sha-lyuzar

[sha-lyuzar]

Dao is my fav of the saga but da2 and dai have that thing of the good is so good and the bad is so bad of the exact level to make me go more obsessed about it

[sha-lyuzar]

Jason Schreier for Bloomberg reports: 'Inside the ‘Dragon Age’ Debacle That Gutted EA’s BioWare Studio'

The latest game in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing series went through ten years of development turmoil. The failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October, led EA to gut BioWare

[note: article is below cut after these tweets]

Jason Schreier: "NEW: What went wrong with Dragon Age: The Veilguard? Why was the writing so tonally inconsistent? Why did it feel so shallow? Why were there so few choices? Really, after ten years of turbulence, it was a miracle that anything came out at all. This is the story [link]:" [source]

Jason Schreier: "The fatal flaw for Dragon Age: The Veilguard wasn't just that it pivoted from single-player to multiplayer and back again. It was that after the second pivot, the team was forced to keep going rather than hit the reset button and take the time to create a new plan." [source]

Jason Schreier re: this old tweet from Casey Hudson: "Fun fact: when I first reported at Kotaku in 2018 that Dragon Age 4 was rebooted to become a live-service game, BioWare studio head Casey Hudson wrote this on Twitter. But it was not entirely truthful. In reality, the game was being designed around cooperative multiplayer, replayable missions, etc" [source] Casey Hudson's old tweet from 2018: "Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you'll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about "live" it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story."

Rest of post/article under cut due to length.

(bold in the text below is mine for emphasis)

"In early November, on the eve of the crucial holiday shopping season, staffers at the video-game studio BioWare were feeling optimistic. After an excruciating development cycle, they had finally released their latest game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the early reception was largely positive. The role-playing game was topping sales charts on Steam, and solid, if not spectacular, reviews were rolling in. But in the weeks that followed, the early buzz cooled as players delved deeper into the fantasy world, and some BioWare employees grew anxious. For months, everyone at the subsidiary of the video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. had been under intense pressure. The studio’s previous two games, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, had flopped, and there were rumors that if Dragon Age underperformed, BioWare might become another of EA’s many casualties. Not long after Christmas, the bad news surfaced. EA announced in January that the new Dragon Age had only reached 1.5 million players, missing the company’s expectations by 50%. The holiday performance of another recently released title, EA Sports FC 2025, was also subpar, compounding the problem."

"As a result of the struggling titles, EA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson explained, the company would be significantly lowering its sales forecast for the fiscal year ahead. EA’s share price promptly plunged 18%. “Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played,” Wilson later said on an earnings call. “However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.” Days after the sales revision, EA laid off a chunk of BioWare’s staff at the studio’s headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, and permanently transferred many of the remaining workers to other divisions. For the storied, 30-year-old game maker, it was a stunning fall that left many fans wondering how things had gone so haywire — and what might come next for the stricken studio. According to interviews with nearly two dozen people who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there were several reasons behind its failure, including marketing misfires, poor word of mouth and a 10-year gap since the previous title. Above all, sources point to the rebooting of the product from a single-player game to a multiplayer one — and then back again — a switcheroo that muddled development and inflated the title’s budget, they say, ultimately setting the stage for EA’s potentially unrealistic sales expectations. A spokesperson for EA declined to comment."

"The union between BioWare and EA started off with lofty aspirations. In 2007, EA executives announced they were acquiring BioWare and another gaming studio in a deal worth $860 million. The goal was to diversify their slate of games, which was heavy in sports titles, like Madden NFL, and light in the kind of adventure and role-playing games that BioWare was known for. Initially, it looked like a smart move thanks to a string of big hits. In 2014, BioWare released Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment in a popular action series dropping players in a semi-open world full of magic, elves and fire-spewing dragons. The fantasy title went on to win the much-coveted Game of the Year Award and sell 12 million copies, according to its executive producer Mark Darrah — a major validation of EA’s diversification strategy. Before long, Darrah and Mike Laidlaw, the creative director, began kicking around ideas for the next Dragon Age installment — code name: Joplin — aiming for a game that would be smaller in scope. But before much could get done, BioWare shifted the studio’s focus to more pressing titles coming down the pike. In 2017, BioWare released Mass Effect: Andromeda, the fourth installment in a big-budget action series set in space. Unlike its critically successful predecessors, the game received mediocre reviews and was widely mocked by fans. A few months after the disappointing release, the head of BioWare stepped down and was soon replaced by Microsoft Inc.’s Casey Hudson, an alumni of BioWare’s early, formative years."

