"the veilguard" is such an inferior title to "dreadwolf".

My prefered comparison atm is Fromsoft. The made DemonSouls/Dark Souls1-3 and refined their formula, building ontop of the legacy of previous entries. When they had a new idea, e.g. make block not a thing ..... they made Bloodborne. Then they had another idea, what if it's not about stats and items but raw mechanical mastery ... they made Sekiro. Then they thought, what would an open world game look like with all the previous learnings, and made Elden Ring. They even threw in Armored Core inbetween, talk about a departure from their "modern" releases. This is how you handle legacy/expectations and STILL mature as a company along with your customers. All that flip-flopping, tone-switching and reinventing the wheel brought Bioware into the realm of "meh" games that only live on nostalgia.

Less party members, "massive" skill tree but we canonly use 3 at a time? Rook isnt interested in blood magic sounds like railroading in an rpg. The biggest topic in the Q&A was player sexuality. It honestly sounds like a Trainwreck

The last point being one that is universally true. It's the Old Fandoms that provided the funds for these New Things, but the Creators act as if they are irrelevant ....and that some a New Fandom will just magically appear and not only Replace them, but Surpass them in investments. Only an idiot would charge off a cliff with the assumption that someone will catch them.

I think another reason people have been a lot more harsher with Bioware over the years is the fact that they lied to their audience when Anthem came out. Or more accurately people found out that Bioware lied about Anthem with the first "gameplay" trailer, which was completely pre-rendered Footage. People didn't find this out until some time after the games release if memory serves. I'm sure most people don't like being lied to, and when a development company as trusted as Bioware was does that you can bet people are gonna be a lot more critical going forward.

In an alternate universe Bioware was never bought by EA and we had a second Larian making good RPGs ... god, I wanna live in that universe! "When will your new game come out?" Larian: "When it is ready" Old Bioware: "When it is ready" EA Bioware: "Before the next investors meeting!"

People just need to move on. Don’t pay into companies you don’t like.

8:14 This is so true. I didn't wanna romance any woman except Cassandra. I also went for Cullen as female Inquisitor. I've checked the Veilguard companions and I find none of the attractive except Harding. She looks allright.

The whole thing just makes me sad. Maybe my age is showing...

I now no longer just blame publishers like i once use to. Developers are just as fault if not more so sonce they are the ones doing the work and testing stuff.

Yeah...after all this time and what I have seen...I am just numb to it.

Im glad BG3 opened alot of developers eyes to the market of CRPGs. I believe the key is good characters that are fully voices and robust choices & consequence system. Make the combat real time with pause. combine this with good writing and a compelling world. The customers will come running.

After Bioware's failure with Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem I wouldn't expect a marketing budget like Bioware had with Mass Effect 3 or even Inquisition.

Ow boy lets not talk about that in 1 of the darkest region in Thedas we as a player cant use Bloodmagic

Jade-Empire is such an underrated Diamond of a game😍

"Pay us money to be lectured by ugly companions!" An interesting strategy.

I disagree with you on Harding’s attractiveness - I think they made her a little prettier in Veilguard. But Bellara and the Qunari lady are definitely very plain-looking.

Well, now you lads know how female players feel in the vast majority of games where we don’t even have romance options to begin with 😂 Jokes aside on conventional vs unconventional beauty distribution I think even inquisition was a bit unbalanced already, I ended up romancing Cullen (mildly boring), but for my male friends I remember them feeling quite underwhelmed (although I found Cassandra kinda pretty and hilarious,unlike a lot of folks I know) but I absolutely share of the same feeling. Watching the gameplay there when Varric appears with Rook I thought “cool, such a handsome character” Imagine my surprise learning that the only handsome fella is the character we make ourselves 😑 I also couldn’t find one single person saying anything good about this new character design. I legit don’t even expect any dark or serious themes in this game, how could we take those faces seriously in a first place. That necromancer for example: his skeletons look like out of a scooby-doo movie and his face is a cartoon version of Dr.Strange 😂 I’m laughing, but is pure desperation at this point.

You're say the male companions are hot? We're literally down to three and I dont like the selection of old men to pick from, except for Davrin maybe. He's the only one who looks decent enough in my eyes.

How is Harding less atractive?

