friendship rivalry sliding scale its friendship/rivalry/animosity sliding scale. bc rivalry is more like. two people pushing each other to be better than they were before. friendly competition. hes an idiot but hes my idiot kind of deal. animosity would be just regular disapproval. i liked the crisis cutscenes in dai so high animosity would be the same as low approval and might make the companion leave still, but theres more variety with high approval. high approval “friendship” would be the “were best friends and we share many opinions and agree on almost everything” while high approval “rivalry” being “we disagree on almost everything but goddamn it youre my friend and ill follow you into the fade if i have to” so you can have a high approval with someone instead of being a kissass
actions and choices having consequences again
multiple endings again (epilogue slideshows dont count)
dialogue wheels with descriptions that match what you actually say
characters from rivain, antiva, anderfels, etc
gifts. bring back the gifts. i want to give my companions gifts
maybe. maybe a focus of non-andrastian religion for once?
let me shittalk the chantry
i know its a stretch, but maybe. diverse skin colours. please?
nd characters that are written respectfully and treated w dignity
please bring back the talent wheel from dao and da2
more bi romance options
more wlw romance options
more mlm romance options
ace romance options
nb romance options
background romances
let me shittalk the chantry
far fetched but maybe a polycule?
i lowkey LOVED the fast-paced feel of da2s combat so maybe bring that back in some form? maybe improved to mesh with the tactics of dai to give players absolute freedom of playstyle whether they want to be like me and rush into every encounter or play more strategically
companions with unique companion abilities
would be nice to explore cities
would be nice if the open world were a little smaller so it doesnt feel empty all the gd time
more mage spells. mages felt like just another class of fighter to me in dai. they dont really have any awe-inducing wow factor like in dao or even da2. if the narrative wants me to believe that mages are powerful and dangerous and that it takes multiple templars to hunt down an apostate, maybe show that? give me strong mages
remove the jump ability. its pointless
a narrative that addresses the oppression that the chantry and templars perpetuated please
bring back the attributes
make the choices in dai matter. mages governing themselves? i wanna see that
let me shittalk the chantry
please bring back the healing magic for fucks sakes
multi-class system between rogues and warriors?
multiple specialisations that feel like specialisations and not just skill tree+
player-only skill trees
hardening
companion quests that affect their abilities and further dialogue
actual morally grey choices instead of this stupid mage freedom vs templar oppression narrative that is in no way morally grey but is presented as such and thus leaves the conflicts and narratives set up by dao and da2 to be fucking meaningless
bring back the tactics
would be nice to have an origins-esque prologue again. maybe one that would determine future events in game just to give your character better narrative cohesion with the plot
an approval/disapproval system but for companions with other companions. bringing certain companions together may bring them closer or make them pissed off with each other which affects banter maybe quests maybe combat
give me a fucking mabari bioware. give me back my fucking mabari
day/night cycle
a nightmare mode where you have to finish the main quest on a time limit. it is absurd that dai expects me to believe that i have all this time to do wartable missions that can take literal real life DAYS to finish and still thwart corypheus’ plans in time. bullshit
that said. no more wartable missions. waiting for a countdown to finish isnt very fun
let me shittalk the chantry
kal-sharok. ive been hearing about it since dao let me fucking see kal-sharok
dwarven politics
politics in general. my fav dao quest was the succession crisis plotline in orzammar/the landsmeet and wewh in dai
npcs i can talk to. even with generic dialogue like in dao. makes the world more alive
using the environment to your advantage. far fetched but i would love to be able to pull down boulders if were in the mountains or freeze water to get to places as a mage
home base customisation but the customisation choices you make actually. mean something. and do something. or at the very least give more companion dialogue/banter/approval change
laconic and ergonomic codexes. like. sorted by what kind of codex it is, etc etc but then you just get a brief summary of the codex and the option to read more about it so i dont spend eternity scrolling through cards looking for a specific codex entry. cool aesthetic dont get me wrong but real irritating to deal with. also. maybe. the pc making comments about the codex if you do read more about it? like a dalish elf saying “they got it all wrong” when reading a codex about dalish elves written by a human??? that would a) give character to the pc b) incentivise people to actually read the codex to see what was so wrong about it c) summarise the codex for people who want to learn the lore but dont want to spent the entire game reading text
maybe have the merchants in your home base close to crafting stations so you dont have to take a fucking hike if you miscounted the amount of elfroot you need?
