#(Not changing the character tag though) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

casino-lights · 1 month ago

Text

so we have confirmation that veilguard was made in a year and a half. that's understandably such a time crunch and must have put unimaginable stress on the dev team, especially with the mass effect team coming in partway through. I do have empathy for the writers. no one deserves to lose their job at a time like this, especially not after such a roller coaster of a development cycle and after working on this series for so many years.

however.

obsidian made kotor 2, a game praised for its writing and many fans' favorite of the pair, in 14 months. they then proceeded to make fallout: new vegas, again praised for its writing and hailed as a shining example of video game storytelling, in 18 months. a lot of content was ultimately cut from both of these games, but in kotor's case, it was lovingly added back in by fans over the years despite not being especially easy to mod because the fans were so passionate about what they already had that they wanted to enhance it. these games are both known to be kinda janky as well. but the games at their core have satisfying stories, characters, and an incredible overall narrative that feels satisfying and fits with their respective universes, maintains respect for the established lore and characters, and is tonally consistent with the atmosphere and themes of previous games. hell, dragon age 2 was also made in about the same time frame based on what I could find, and as much as the assets were reused there and it could be occasionally glitchy, it remains one of the best bioware narratives with some of their most memorable characters, and it accomplished that while both keeping to the lore and vibe of the dragon age series AND expanding it into new territory.

I am aware that there are differences like engines, era, expectations, pushes from management, etc, but I'm mostly focusing on the writing and the narrative team's priorities. I wouldn't care if they reused assets to save time and money. I wouldn't care if a couple side quests had to go, or some character arcs were a little less polished, or some side characters were cut entirely. honestly I would have preferred it if some of the characters WERE cut entirely. if you're just going to spit on all of her character development, don't bring morrigan back. cut some of that banter in the lighthouse and let me talk to my companions properly. cut that goddamn arena and put those resources toward fleshing out the lords of fortune. even if the rest of the team wanted that entire faction cut so they could focus on other things, cut the fucking faction.

I will never apologize for rightfully criticizing the choices the writers made while making this game. the game talks to you - both you as the player AND you as the character - like you're stupid. repeating things over and over again just to make sure you Really Get It, dumbing down so many aspects of its own lore, reducing any kind of conflict to therapy speak or an HR meeting, etc. rook has no characterization to speak of and their dialogue and tone is wildly inconsistent depending on which npc you're speaking to at the time. why is rook clever enough to do playful, flirty hunter/prey banter with davrin but also too awkward to properly flirt with harding? the one canonically nonbinary neurodivergent companion frequently expresses themselves by growling and roaring and their individuality and competency are repeatedly undermined by their own writer's narrative decisions and banter. the game disregards its own lore and at times straight up contradicts itself. it's pretty, but lacks substance, and fails to live up to the standards a lot of us had for a dragon age game.

I won't pretend I know everything that went on behind the scenes but I think a year and a half is more than enough time to write a better narrative than what we got, even with some pushback from another dev team. I've seen countless thinkpieces by fans who have come up with solutions for plot holes and fixes for the overall narrative, and these are people who came up with this stuff in a matter of a few days or weeks, or sometimes just a few hours. you can't blame me for thinking veteran bioware writers - who SHOULD know their own lore by now - could have come up with something better than this in that amount of time, regardless of the limitations. choices were made and things were prioritized that shouldn't have been. I do not forgive the writers, EA, or bioware execs for this, and I will continue to criticize the responsible parties for the product we were sold, which includes criticizing the writers for shoddy work.

tl;dr: I don't believe the writing team made the best of the time they had and I fault them for that. but maybe that's on me for hoping that a game with its narrative led by weekes and epler would have actually been good in the first place.