Bruh, I was nodding along until you said Inquisition didn't have any _conventionally attractive_ baddies, as if Cassandra, Josephine and Leliana couldn't absolutely get it. And if anything Harding got upgraded (as the one and only thing) in Veilguard.

If we coldly observe what is offered today with this DA: Veilguard: - The female companions are not aesthetically pleasing to look at and the companions as a whole are a pile of DEI clichés; - We will be limited to 7 companions instead of 9; - We will be limited to 2 companions who accompany us instead of 3 - We will be limited to missions in "corridor" mode (similar to ME2) and a hub (like the Normandy) - We will be limited to three action skills which can only be used by filling a bar through auto-attack; - Removed tactical view; - Removal of the possibility of controlling our companions; - The dialogue wheel is the same as that of Dragon Age 2 (2011) and only offers cosmetic dialogue choices without concrete consequences on the story (for the moment); For me this game is not only a fucking regression compared to DA: Origins (this was already the case with the other games that said), but it is even an overall regression compared to everything that Dragon Age Inquisition offered in 2014. The only new thing that Bioware offers us is a technical and visual improvement of the Frostbyte engine with neon colors everywhere, and demons that become Christmas trees. Damn it. Bioware fans frustrate me greatly. They're happy with what Bioware is offering: this vocal and visible minority on Twitter is already making pansexual romance fan art inspired by the new companions.They don't care about the dialogue writing as long as they can romance whoever they want and see the elven gods to make other fan art. They don't care about the gameplay loop as long as it's not a obstacle to the story of Solas. They are going to have their queer content and that is the most important until the next Dragon Age in 2034 and which could be a yaoi mobile game. They are so obsessed with the survival of Bioware that they will accept anything. More disturbing, we have well-known KZfaqrs in the fan community who are now paid by Bioware (without this being transparent) to promote the game and gaslight critical remarks. These people are part of a "community council" selected by Bioware itself and which only represents this minority of fans.

I enjoyed and loved most of the companions from DAO to DAI. They are not the most beautiful/hansome bunch but they are still charming and look, act like actual people. The new companions however are so far so unattractive that I have no interests whatsoever of ever wanting to talk to either of them plus they are all over designed from appearances to outfits.

You miss the most important issue: the combat system

We have to accept that BioWare aren’t making CRPGs anymore, they’re making action games with some light rpg mechanics. The modern BioWare aren’t the BioWare of old and we should stop expecting them to live up to that legacy and move on. There are other studios like Larian, Owlcat, and other making real CRPGs, so we should turn our attention to them, and let BioWare go be whatever it is they have become.

I loved the old combat. I’m not good at games that make me play out the actual fighting. I’m hoping the gameplay trailer is just misleading, and there’s an option to play in a similar way to previous games. I’m also disappointed in the companions. They aren’t as attractive as they used to be. What happened to the blonde British boy? He’s been here so far. I also wish they’d have just one more male RO, since the numbers are uneven

they want people to pay $100 for slop worth $30

My current issues for Veilguard (from Mage player POV but most apply for other classes too): 1. 2 companions at a time only and high possibility that each class will have class specific actions like in Inquisition. That means that I'm pretty much locked out of all Mage companions for most of game if I want to have access to class actions of all 3 classes. I also can't play dps mage + support mage party like I did in all 3 previous parts of Dragon Age withour risking losing access to 1 other class actions when they are needed. 2. Can't control companions directly, so can't move them out of enemy AoE zones, points of danger etc directly and must rely on commands that might be delayed / have limited functionality if there are even any movement commands at all. Not good. 3. Robust skill tree, but I can use only 3 at a time per character + ultimate. That just means that players will find cooky-cutter abilities that will be permanently slotted and most of this robust skill tree will go to waste. There might be even cases where you ignore specializations simply because you have no slots for their abilities when they get unlocked. 4. Skills likely require charging by autoattacks to use. That could matter not much for other classes, but not for Mages - they don't want to autoattack much (especially if these autoattacks deal little to no damage like in Inquisition) and their power comes from their spells and their diversity. If that is the case and you can't immediately use your spells as a Mage without charging them, that is a big downside.

Oh you have never seen how invested Elder Scrolls fans are in their setting. Just check our average Stormcloak vs Imperial debate. Or wether or not Cyrodiil is a jungle.