let me shittalk the chantry
avvar companion maybe??? interesting lore right there
bring back stat requirements for weapons and remove the class restriction for most shit. obviously a dagger would be better for a rogue than a longsword and a mage would do better with a staff than a sword and shield but its not about efficiency. its about the roleplay. its about the options. give me the option to make a mage with wildly inappropriate stat distribution
bring back sustained mode abilities
traps. bring back traps. bring back the option to stealth into an area, trap the fuck out of it, and go from there
have the three available classes in kind of a rock paper scissors scenario. warriors do real well against rogues who do real well against mages who do real well against warriors. so you can plan your party depending on who/what youll face AND how much their approval will change during the quest you take them on
let me shittalk the chantry
actually resolve the plot points introduced in dai
a more threatening villain. the inquisitor thwarted every attempt made by corypheus in dai. he was not threatening at all
queer characters. background, companions, etc. queer characters
mounts were meh in dai. maybe. make them faster? or less cumbersome? or have your companions on mounts too so theres still banter?
i liked the armour tinting. let me have armour tinting from the beginning
i would really like mages to move and attack at the same time bc lowkey standing in one spot is uhhhhhhh kinda boring
let me check companions friendship/rivalry levels
would be nice if the narrative acknowledged that elves suffered greatly at the hands of the chantry and stopped victim-blaming them
more taverns. specifically like tapsters in dao where theres a dwarf just reciting something in a language i cant understand and if you look its a ballad/poet about dwarven culture and that was a real nice touch let me have that
dalish elf clan. dalish elf clan that does not get murdered please and thank you
meaningful quests. more cinematic dialogue
make found gear / quest reward gear more valuable than crafted gear
game modifiers like in dai were real nice. i want more
let me shittalk the chantry
quests that can be resolved in multiple ways. like connors fate in dao. and for those ways to impact further quests
companions with varying moral alignments
companions that are mutually exclusive (like alistair and loghain) but are both good companions so itd really make you think
a pc that IS NOT a “chosen one” vanilla da2 is my fav dragon age game for one reason and one reason only and that is because hawke is just some random refugee who escaped lothering. no chosen one magic at all. just an ordinary person who is a real good fighter. and that appealed to me more than this “you are the only one who can do it” narrative
let me meet more elvhen gods
if the setting is in tevinter, GIVE ME FUCKING ARCHITECTURE. give me the high spires, the archways, the buttresses, give me statues lining city gates and magic infused into the buildings. tevinter is a land ruled by MAGES give me magical architecture. give me floating buildings. give me fire floating as orbs above the streets like lamps. GIVE ME ARCHITECTURE
SHALE
let me shittalk the chantry
PIERCINGS GIVE ME FUCKING PIERCINGS BIOWARE
more main quests, longer main quests
if it is set in tevinter maybe. maybe address the fact that tevinter has been at war with the qunari for a while? on and off war is still war. and maybe give us the option to influence the outcome of that war?
more voice options. instead of just american voice or british voice, do the thing in dao again where there are multiple voices of different tones to further cement the pcs personality
more armour designs
biased but uh. can. can taliesen jaffe va a character?
i already said qunari companions but specifically saarebas companions
blood magic
FINISHING MOVE ANIMATIONS
please do not let it be as long as inquisition. inquisition was a SLOG in later playthroughs
body sliders. what if i want a tall but lanky qunari? what if i want a buff as shit elf? body sliders
more eye options
let me call out companions
btw bioware. if you really wanted cullen to be a good guy. maybe handle his fucking redemption arc a little better instead of retconning all the terrible and creepy shit hes done in the past k thx
can female walk/run animations not have. so much swaying hips? no one moves like that
personality dialogue that affects future dialogue like in da2 but meshed with the wider range of emotions introduced by dai
keep the race/s*x lock on romance candidates like in dai. keep the fact that some characters can only be romanced by certain races or s*xes
nb and genderqueer options for the pc
cutscenes of companions interacting
ngl i lowkey liked the random encounters of dao so maybe bring that back
my fav quest in dao is the landsmeet / orzammar succession crisis questline but you know whats my second favourite? the rescue mission if the warden gets captured and you have to play as your party members. give me that again
more creepy/dark shit. dai was too lighthearted for me esp after da2 and dao
let me shittalk the chantry
broodmothers. in hd.