#and yes i read the entire article #no it does not change my mind #weekes is number one on my bioware shit list with their fucking writer's pet and what that little bald fuck did to this franchise #but EVERYONE who signed off on this sudden switch to elves being the Best Most Important Race Ever who actually created the world #is on that shit list too #the narrative was so much better when it was more balanced #humans had their society and culture and history and dwarves and elves and qunari all had their own #and they did not make one of them gospel and disprove the others just to prop up some fucking gary stu of a character #anyway #i think this'll be my last veilguard critical post i'm sick of ranting about it and i've said my piece #i'm mourning and moving on.#i wish the animators and artists and programmers and VAs a very good life though they did so well and i mean that earnestly #but fuck the writers and fuck ea and fuck bioware's head honchos who signed off on this #all my love #dragon age: the veilguard #veilguard critical #datv critical #forgot my own tag lmao that's for the best #bioware critical #long post #gracelogs

123 notes · View notes

herearedragons · 2 months ago

Note

would you mind elaborating on edér's writing in deadfire? i don't recall anything really egregious but im not a Pillars Scholar

I am about to turn into an unskippable cutscene.

so there are four parts to my beef with Deadfire Edér, the first being more nebulous and having to do with his Overall Vibe, the second being the orlan racism (we'll get there), the third being the way him being unromanceable was handled (which tbf largely comes from me being disappointed because I, Personally shipped it, but I do have some gripes with how it was executed from a storytelling standpoint), and the fourth being his companion quest, which I think contains the strongest cases of He Would Not Fucking Say That. (if you just want to know what I referred to in the tags of that post, just skip to the fourth point, titled The Companion Quest.)

Deadfire spoilers from this point on. (also SORRY, this is long, you've enabled this, I'm just going to spell out ALL of my beef here so I no longer have to retype it. this is also very biased on account of me preferring POE1 Edér and my specific reading of his character. if you, the person reading this, got something different from this character and prefer it to my vision, cool! you might get some entertainment out of seeing the hole I dug myself into.)

TL;DR I feel like Edér's Deadfire writing had a change in characterization that I didn't enjoy, and that it drops the ball on things that Pillars Of Eternity and The Reaping (Edér's short story) set up in a way that just makes me feel bad.

The Overall Vibe: this is honestly take-it-or-leave-it, but I feel like Deadfire dumbed him down somewhat? like he has great lines still, there are moments where he's shown to be observant and calls people out on their bullshit, but... idk. I feel like the companion and NPCs treat him with much more scorn specifically related to him bring a Dumb Farmer, and the thing is that... it's kind of presented like they're right? There's a Serafen banter where Serafen kind of says that Edér's a no thoughts head empty kind of guy, which... he's not? Or, at least, that's not the kind of person he's been shown to be in POE1 and in his short story (The Reaping). The vibe I got from pre-Deadfire media was that if anything, Edér is an overthinker, constantly questioning the people around him and himself. He has his blind spots, for sure (orlans.), but he's very concerned with doing the right thing, and he can often offer insights into why people act the way they do. He's critical, and he's empathetic, and... that's just not there in Deadfire, because I guess "Edér is your himbo tank buddy" makes for a better punchline. (<- salty)

and this is me getting REALLY petty, but his Deadfire voice being significantly deeper/more gruff doesn't help matters. like, PLEASE, go listen to the audio of him talking about the farmer and his Hollowborn child in POE1, or him saying ANYTHING at all about Woden. You can hear his voice break. You can hear the sincerity and the uncertainty and the anguish. you don't really get that in Deadfire imo

The Orlan Racism: idk, chat, I agree that the guy is weird about orlans, I wish we had any actual dialogue about that instead of just watching him put his foot in his mouth over and over (we'll GET to the rejection dialogue.), but like I think we could do better than this.

my beef isn't with Edér having prejudices, but with the... general way it's handled? his Hiravias banters are probably my favorite Edér Orlan Racism content across both games, because Edér says a stupid thing, gets yelled at by Hiravias, feels bad about it, tries to backtrack, and backpedals right into another microaggression. But also, there's more to his relationship with Hiravias: they chat about their shared experiences with violence, women and recreational drugs, and it sounds like Edér actually kind of relates to him. Not in a deep way, but in the way that lets them trade stories and go "hey, that happened to me too!". This makes me feel like the orlan microaggressions are something that's baked into Edér's cultural background to the point where (as he says himself) he doesn't understand that it's bad, or why Hiravias would take offense. it's funny, right? or it's a compliment? and he feels bad when he realizes that it's not, because that's not what he was trying to convey.