I recommend the recent capcom survey to anyone who denies the importance of beauty.

This was an outstanding summary. Perhaps you didn’t go quite far enough, but you hit 90% of exactly why so many are disappointed. And I’d argue it goes beyond the RPG genre. I quit on Battlefield games after they took a more cartoony appearance, dropped random tornadoes in every match, had a girl in a squirrel suit flying through the air, and lost the GAMEPLAY that defined the series. Bottom line: they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Great discussion and I agree with everything stated regarding combat. However, I preferred the character models of DA:I. More real looking people made it feel more immersive to me. Also, to each his own, but I think you are wrong about Leliana in DA:I and Scout Harding in DA:VG - they are more attractive than their earlier incarnations(I'm a sucker for redheads and freckles). But, I don't really care about romancing companions, so it is more about whether they have good dialoque and useful skills. Cheers

8:25 Are we looking at the same game? I'll admit I have a type, and it is redheads with freckles. But I have never once in my life found a dwarf character to be attractive looking. When I play TTRPGs I like to play dwarfs for the mechanical features, but work with the GM to just make my character a human with dwarf traits so that I do not have to look at dwarf character art. The DAV Harding is the first dwarf I have ever seen and said, "Wow, she looks great." She looks great in this game and will almost certainly be the first character I romance. Also I think Neve could be conventionally attractive...if we can just take that hat off.

I love how you always find the right words to express what I just feel about a game

I liked CohhCarnage's take on it: fine/10. I'm still interested in the story enough to keep following the game, but I will absolutely not buy it unless they change things dramatically.

I think my post got flagged but I see it as a pendulum swinging from ultra-realism to doll-like beauty. Best example would be Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 where they made that one female love-interest more busty and outwardly attractive while still maintaining her more realistic facial model. Also, Henry seemed to have been mewling to gain a more masculine chin and cheekbone structure. All still relatively tame and within the scope of a realistic setting so your immersion is never broken by the more attractive medieval European models.

All the points listed in this video (and more), for me come down to one thing. After all of Biowares missteps in the last years, I'm not blindly hopeful anymore (Andromeda made me wary and Anthem burned me). Bioware has to sell me this game, make me interested in it. All they have shown so far, has failed to do that.

I notice this trend of people becoming oddly parasocial towards games, characters, cartoons etc etc, and by extension the company that owns their IPs, with very little interest in the actual creator or creative intent behind it as long as they are pandered to. On the one hand I understand it, it's nice to be pandered to, on the other hand, it usually implies that the narrative and setting will be quite safe and clean, so as to avoid upsetting this parasocial attitude. These new fans are typically young, and people who (i think) in the past didn't feel very represented by the games they were playing, and have as a result become protective and overattached to the games that made them feel like they were able to find a good way to express themselves in. I think because of this many of them miss the forest for the trees and don't see how bland this stuff is becoming. Editing to add: i know words like "feeling respresented" and "self expression" are somewhat buzzwordy these days but I think these are real things, and that in some ways companies are manipulating these emotions to get away with serving something subpar. It's sad because I think it's a good thing that more people are able to enjoy these genres, and I'm sure these fans wouldn't hate a heavier game in the setting if it was an offering, as evidenced by the popularity of fallout new vegas, cybperpunk 2077 and BG3 among the same groups of people

i was agreeing until it came to the argument of beauty. Dragon age, all three games, had beautiful people even without orignal concepts. Cassandra with her stark bone structure and scarring, was very widely attractive. Sera a young and pretty face, even Iron bull looks as ive he is a handsome and burly man with extra features (aka the horns) However one thing i will say on the concept of beauty in dragon age vs veilguard, is that the new style makes it seem as if the characters have no deformations. Scout harding looks significantly more real, and more attractive due to her appearance in DAI being a little, less developed. She was just a pale dwarf with slight freckles, nothing more other than her attractive personality. Now though Harding has a unique structure, body language, hair, face, freckle designs, and face marks like demples and wrinkles. She looks attractive AND realistic in her design. But look at the ice mage, no face deformations, almost perfect disney like face structure, and her facial textures looks like she could be character form Moana. No pores, no slight hairing, no occlusion. She looks like an animated blank texture, a fortnite skin. As do most characters, even sadly our boy Varric, who for some reason lost his ginger and sunny disposition, and somehow grew his nose 4 times larger. The characters no longer look either, real, or fantastic, its like they took the worst of both and tried to make it work rather than sticking to a theme, leading some characters, like harding to look attractive and real, while the ice mage just looks like a well made barbie doll

