Dragon Age 4 is up to a bad start

[Nurasu]

I respectfully disagree. They might be hiring a few token "im totes LGBT lookit my pink hair!" radfem writers to work on mainstream content, but it's painfully obvious that no one with a real, grounded connection to the LGBT community is actually working on the LGBT characters in game.

They've gotten accolades from the Human Rights Campaign for almost a decade, and Bioware itself does have more LGBT staff and writers than most. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't part of the community.

And I think that is an actual issue. They are trying to cater to the fringe lot of the whole LGBT community, and not the majority of them. Because they don't actually have any actual LGBT representation. All of the LGBT friends are normal and down to earth (I doubt i would associate with them if they were not), and even they think shit like the whole BF5 fiasco and the need to force representation is stupid.

How do you know what the majority is? For both of you, fem hate isn't a good look when preaching acceptance.

[Jshadowhunter]

Origin's gameplay wouldn't appeal to the masses.

Nobody's asking to go back to the combat of Origins, DA2 improved it but it also made it too actiony and removed the tactical view.
Meanwhile, Inquisition pulled a stupid move where you had to hold down a button in order to auto-attack...

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How do you know what the majority is? For both of you, fem hate isn't a good look when preaching acceptance.

Lack of context isn't a good and only breeds misinformation.
BF5 isn't getting major flak because women are in it, but because in the story mode they're put in situations where they were never present in reality.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Nobody's asking to go back to the combat of Origins

Think about what you just said based and the comment I quoted.

[szechuan]

Lack of context isn't a good and only breeds misinformation.
BF5 isn't getting major flak because women are in it

Part of it Always was because it was Women.

but because in the story mode they're put in situations where they were never present in reality.

They should of stuck with real Female Soldier's Stories.

[Rendark]

What game Could possibly have good story telling Is w3 is meh..? It has game od thrones level writing and characters, while you may not love the overarching story, the character and human moments are second to non and only really matched by' the last of us'.

I've watched maybe four episodes of game of thrones and i didn't like it

As for Witcher 3 most of the characters are really good even if 95% of them are returning characters you are expected to know. The only one i didn't like was Geralt him self. He is so boring and feels like a fanfic character. The story it self was fine until they added alternate universes then it went to shit. The side quests are way better.

[Nurasu]

Lack of context isn't a good and only breeds misinformation.
BF5 isn't getting major flak because women are in it, but because in the story mode they're put in situations where they were never present in reality.

I agree BF5 is a pretty major mistake for the authenticity of the franchise. But Lobo asked for proof that EA has more than "token gay people", I provided it, but apparently they're too gay. The lack of context is the rest of the conversation - I'm not trying to apply it to some grand scheme.

[derpkitteh]

Origin's gameplay wouldn't appeal to the masses.

i mean, i'd be more than happy with inquisition gameplay and origins storytelling.

inquisition definitely was not even remotely as in depth as origins, but as long as they fucking bring healing back(i was so pissed about the lack of a healer option), i'd be fine.

[MrPaladinGuy]

They don’t need to do much to keep the Origin fan’s happy.

I mostly mean that since EA controls them they're going to appeal to as many people as they can so another Skyrim clone is what they'd aim for instead of something like Origins.

[Leih]

Quite enjoyed Dragon Age Inqusition. After the travesty that was Dragon Age 2, it was a huge step in the right direction.

[-aiko-]

i mean, i'd be more than happy with inquisition gameplay and origins storytelling.

This has always confused me. Origins had a very generic fantasy story, that wasn't really fleshed out until the DLCs and later games. I would never use storytelling as a selling point for DA:O. The characters were well-written, but the overall story and world were pretty bland imo. I would sell Origins on the gameplay, customization, characters and party banter. Great game in that regard.

DA2 was...meh. It did some solid world building but was overall just a Dragon Age best forgotten.

DA:I was kind of the opposite of Origins. I feel like the gameplay, while more accessible was a lot less engaging and fun. The world building was incredible though and they really made things like the Chantry feel more real, along with the Wardens and how they structured and seen by society. The main story was pretty boring as well though, until Trespasser. Trespasser was the absolute high point of Dragon Age storytelling.

[Zogarth]

How do you know what the majority is? For both of you, fem hate isn't a good look when preaching acceptance.