the Serafen banter could *maybe* be chocked down to the same kind of ignorance, but between that and Edér rejecting an orlan Watcher specifically on the grounds of them being an orlan (which from a Doylist perspective is a LIE, by the way)... idk, it feels like it's veering more into "he doesn't see orlans as the same as other kith", which is kind of not the vibe I got in POE1? and it's kind of played as like, well what can you do, he's just ignorant/prejudiced like that, which... feels bad? considering that the Watcher, potentially his best friend and moral compass, could be an orlan? if he was so prejudiced towards orlans, wouldn't he have not put so much stock into them in the first place? also, might be just me, but combined with the "FARMER /derogatory" of it all it almost feels weirdly classist? like, ah yes, the hick farmer is racist, what can we do. he can't possibly learn or have second thoughts about this. he can't possibly rethink that mindset, nevermind that his entire arc up to this point was about his entire worldview being shattered, he's just so set in his ways, you guys! isn't it funny how awkward he is!

anyway, I've read reddit comments that went "well some people in real life are like this", which, fair! but also, this is a fictional character that serves a purpose, and I don't think that's the best direction to take him in. it's fine if we disagree on this.

The Unromanceability: well, clearly I came out of POE1 an Edér/Watcher shipper, and from the tag dives I've done, I clearly wasn't the only one, and I also wasn't the only one disappointed by what we got in Deadfire (I also understand that companion romances were promised but not which companions, so people went into Deadfire on release fully intending to kiss Edér. and to all those people: I'm So Sorry.)

anyway my thoughts are that him not being romanceable is, like, fine. we could just do a fated besties HawkeVarric situation and whoever wanted to ship it could do it in fic. it would have literally been fine.

what we got was a) the option to confess to Edér and be rejected by him, b) this banter.

let's break it down.

the confession: let me preface this by saying that I know that people have interpreted Edér's rejection as him being aromantic, to which I say, cool! honestly, if I wasn't already deep in the Edér x Watcher romantic trenches I might have picked it up. but it is what it is.

a few things that I have a bone to pick with here.

as I've learned from going through the game's text files, Edér will start his rejection the same way, but will have a different reason for it depending on who the Watcher is. if the Wather is an orlan, he'll claim that back at home orlans and folk "just don't mix" and he hasn't gotten over that; if the Watcher is a man, he'll say that he's not into men and (I KID YOU NOT.) will hit you with an "in another life, maybe" (WILD IN A WORLD WHERE THERE'S REINCARNATION.); if the Watcher is a non-orlan woman, he'll claim that he hasn't really "felt like that" about anyone since Elafa.

so let me get this straight. the orlan and male Watcher lines are basically a lie, right? because he still rejects you if you're NOT an orlan. "maybe in another world" is a lie, because if you're a folk woman, he'll STILL reject you. there IS no universe where he reciprocates. so... why did he SAY that? why did he talk about orlans? WHY did he say "in another life" to a male Watcher, implying that under different circumstances he would have, if he just wouldn't?

I will say that if you read him as aro it works pretty well, because it looks like he's just reaching for the nearest excuse because he doesn't have the words to explain how he really feels about romance. Which is fun. But if that wasn't the intention, then it kind of makes me feel like? he's saying the thing that would hurt the most for this specific kind of Watcher? for some reason?

the thing about him being unromanceable (and here's where the banter is going to come in) is that I just can't figure out how the game wants me to feel about the idea of him and the Watcher being together? does it want me to laugh at it? does it want me to think there's a chance? like, if you want there to be no romance, you just need to not implement it. but knowing that people (including me. I'm people) loved the character in POE1 and came into Deadfire looking forward to romance him, the explicit need to shoot down the idea twice, with someone bringing it up and Edér going "no." is WEIRD. and Tekēhu's "Ngati weeps for such wasted potential" line is WEIRD. it feels like the game is making fun of me for even wanting that to be an option. It doesn't feel good or organic. And if Edér WAS meant to be aromantic, I don't think that's the best way to convey that. It's fine if we don't agree on this.

The Companion Quest: okay, NOW we can talk about Elafa.

The Reaping is a short story by Edér's lead writer, set just before the Eothasian purges started. It gives us a look into what Gilded Vale was like in that time, what the people felt and what it was like to be an Eothasian. It's great, it's freaking sad, I really like it.