The textures in DA:I look so much better than what we've seen in the Veilguard trailer. Just look at the wet stairs and castle walls! I sincerely hope they'll add more textures to, well, everything. As it is now, it looks too clean. There is not a single pore to be seen on anyone's skin. Rook didn't even leave foot prints in that snowy patch where they found Neve. DA has been a journey, definitely. I love both Origins and Inquisition, even though they feel completely different from one another. I've always sort of viewed them as stand-alones that simply happen in the same world, with characters from previous installments crossing paths with the new ones. But Veilguard supposedly is the continuation of Inquisition's "Trespasser". (DA2 has its charms, though it's obvious the game was rushed.) All three have memorable characters with distinct personalities. In the new trailer, everybody sounds the same (we are heroes, we get it!). It's this corny, "witty" Marvel-esque dialogue. Nothing against Marvel, I quite like some of the movies. It's just not Dragon Age. Of course, this could all be a silly marketing decision. Not everything shown in the trailer will be in the game, as they even said in the trailer. What isn't a marketing decision, though, is the character design. The character design is so off-putting to me, and I'm not even one who's hung-up on conventional beauty (I mean, Bull? Not that pretty! But he was damn fun to romance!). It just looks too Disney. I wonder if adding textures could change that, give them more personality beyond their generic, cartoonish looks. As they're now, I can't see myself romancing any of these people (sorry, Harding!). And I've romanced every character available in the previous games bc I was interested in what it added to their story. I'm not interested in a Disney-style character's "preferences". Also, the elves in Veilguard look way too human (their physique). I know, I know, they looked different in every game, but this is just another thing adding to the already poor character design. And bring back the damn desire demons!

Oh, I loved Sera, Cass, and Josie from Inquisition. The Veilguard cast is well....kinda on the fugly side. What's most offensive though is the downgrade of the Qunari from iconic badassery to looking like basic humans with bad prosthetic makeup. They had the look exactly right in Trespasser, especially the female Qunari. Sera agrees. Why did they have to eff with it? All that could be forgiven but the seemingly dumbed-down single-player combat system may be a deal-breaker. They had this right with Baldur's Gate 2. Controlling the companions is an absolute must. The sad thing is, there is a version of that game that exists that we won't be getting because it tested poorly with whatever spergs they chose to preview it. This game is fixable. They fixed fugly Morrigan in Inquisition after the preview before the game's release. They can move some pixels around in the characters' visages and revert to the original existing combat system. Sad thing is, I wasn't a fan of turn-based combat and have yet to get Baldur's Gate 3, looking forward to Dreadwolf which promised to have something remotely similar to the combat dynamics of Dragon Ages 1-3. This is a step too far in the opposite direction. I'm not trying to talk trash. I write because I care.

It's interesting that you say fans of certain franchises don't attack each other over what games are better. I strongly disagree. I am a Fallout fan and the New Vegas fans definitely attack everyone else. The interplay Fallout fans go after the Bethesda Fallout fans as well. I am a Dragon Age fan and I've seen the Origins fans go after the newer fans as well but not like the Fallout guys do. I am also a Halo fan. The Bungie Halo fans can be very toxic towards the 343 Halo fans.

There's controversy is, in part, because of the simplification YET AGAIN to the Dragon Age more tactical approach to combat and the RPG elements from DAI. It same happened with DA2's combat from DAO, because "you gotta press a button and something awesome has to happen!" mentality that Bioware thought that's what we wanted from the sequel(s). Now with DA4 they strayed away not only in the combat department but also in the RPG department, which is very sad to see. The one thing they are trying to capture is to make the whole cast of companions able to be romanced by the player character (in BG3's fashion), but I feel like they will fail in that, because to go that route you need to have good writers and Bioware hasn't had those in quite a while. When your main Dragon age writer/universe creator leaves the company you know you done screwed up (David Gaider) royally. That's why I don't have any faith that they will pull this off like BG3 has. Regarding the standards of beauty that you said in the video I 100% agree with you. There isn't ONE single companion female companion that one can take a glance at and say "my isn't she gorgeous". Maybe I'm off base with this, but the men also look like slender androgynous pretty boys and not a single one is a "man's man" (rough around the edges, grizzled, stoic..your Iron Bull / Blackwall's of the world). DAI had no better with Sara looking ugly and Cassandra had that tomboy'ish look about her that some find attractive, but I only compromised because I had to choose between her and Sara (I consider her one of the worst companions ever created and obnoxious through and through so much that I barely took her with me during my playthrough). No point talking about the BG3 combat vs DA4 because we all know who is head and shoulders above the other...in terms of creativity and freedom of how you approach combat. These are my 2 cents on the matter.