Because the majority of human beings tend to be normal. The ones trying to push extremist agendas, tend to be minority. Pushing acceptance and pushing a forced agenda where you are the villain for not being "woke" enough it not the same. It is the difference between recognizing trans people and their right, and complaining about calling kids he/she before they are old enough to "decide their gender". Or deciding that your kid is trans because he likes dolls when he is 5. And for the forced representation part... why not show the russians snipers? Or some of the other heroic women on BF5? Why twist actual history to fit an agenda? It just makes no sense, it is forced. Add to that the whole rewriting history, and it gets bad. But I doubt there would have been any backlash if they had either not based it on real history, and then rewritten it, or just taken one of the actual WW2 situations with women being badass.

This has always confused me. Origins had a very generic fantasy story, that wasn't really fleshed out until the DLCs and later games. I would never use storytelling as a selling point for DA:O. The characters were well-written, but the overall story and world were pretty bland imo. I would sell Origins on the gameplay, customization, characters and party banter. Great game in that regard.

DA2 was...meh. It did some solid world building but was overall just a Dragon Age best forgotten.

DA:I was kind of the opposite of Origins. I feel like the gameplay, while more accessible was a lot less engaging and fun. The world building was incredible though and they really made things like the Chantry feel more real, along with the Wardens and how they structured and seen by society. The main story was pretty boring as well though, until Trespasser. Trespasser was the absolute high point of Dragon Age storytelling.

I think it is because DA:O had a lot of decisions to be made, some really extreme, and some more minor, but it felt like you had a lot of agency. I do agree that the story was in essence extremely simple, but the fact that you could affect it a lot mattered. I also happened to like the characters more, so I guess that added to my personal enjoyment.

[Derah]

I will never understand these unpleasable morons who bash at things just for the sake of bashing them.

Dragon Age 2 was fine.

Dragon Age Inquisition was fine.

You wanna look at an example of a shitty game that isn't worth playing, look at Fallout 76, or No Man's Sky, or Ride to Hell:Retribution. THOSE are bad games.

Bioware being more inclusive isn't a problem, it never was a problem with mass effect, it never was a problem with dragon age, and it never will be a problem with their games.

A lot of folks are grasping at straws in an effort to make their games seem worse than what they are, just because they hate inclusivity, but can't complain about it without outing themselves as nazi-wanna-be bigots.

Yes Dragon Age 2 had a lot of flaws, but at the end of it all, I was glad I played it, I had fun with it, Varric was amazing, and Sarcastic Hawke may just be the best protagonist in a bioware game thus far. Flemeth's cameo was pretty damned good, and Anders' betrayal at the end was a massive plot twist. Sure, the limited environments, and inexcusable prop-recycling as well as the dumbed down combat and insipid UI were sore points. The story admittedly wasn't as good as Origins, and yes, other RPG giants released at around the same time, like Skyrim, and Witcher 2 were VASTLY superior. But Dragon Age 2 was still an above-average game, whose only crime was that it was inferior to Origins.

Same with Inquisition. Excellent gameplay, stunning visuals, great soundtrack, and writing that oscillates between mediocre and amazing. Some parts of the story had me snoozing, while others had me by the edge of my seat. I think Inquisition's biggest problem was its villain. Teryrn Loghain and The Illusive Man are easily the two damned best villains Bioware has ever made, and finding someone who can fill out their shoes is not easy. But this doesn't mean Inquisition was a bad game. Far from it, it was, by EVERY SINGLE METRIC IMAGINABLE, a very successful game, it obtained high scores across the board, it sold well, its remembered fondly by the players, SPECIALLY when they released Tresspasser, easily one of the best DLCs bioware has ever made, right up there with Lair of the Shadow Broker, and Citadel for Mass Effect 2 and 3 respectively.

Just because YOU didn't like it, doesn't mean everyone else did.

While I'm at it, even Mass Effect Andromeda wasn't as bad as such a large segment of the internet want others to believe. Yes, it was a stepdown from the original trilogy. The soundtrack was nowhere near as good, the writing was inferior, the villains in particular were REALLY a step down from the reapers and saren and the illusive man, and it was released in an inexcusably buggy state that took months to patch out.

So? its still not as bad as others want to paint it as.It was an average game, that had the misfortune of releasing in a month with three extraordinarily good games to compete with (Nier Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Zelda Breath of the Wild) and was inferior to the trilogy that preceded it.