red lyrium broodmothers. in hd
companions with different backgrounds. different faiths. different statuses. different families. etc
maybe make the pcs appearance make an impact on the story? like how bull says he likes redheads, but even if you are a redhead, he says nothing about it????? maybe keep track of which slider the player picks so that can affect the story?
i love my inquisitors but maybe. dont. bring the inquisitor in as anything more than an advisor/npc in this game? let me fall in love with a new pc???
if theres gonna be a homebase like skyhold where youre not in armor. maybe give us better clothing?
a kind of gear skin mechanic similar to ac:odyssey where you can change how the gear looks but keep the stats. so you can equip that higher level armour and keep the look and aesthetic of your old armour and you unlock the skins/looks of the armours you discover/make so you can be both powerful AND aesthetic
i enjoyed the nobility/underworld/arcane/etc knowledge in dai unlocking more dialogue options so maybe keep/expand on that but make it more accessible by side missions or companions or something that isnt the abysmal perk system in dai
let me shittalk the chantry
customisable walking animations. does the pc walk straightbacked? slouched? with a swagger? please
since there will undoubtedly be an obligatory fade sequence, maybe have an option for nightmare demons that ARENT spiders. thank you
slap on subtitles and conlang some languages. i want to hear elvish. i want to hear tevene. give me the languages
more dragons. esp if they look vastly different
more bard songs
i am completely biased here, but i would like to hear laura bailey as a va for a character. preferably a voice option for the pc
hey maybe have the true ending actually included in the base game and not in a dlc (tresppasser cough cough)
better val royeaux
please remove the had to do it to em idle animation tis distracting
on that note, more idle animations. maybe some unique to companions?
very trivial but. unique stair climbing/descending animation
bring back talking to companions on the road. maybe with some dialogue that can only be said on the road???
if banter is interrupted, make like rdr2 and pick up where the banter left off
more vallaslin designs please?
if theres another formal scene like dai maybe. give us. decent clothing. or better yet, decen clothing OPTIONS. i wanna decide how i look in a ball full of haughty orlesians
mage vs templar conflict resolved and addressed please. it is NOT resolved in dai. what we got was sequel bait and a slideshow. resolve it please
let me shittalk the chantry
a pro-mage anti-circle circle mage companion like anders
religious person who doesnt victim-blame elves in the codex or in game or anywhere please
characters more like leliana who question the chantry and acknowledge its corruption and greed
unapologetically sapphic companion
idc if its tevinter i dont want to fucking see queer people being disrespected
a true tal-vashoth companion, one who escaped from the qun
have quest decisions affect whether or not a companion will turn hostile to you or not
if IF solas will be redeemed, please do the redemption arc right
more horn options for qunari
an apostate mage who doesnt use me for their personal agenda whilst hiding something from me (morrigan, anders, solas) thanks
i really dig the whole “leader of an army” thing dai was trying to go for. but you didnt actually. lead. anything. would be nice to have that option. command soldiers. send them places that affect further quests. would even use the wartable for its intended purpose. planning wars. battles. like. you get sent word that there are bandits harassing villagers. you can set up an ambush with your soldiers or confront them headon, and theres a new mini-location on the map like the manor you meet vivienne in where you can go deal with the bandits and depending on your choices, there are actually soldiers with you in a field, or traps in a narrow pass, or even in a city. id rather the wartable shit dont return but if they have to, at least this way youre not just waiting real life time for a bunch of text to appear
i am real fucking excited for the possibility that da4 companions can just fucking die on you. good shit. give me that angst
missions that certain companions would refuse to go with you to. you know. so you actually have to use other members of your party instead of the same 3 (three) people all the goddamn time
disabled characters (i want a character who suffers from the same chronic bad leg disease as i do is that too much to ask)
kinda touched on by the da2 combat point but let me do close combat damage with the staff
no multiplayer. and if there is a multiplayer, dont tie it with achievements
let me fucking explore weisshaupt
(i dont think solas will be the endgame villain of da and i dont think da4 will be the last da game but still) again. for emphasis. resolve the plot points dai brought up
full-body scars and tattoo options
companions and npcs changing their opinions about things over time. eg: a pro-circle mage wanting instead for circles to be abolished after a specific side mission or a main quest decision etc
keep the multiple companion quests. and maybe change what kinds of companion quests are available further down depending on choices made in previous companion quests
please for fucks sake give us more characters of colour
let me shittalk the chantry
#dragon age#dragon age 4#da4#long post#its 3 am and i am once again putting on my clown wig bc bioware will fucking disappoint me again
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sorry, what made dragon age fans hate dragon age?