I was with you untill you said Josephine isn’t conventionally attractive, she literally looks like a princess

Idk in BG3 I don't think any of the female companions are conveniently attractive either. Shart is the closest to being attractive, but let's be honest those bangs aren't doing her any justice. She's called shart for a reason. Thank god for mods.

The interesting thing about a fantasy adventure removing conventionally beautiful / attractive idealized characters is that it makes a key component of a fantasy adventure mundane... and no one buys a fantasy adventure game for the mundane. IMO the only people who demand the ordinary and mundane in games are political activists, not game players. That this wasn't learned after Mass Effect Andromeda is astounding.

Dragon Age: The Panguard

Cassandra is really beautiful though. She has the facial features of a model, don't know why you don't consider her conventionally attractive. Maybe because of her short hair?

Frankly, I don't care much about the looks of your companions, but rather the artstyle that makes them look cartoony and weird. But it's true that things like desire demon not being present makes the overall world look more childlish than is should be. Demons are supposed to be the manifestation of the worst emotion of humans, and desire is a part of that. And Harding, I don't know, I don't see her worse than she was before, she never stood out to me as an "atractive" character. I think people are focusing on nonesense, when the reality is that those things never made DA great. As an example, Stellar Blade have basically sex dolls in their games, yet the characters are just terrible, boring and bland. It's still too early to judge the game, because we didn't see anything yet, the gamplay reveal was just the tutorial, played on easy mode by someone who didn't seem to know how to play the game. We should wait more to see how things develop. But the thing I care about the most is the world and the story, which is what made DA great in the first place. And for those who miss the style of the first game, well, I'm sorry, but that ended 15 years ago already.

I blame EA for nothing. EA is like a lion that tears apart the gazelle - nobody blames the lion. It does what is in it's nature, as does EA. BioWare shopped for potential buyers. The owners (at that time) could've elected to sell to a company that would let BioWare do it's thing without much interference. I cannot divulge how, but I know this for a fact. Therefore, I blame the owners of BioWare who elected to choose the largest financial offer over a company that would let BioWare run more autonomously. The former owners are are to blame, because they fed their IP to the lion.

I'm 52, and had experienced and enjoyed (with some exceptions) almost every game Bioware has made, and at this point, I just feel disappointed with the course they have taken, all this "modern audience" crap is not just damaging games and all media, but society as a whole. Companies pretend to cram everyone under the same umbrella, rejecting and condemning those who have a different opinion, while at the same time talking about celebrating so-called inclusion and diversity, it's insane and plain sheer hypocrisy.

Personally attacking and or hating the og fans is a sign of weakness from the new normies and not being disciplined by parents ☝️

They could have made a Qunari like the ones in Dragon age 2 , red eyes , menacing looking semi undead vibe but instead went for a dragqueen of the Qun ... dude the concept artists should be fired. I will play the Veilguard but it is a shame to see what they have put together in various areas of design after 10 years.

Weird take on attractiveness. Cassandra is and has always meant to be "conventionally attractive", she just has a few scars and short hair. She has super model physiognomy. We can say the same about Josephine, i dont know how you can suggest she is less attractive than Zhevran. She's attractive, she's just not white and has a distinctive style fashion style representative of Antiva. Merril was cute because of her personality, but i'd actually argue she's the ugliest of romantic interests in terms "conventional attractiveness". I disagree that "coventionaly" means white woman and booba. Also Harding is much more attractive than in Inquisition, and looks like an attractive white woman, just dwarf. You really need to drop the authoritative tone when talking about your personal subjective preferences. Because not only is this an unpopular opinion also just wrong when you want to make statements about "conventional" attractiveness. Also desire demons of Origins is not at all what David Gaider had in mind. The writers didnt like them and it was an artist mistake and misinterpretation of the lore. Also Inquisition cartoony artstyle? Having vibrant colors instead of drab colors doesnt make it cartoony. The artstyle was clearly on the realistic style, DA2 was "cartoony".