This alone does not a bad game makes. Again, to look at an example of an actual bad game, look at Fallout 76.

TL;DR: Bioware has always been about inclusivity. Their games have been successful despite or because of it, and if their last game wasn't as successful as the rest of their otherwise extraordinary career, it was NOT because they were "SJWs". Whatever the fuck that means.

[dope_danny]

You know what's funny? They are probably the company that's get shit on the most for not being inclusive enough.

You can never please the moral outrage crowd. Its not about "being better" or whatever "narrative signal boosting" they are at this time. Its about a smug feeling that lets them feel being woker than thou and you knowing and recognising they are higher on the pyramid of wokedom. Companies like Bioware can desperately try and end up with shit in andromeda like "HELLO I AM TRANS, BEEP BOOP TRANSBOT OPERATION RUNNING. FORGET TALKING LIKE REAL PEOPLE I AM MANIC PIXIE TRANS GIRL WHO IS MEETING YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME AND TRANS PEOPLE DONT BEHAVE LIKE NORMAL HUMANS BEEP BOP BOP" because they have no concept of subtlety as many of younger writers treat fiction like a vector for their soapbox and they are about to let you know how it all really is because like a tween with a myspace blog or a flat earthers youtube thesis they have the true secret knowledge we sheeple lack and with outrage culture you have to keep chasing the woke dragon because if you dont meet the ever shifting standards that will never be good enough and they turn on and cannibalise each other because "the worst traitors of all are those that dare to disbelieve" combined with "no bad tactics, only bad targets". The moment 'good video game' became a secondary objective to brownie points with the woke cult was the moment bioware started to go down the toilet.

And comparatively then you have fantastic games like The Missing by Swery that deals with things like transgender characters and shock of shocks they are treated like human beings and not, ironically considering bioware, fucking elves out of middle earth with a toxic hair colour or something and lo and behold they work because they aren't tokens for brownie points at best. But thats the difference when companies want to tell a story versus a company that i have no doubt thinks minority character=total AT field to defend against criticism because now you can call anyone who dares to besmirch your projects name a bigot. Anyone who thinks EA hasn't been riding that train this entire gen is ironically not 'woke' to the cynical corporate bullshit that sees an easy, volatile crowd of free brand defenders to hide behind. Just remember to get your season pass and funpay minibuys, wouldn't want to look like a bigot would you?

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Because the majority of human beings tend to be normal. The ones trying to push extremist agendas, tend to be minority. Pushing acceptance and pushing a forced agenda where you are the villain for not being "woke" enough it not the same. It is the difference between recognizing trans people and their right, and complaining about calling kids he/she before they are old enough to "decide their gender". Or deciding that your kid is trans because he likes dolls when he is 5. And for the forced representation part... why not show the russians snipers? Or some of the other heroic women on BF5? Why twist actual history to fit an agenda? It just makes no sense, it is forced. Add to that the whole rewriting history, and it gets bad. But I doubt there would have been any backlash if they had either not based it on real history, and then rewritten it, or just taken one of the actual WW2 situations with women being badass.


I think it is because DA:O had a lot of decisions to be made, some really extreme, and some more minor, but it felt like you had a lot of agency. I do agree that the story was in essence extremely simple, but the fact that you could affect it a lot mattered. I also happened to like the characters more, so I guess that added to my personal enjoyment.

The normal ones bitch about things like tracers being gay or clementine having the choice to be gay or straight in the walking dead... You know a story driven game that takes the players choices into account. The vast majority of SJW are probably white dude in sheer number but by percentage of population it's probably different. History has been twisted to fit an agenda for a long time. Movies parody history all the time. Cinema would be bland if everyone had to follow history to a T. I don't care about people twisting history or using alternative timelines it happens in gaming all the time but you attach women to it and everyone gets triggered.

It we'll always be one of the weakest criticism of all time. There is an enormous amount of what if Hilter won type material or what if was assassinate but adds womynz n it's bad.

[Zogarth]

The normal ones bitch about things like tracers being gay or clementine having the choice to be gay or straight in the walking dead... You know a story driven game that takes the players choices into account. The vast majority of SJW are probably white dude in sheer number but by percentage of population it's probably different. History has been twisted to fit an agenda for a long time. Movies parody history all the time. Cinema would be bland if everyone had to follow history to a T. I don't care about people twisting history or using alternative timelines it happens in gaming all the time but you attach women to it and everyone gets triggered.