In that story, Elafa is a Gilded Vale woman about Edér's age, who he used to hook up with before the war, when they both were younger (so in their teens, I assume). He meets her for the first time after coming back from the Saint's War at a celebration, dances with her, notes how she looks older now. They're still somewhat fond of each other, and he ends up spending the night with her. He then finds out that Elafa has married since he last saw her (I don't remember if we ever learn what happened to the husband), and that she has a child that she's raising alone. Her child is Hollowborn.

I'm going to show you a few passages from The Reaping now.

this is his relationship with Elafa in The Reaping.

fellas, is this what the guy from the above scenes would say about the woman from the above scenes FIRST THING when being asked about her? in front of a stranger? (this is triggered right after recruiting Xoti.)

I don't know. maybe it's just me, but when he finds out that her son is Hollowborn, the FIRST THING he does is voice his support. the second thing he does is try to imagine himself in her shoes. later in the story he kills a man with his bare hands to save her Hollowborn son, she kills another, and they hide the evidence together.

^ he's saying that one TO HER SON. (not the Hollowborn. other son.)

fellas, is this the same people?

(^ being extremely salty)

and then, the other thing about his companion quest is These Lines

chat.... is this Edér? is this Edér "the gods really have it in for you; wish they knew you like I did" Teylecg? is this the guy specifically built up by the narrative to be your ride-or-die? the guy who saw his god crawl out of the earth and instead of doing LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE hoofed it to where he knew YOU were, to save your life?

please explain to me the purpose behind having him go "hey, you know how I said I care about you? well, I kind of didn't mean that. can we go find that woman I hooked up with and see if her second son is mine?" in the exact way he did. like. POE1 and The Reaping conditoned me to think of him as someone who understands people. who FEELS for them. POE1 and the opening of Deadfire, by virtue of him SAVING MY GODDAMN LIFE, also conditioned me to think he cares about the Watcher. deeply. sincerely. WHY is the narration trying to convince me otherwise? WHY are we throwing out every single part of the character that I originally found appealing? POE1 Edér became my favorite because he was funny, yes, but also because he was insightful; because he was questioning; because you could hear in his voice that this is a guy teetering on his breaking point and still trying to find joy in the world, trying to find something, anything that would help him make sense of things; because he cared about people, and he cared about the Watcher. he trusted you with his past, and you helped him make peace with it. he saw you through the horrors and the creeping insanity of an Awakening, and offered whatever help he could, and felt that he knew you. his world shattered during the Saint's War, and you helped him find his place in the wreckage, where something new may grow. you were with him when he found out the truth about his brother and about Eothas, and decided what it meant to him. that's FUN. that's COMPELLING. that REWROTE MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY.

Deadfire is a great game and Edér has great moments in it. But I have subjective, petty beef with it, and I also have slightly less subjective beef with the way it just chooses not to follow through on things like his relationships with Elafa and Hiravias, reducing these topics to one-liners that deny him both depth and growth, which is WHAT I LIKED ABOUT HIM. I didn't like him because he was a himbo tank. I liked the existential crisis. And we don't even GET a fun existential crisis for him in Deadfire, because it just does "is Eothas.... bad?" again. arguably the "am I a dad?" arc could have been a fun existential crisis, but I just don't like the way it was done - and resolved - at all

so... yeah.

#please DON'T read this if you don't want to listen to me being salty for way too long I'm SERIOUS.#what I mean by 'this isn't a great way to do an aromantic character' is. if you have a fanbase of people excited to romance him #and previous material doesn't really guide you into the fact that he's not interested in romance #idk I would have tried to have a gentler letdown I guess #which honestly even the abrupt letdown might have felt less Bad if it wasn't combined with The Rest Of It #like with the overall flattening of certain topics and the change in presentation #it's like. well it's like my favorite things about the character were taken away basically #which I could have coped with one of those changes in a vacuum but all of them together left me really disappointed #and also made me fall off playing deadfire after a while <- I'll finish it one day.#<- I did read the dialogue/wiki pages/listen to scenes I didn't get to though #herearedragons meta #I'm so scared to put this in the main tags so I won't #deadfire critical

45 notes · View notes