Thank you for putting my feelings into words. I get so frustrated trying to express my disappointment. God... Thirty years of being a Bioware fan and we are treated like rodents. I can't even stand the look of it because it is so far removed from anything I fell in love with in the first place. I'd love to hear your full thesis on the subject though. lol. Imagine, getting all of this bull out in the open.

It's the EA plants in BioWare like Mike Gamble that ensure enshiftification. Everything that guy touches turns brown. Servitude to shareholders alone leads to unhinged concepts considered legitimate. Sadly, buying this apparent tripe only encourages the bean counters who aren't gamers of anything beyond the boardroom politics. Losing Drew and hampering Mac in favour of kool-aid hair Hugo Award hijackers is key in this downfall. Failure to invest in and refine RPG mechanics by choosing to idiotproof simplify means no one wants to play unless it feeds their ego echo chamber like a drug addict who cannot accept their involuntary substance servitude. I wrote off BioWare after Andromeda. Doubt the flop of Veilguard will wisen anyone there up. It's over. Some other group needs to pick up after DAO

Great video. Though I think beauty is subjective.

Well, let's just say I hope there is someone in the modding community who can make a mod that allows the player base to modify the looks of companions. What I fear most, though, are loyalty missions that pertain to touchy-feely past relationship garbage instead of ones that flesh out what is happening in the world around them for lore purposes. The modding community can't fix that. Other than a lack of character loveliness, I'm not a fan of RGB bling or 'stream-lining' the combat. I really enjoyed setting up tactical behaviors for my companions in DA: Origins. What's left? Story. Origins had a great story. BioWare lost a lot of writers leading up to Veilguard. That tells me the new BioWare is no longer stressing its written world-building, and has sold its soul to action roleplaying. Gut-based personal opinion, maybe the original devs left because they were fed up with EA, but the people who were 'let go' might have disagreed with Corinne Buche's direction. Maybe they held Biblical views. Can't have that! Bottom line, I will play it to see how the story plays out and hope the proceeds go towards ME5 development. I pray all the negative fallout from DA:TV gets addressed prior to more development on the new Mass Effect world.

VEILJUMPER HERP DERP, I dont remember the veil being a place were you had fun.

They put all info but no gameplay... strange... very strange...

Very good video and I totally agree that old fans of dragon age shouldn't be vilified for having their opinions and discussions, however the same is true the other way around, people who have good things to say about this game shouldn't be vilified either, from some of the older fans or old guard I am part of the older gamers and have passed dragon age origins like over 20 times and dragon age 2 like 12 times, dragon age 3 inquisition twice, and that's mainly because unfortunately a lot of that game was filled a lot of repetitive tasks and chores, but I am definitely looking forward to dragon age veilguard because it is going for a more linear, hand crafted and compact experience with branching paths here and there, also this is a very dark game, I have seen screenshots off it and there is also a lot of blood too, not to mention people that have actually played parts of the game said the same For me it's day one Good day/evening

Idk about that no attractive women in Inquisition comment man... Josephine was a baddie. Hell, even if she's not exactly the generic conventional attractive you're talking about, for those of us who like athletic women Cassandra is also a baddie.

You only have to go the Dragon Age reddit to see this. The modern day Bioware fan does not care about anything other than what character they can have a romance with and are make excuses for why people have opposite opinions. They are completely delusional and unfortunately these are the people that Bioware listen to.

Let's not rewrite history. I came in with Oblivion. Morrowind fans were and still are notoriously toxic towards other entries in the series. Especially oblivion at that time when I was a middle schooler. That's how I first heard the term 'Dumbed down." Skyrim had people sending Todd death threats on the old forums. It's always been crazy toxic in rpg fanbases. Just now everyone can see it in every space not just whatever forums the game is tied too and it's been that way since HS. (reddit, Twitter etc.)

corporations don't make games, they never have, people do, when the corpo-rats shred the talent, the quality comes down, you can't expect the same quality, corporations are inherently psycopathic

I agree with alot of your thoughts, but we won’t see BG3’s effect on games for few years(due to the long development cycles) I am still anticipating the release, i prefer action combat. Honestly a 7/10 game is the higest hopes i have for it. I’m just glad it isn’t a multiplayer game

Sword and board black twink elf warden. I said enough.