It we'll always be one of the weakest criticism of all time. There is an enormous amount of what if Hilter won type material or what if was assassinate but adds womynz n it's bad.

Replacing characters in an actual war that happened, in actual event that happened, to suit some kind of agenda, whatever it may be, is extremely disrespectful and cruel to the legacy of the men and women who gave their life. Ask yourself this, would there have been a huge backlash if they told the story of the female russian snipers, but they made them all men? Of course there would be. Whitewashing in the movie industry has been frowned upon for years now, And all those "what if" stories that are made up, and even the cast majority of war movies clearly state that they are fictional, they are purposefully made fictional. But if you base it actual history, market it as being based on actual history, tell everyone it is based on actual history, and then twist and rewrite it, people get pissed. If they had just said "here are a bunch of cool campaigns, have fun", no one would give a shit if there were women or men in them. And i am sorry about whoever you associate with, for you to find it normal that people bitch about tracer or other fictional characters being gay, especially in games where you make them by choice.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They don’t need to do much to keep the Origin fan’s happy.



^ This optional thing right here, would be a great start, and I don’t mean one of those dumbed down version they give us from there on…

That was one of the main problems I had with inquisition I like to just control my main guy and set tactics for the rest of the party and the inquisition tacitics sucked.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Replacing characters in an actual war that happened, in actual event that happened, to suit some kind of agenda, whatever it may be, is extremely disrespectful and cruel to the legacy of the men and women who gave their life. Ask yourself this, would there have been a huge backlash if they told the story of the female russian snipers, but they made them all men? Of course there would be. Whitewashing in the movie industry has been frowned upon for years now, And all those "what if" stories that are made up, and even the cast majority of war movies clearly state that they are fictional, they are purposefully made fictional. But if you base it actual history, market it as being based on actual history, tell everyone it is based on actual history, and then twist and rewrite it, people get pissed. If they had just said "here are a bunch of cool campaigns, have fun", no one would give a shit if there were women or men in them. And i am sorry about whoever you associate with, for you to find it normal that people bitch about tracer or other fictional characters being gay, especially in games where you make them by choice.

Its not at all movies do it all the time with alternative timelines and such. It's a historical event but we change them in cinema all the time. just nah people would have bitched cause things changes. Tracers and Clementine are two perfect examples. There will be people who bitch regardless about certain changes to games and I just can't be hypocrite about it. Yea but that's because people are hypocrites which was my point.

Wolfestein II is a great example of just totally misrepresenting history but almost nobody cared. The main character of Wolfenstein doesn't exist in history period but nobody fucking cares.

Once again Clementine romance options and tracer being homosexual are two good examples. They were handled perfectly in my opinion. You have to go outside of the game to find about 90% of the characters romances in Overwatch. Except Windowmaker because her romance is important to the story. Clementine had a gay romance option in a player choice and story driven game where her father nor lee forced any relationship expectations on to her. and that triggered people.

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That was one of the main problems I had with inquisition I like to just control my main guy and set tactics for the rest of the party and the inquisition tacitics sucked.

Dragon Age 2 was worse the AI had actual downs.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Dragon Age 2 was worse the Ai had actual downs.

At some point I need to play 2 for my perfect world state having heard nothing good about it I expect it to be painful.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

At some point I need to play 2 for my perfect world state having heard nothing good about it I expect it to be painful.

Nah playing with Ai at the start on the higher difficulties it's hard it just playing around the sheer retardation of the AI.

[Cosmic Janitor]

i mean, i'd be more than happy with inquisition gameplay and origins storytelling.

inquisition definitely was not even remotely as in depth as origins, but as long as they fucking bring healing back(i was so pissed about the lack of a healer option), i'd be fine.

Hmm if you mean more branching options and cases, then I'd agree. Otherwise I think DA:I had a fairly similar complexity. You could maybe argue that the characters back then were a tad bit more memorable, but that is mostly down to them having to serve you up a new roster of (somewhat) likable achetypes every time. Characters like cassandra just didn't do it for me because because she was just another strong woman with a soft core cliche, just this time she had the ass of a brewery horse.