Oh you sweet summer children, I wish I were you ngl
I could go on a real big rant here but I'm just gonna keep it short and easy for everyone cuz you don't want me to rant about this, believe me
Before I get started though, just one thing: I love the games, they're some of my favorite games, even if it doesn't sound like it
So first off, the thing that keeps us from just packing our bags and moving away is the large number of amazing characters and, I'm assuming for many people who are also me, the ability to be gay in every game so far.
As much as we argue about characters and their actions and morality, the fact stands that we love the characters we love a whole bunch, maybe a little too much at times. Ain't that how it goes.
The problem is the writing outside of individual characters or concerning those characters
The biggest thing I think is probably the whole conflict between Templars and mages. For one, it's been played out. It's taken up large chunks of three games so far and the outcome has always been basically the same. You save mages left and right, but oh no they're so dangerous, we can't trust them boohoo
In the regular world, when we see a group of people locked in towers or in former slave markets (hello Gallows) for the crime of being born "wrong" our first reaction would be "hey that's pretty shitty actually"
And yet Dragon Age has made it a point to try and drill it into our heads that "hey, mages are dangerous actually, so they should be locked up or lobotomized" when normal people would say "yall, that's what they did to the mentally ill, can we not"
Treat the disease, don't punish the patient. Not that having magic is a disease but you get what I mean.
Meanwhile the Templars abuse, rape, kill mages and we're still supposed to see it as a grey and gray thing when it's really not. And we're not really allowed to change that either, despite them dangling that promise before us in a few instances
That's one big thing. The next is the Dalish. An enslaved race that's lost most of its culture, language, history to humans. And yet they're depicted as quite often unrepentant dicks and racist and what have you. Not a good scene. City elves meanwhile just wallow away in the Alienages and you can't change shit there either.
Inquisition gives you the option to be Dalish. There's a story quest to absorb hundreds of years of history by drinking from a well. You would think the default option would be your Dalish Inquisitor or one of you elven companions. Or Merrill, the girl who has been working to preserve her heritage since DA2, brought back for this game. It's Morrigan actually. She also happens to be the authority on elven artifacts when again, Merrill is right there.
The big problem with Bioware is that they introduce those big issues to us that should be fairly obvious - don't lock people up for being born different, don't make an oppressed faction shitty towards others, don't let former oppressors become the authority - and yet they try to make the whole thing complicated and grey and completely overlook the implications of that
On the character side of things, they introduce characters like Anders. He was beloved in Awakening and tragic in 2, but no matter your feelings on him or how close he was to his companions or if Hawke let him live or even agreed with him, everyone hates his guts in Inquisition. And apparently that is something his fans are just supposed to accept. Now, I don't like Anders, but that's not his fault. That's the writers fault who made him the biggest fucking hypocrite in 2 when he was a delight in Awakening.
Instead of having him and Fenris bond over shared suffering, Anders takes potshots whenever he can, and even approves of giving Fenris back to his master. And when it comes to innocents dying its apparently valid when it's not mages so he blows up half a city block and makes mages more hated than ever
Can't have an oppressed faction without showing that they're oppressed for a reason, no matter how much it goes against previous characterization, amirite?
And that's just the example of Anders, there are more. Like how Sera doesn't really address her internalized racism, how Alistair gets whiter with every game or how Cullen's last minute straight romance has more content than Josie's, which was planned from the beginning
Speaking of Cullen, let's not even get me started on Greg Ellis being in three games despite being literal human garbage.
There's just a trove of stuff that makes fans furious. But we still keep coming back because despite some things we love the characters, we love the interactions, the games are actually fun to play, the main plot tends to be good, the romances are sweet, and somehow we still have hope they'll pull their heads out of their asses eventually
But since like half the original writing team already jumped ship and Bioware is now owned by EA, we're probably hoping in vein. And yet.
So it did turn into a rant after all. The long and short of the story is I'll likely preorder DA4 but as God is my witness I will complain the entire time
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