I hate the loss of conventional beauty. Its honestly one of the main things that turn me off of new games. The writing seems to suck in everything these days too, but i dont want to look at / romance, ugly NPCs.

Dude you had me with you until you started talking about none of the companions in DA:I or DA:tV being conventionally attractive. Sera isn’t, sure, but JOSEPHINE isn’t? NEVE isn’t? Idk what tree you’re barking up. And how the heck isn’t Scout Harding attractive, that’s a bizarre take. The trailer wasn’t kind to Taash, though. I can agree with you there.

For me "Veilguard" is like the end of an era. Or rather, this is where I truly internalized something that already happened awhile back. It will be the first Bioware game (aside from Anthem, but that doesn't count) I don't plan to buy on release, and maybe not at all.

How do you not think Bellara is conventionally attractive 😭😭😭 bro what

I agreed with everything you said until you said Harding was made less attractive. That's just not true. She used to have a characteristically dwarven, bulbous nose but now she looks like a model, a small sized model.

Fans of older Elder Scrolls games are *absolutely* attacking Skyrim fans.

Speaking from a marketing perspective, it would appear to make sense for games to churn out 11/10 characters all over the place - just look at the fantasy novel displays anywhere. But in the current western market, there's significant enough distortion by ESG ratings, as well as interference from woke ideologues, that this trend is reversing. I think Inquisition has attractive characters, and more importantly, well designed ones with fitting and memorable aesthetics. It's similar to BG3 in that regard. There would be no problem if I could believe that a game's aesthetics are purely a result of artistic direction, but there's always other forces at work that give rise to gamer cynicism.

They’re proud of all their characters and relationships you can have but why would anyone want to romance any of them when they’re ugly

You kinda sound like the malkavian primarch from vampire the masquerade : bloodlines. thumbs up!

My bet is that it will be a dogfart.

I'll wait to see what the game has to offer once it releases. If the gameplay is solid and the story is good I'll play it. The art style doesn't bother me too much as Dragon Age never had a definitive style.

What a travesty this whole thing has become.

I freaking love inquisition. Went back and played dragon age 2. People were overly harsh for a decent game. Then played origins, but i modded it as some of the visuals were scuffed for me. Made it worse got about a third into the game before it crashed. Never finished it. But i can see why people love it. That said, inquisition really is my go to game to replay. As for the ladies of inquisition, lady montilie was cute to me. Loved her and her personality. Cassandra wasnt bad either. Liliana was aslo still pretty. Her heart shaped face untouched.

People seem to be more worried about who they can romance and how sexual relationships can be I don’t get why people are so caught up on that aspect. I actual want a really good story and great combat to go with it and more than just three abilities at a time.

About the beautiful characters thing, I think the way I'd frame it is more around interesting looking characters. You don't necessarily want all beautiful characters, but you probably do want them to all to look interesting, appealing (even if ugly) and memorable. I suspect that this is typically achieved when a character has a clear creative direction and the devs are allowed to push that direction to form something that both looks and feels like a character with real "character". With a lot of the characters, and I'm particularly thinking back to my Inquisition playthrough, they all seem to be "safe". Sure they have some personality differences and visual looks but all the corners are rounded off and pulled back to a safe middle ground. None of the characters felt like they had traits that were sharp enough to put you on one side or the other on. They were all middle ground and lame. Compare it to BG3 and I find that everyone has an opinion on every character because they have enough there for you to love or hate them rather than feeling totally neutral. Think the closest Inquisition came to a non conventionally attractive but interesting looking character was the elf girl but too bad her writing kind of sucked. I'd be happy with non attractive characters as long as they were fun to look at and interact with.

Dragon Age: Oil of Olaz

Is anyone else just feeling very pessimistic about the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect? It seems the BioWare magic is gone.

The way I cringed when you got to the attraction part lol you had me up to that point and then it just sounded like you're complaining that your video game characters don't look like barbies. IMO Harding looks better now than in Inquisition lmao, she didn't even have a custom mesh in that game they just used the CC for her. I also don't know who in their right mind doesn't consider Josephine conventionally attractive.

Shitload of hype = piss poor and broken game. Just wait and see

Remember when bioware was labelled the king of rpg's. I simply think bioware infected itself due to bad hiring practices and consulting firms just like all AAA studios.

The streamlining is pointed at EA because they did the same thing with Madden decades ago. Stripping out features. And football games were a captured audience with almost no competition.

Hudson left Bioware on December 3, 2020, so don't expect anything different from Veilguard to Mass Effect 4...

It's funny how one of your gripes was the attractiveness of women in-game. They look pretty fine to me and more diverse-looking as is it in real life. If you want to copy and paste, it will be a boring and bleak future for RPGs. It's important to strive for the same success as BG but it's also important that you should distinguish yourself from others as well.

Well said. I like how you went over conventional beauty in games and specifically with Dragon Age over the years (you could’ve included pictures of women in Inquisition to compare since you displayed Origins character design) I for one loved dragon age and since I haven’t beaten inquisition but I have all the others I realized something. I know that it most likely is due to the fact that’s when BioWare started their decline towards seeking broader appeal with more “normal” looking people instead of attractive character designs (before DEI/ESG was really a thing) and gain fans from that crowd; maybe with good intentions at first, but now it’s been swaying towards more vilified division in hopes they sell more copies.

I was originally planning to buy a new PC just to play the new DA game, so stoked was I. After seeing the choice of male LIs though, I will pass... It makes me quite sad as I've loved the franchise from DA:O. There used to be really handsome characters whom I adored (and continue to do so). Zevran, Alistair, Teagan, Cailan in DA:O, then Fenris, Anders, Carver, and canon Hawke in DA2, then Dorian in Inquisition... And now there is none in Veilguard. Well, fortunately there are other games whose creators understand that a big part of a game's appeal for a large number of players is based on the attractiveness of NPC companions. Games like BG3 or WOTR offer at least one classically handsome male LI available for romancing either a male or female player character. So, yeah, I'll still buy that new PC... but to play BG3. To this day, I think that the handsomest character in a game ever is Iorveth from Witcher 2. Disfigured by a horrible injury that had taken his eye and left him with an angry scar across his cheek and lips, his face nonetheless remained stunningly beautiful. Chiseled features, an intense green eye whose look could steal your soul, a body to die for, a voice that could sound harsh or soft depending on his mood - this elf owned the screen. Sadly, none of the companions introduced in The Veilguard trailer have that kind of presence, not even remotely so.

Idk, I feel like for me everyone being conventionally attractive takes away from the narrative. It just makes it feel plastic. But I'm also not attracted to conventional beauty so that might play into it.

I have replayed da1 several times and da2 twice. For dai I only played it again to get the few achievements i missed. In the end i liked the janky da1 gameplay over the other two.

I know a decent of people thought the bg3 characters were not attractive so I find it kinda interesting that was one of your examples but a lot of people did like shadowheart

If you are a fan of the manufacturer and not the product. Fanatics of the manufacturer will justifiably attack you. If you are a fan of a product then fans of the manufacturer have no grounds to attack you. For you didn't declare yourself a fan of the manufacturer.

The part about companions not adhering to traditional beauty standards is the thing that puts me off the most about this game. It was the same for me for Inquisition. I can accept the new art style, since good characters are still possible within a new art style. But this insistence on having no beautiful companions gives the impression that these companions will be boring. I was so excited when I heard Scout Harding will be a companion (I wanted her as a companion in Inquisition really bad!) but they messed up her design.

Your thoughts and logic were explained and executed very well with a fair amount of tact and blunt honesty, great video I’ve never seen your stuff before but that was an instant subscribe for me.

regarding attractive companions, they also fuck up their personalities. They are both unconvetionaly attractive and their personalities are ass. In BG3 you have conventionally attractive characters with poor personality (shadowheart), unconventional attractive character with great personalities (karlach) and ugly and bad personality (at first) (lae'zel). They give you options on what you want. And yeah they cant have a conventional attractive and good personality companion, or no one would play with the others. Still Karlach is the best, no need to reply.

I would be excited if they would actually show off this amazing new gameplay and cool features, but BioWare is just giving us the Fable treatment.