"Like much of the industry, EA executives were growing increasingly enamored of so-called live-service games, such as Destiny and Overwatch, in which players continue to engage with and spend money on a title for months or even years after its initial release. With EA aiming to make a splash in the fast-growing category, BioWare poured resources into Anthem, a live-service shooter game that checked all the right boxes. One day in October 2017, Laidlaw summoned his colleagues into a conference room and pulled out a few pricey bottles of whisky. The next Dragon Age sequel, he told the room, would also be pivoting to an online, live-service game — a decision from above that he disagreed with. He was resigning from the studio. The assembled staff stayed late through the night, drinking and reminiscing about the franchise they loved. “I wish that pivot had never occurred,” Darrah would later recount on YouTube. “EA said, ‘Make this a live service.’ We said, ‘We don’t know how to do that. We should basically start the project over.’” Former art director Matt Goldman replaced Laidlaw as creative director, and with a tiny team began pushing ahead on a new multiplayer version of Dragon Age — code name: Morrison — while everyone else helped to finish Anthem, which was struggling to coalesce. Goldman pushed for a “pulpy,” more lighthearted tone than previous entries, which suited an online game but was a drastic departure from the dark, dynamic stories that fans loved in the fantasy series."

"In February 2019, BioWare released Anthem. Reviews were scathing, calling the game tedious and convoluted. Fans were similarly displeased. On social media, players demanded to know why a studio renowned for beloved stories and characters had made an online shooter with a scattershot narrative. In the wake of BioWare’s second consecutive flop, the multiplayer version of Dragon Age continued to take shape. While the previous games in the franchise had featured tactical combat, this one would be all action. Instead of quests that players would only experience once, it would be full of missions that could be replayed repeatedly with friends and strangers. Important characters couldn’t die because they had to persist for multiple players across never-ending gameplay. As the game evolved over the next two years, the failure of Anthem hovered over the studio. Were they making the same mistakes? Some BioWare employees scoffed that they were simply building “Anthem with dragons.” Throughout 2020, the pandemic disrupted the game’s already fraught development. In December, Hudson, the head of the studio, and Darrah, the head of the franchise, resigned. Shortly thereafter, Gary McKay, BioWare’s new studio head, revealed yet another shift in strategy. Moving forward, the next Dragon Age would no longer be multiplayer."

"“We were thinking, ‘Does this make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?’” McKay later told Bloomberg News. “No, we need to get back to what we’re really great at.” In theory, the reversion back to Dragon Age’s tried-and-true, single-player format should have been welcome news inside BioWare. But there was a catch. Typically, this kind of pivot would be coupled with a reset and a period of pre-production allowing the designers to formulate a new vision for the game. Instead, the team was asked to change the game’s fundamental structure and recast the entire story on the fly, according to people familiar with the new marching orders. They were given a year and a half to finish and told to aim for as wide a market as possible. This strict deadline became a recurring problem. The development team would make decisions believing that they had less than a year to release the game, which severely limited the stories they could tell and the world they could build. Then the title would inevitably be delayed a few months, at which point they’d be stuck with those old decisions with no chance to stop and reevaluate what was working. At the end of 2022, amid continually dizzying leadership changes, the studio started distributing an “alpha” build of Dragon Age to get feedback internally and from outside playtesters. According to people familiar with the process, the reactions were concerning. The game’s biggest problem, early players agreed, was a lack of satisfying choices and consequences. Previous BioWare titles had presented players with gut-wrenching decisions. Which allies to save? Which factions to spare? Which enemies to slay? Such dilemmas made fans feel like they were shaping the narrative — historically, a big draw for many BioWare games."

"But Dragon Age’s multiplayer roots limited such choices, according to people familiar with the development. BioWare delayed the game’s release again while the team shoehorned in a few major decisions, such as which of two cities to save from a dragon attack. But because most of the parameters were already well established, the designers struggled to pair the newly retrofitted choices for players with meaningful consequences downstream. In 2023, to help finish Dragon Age, BioWare brought in a second, internal team, which was working on the next Mass Effect game. For decades there’d been tension between the two well-established camps, known for their starkly divergent ways of doing things. BioWare developers like to joke that the Dragon Age crew was like a pirate ship, meandering and sometimes traveling off course but eventually reaching the port. In contrast, the Mass Effect group was called the USS Enterprise, after the Star Trek ship, because commands were issued straight down from the top and executed zealously. As the Mass Effect directors took control, they scoffed that the Dragon Age squad had been doing a shoddy job and began excluding their leaders from pivotal meetings, according to people familiar with the internal friction. Over time, the Mass Effect team went on to overhaul parts of the game and design a number of additional scenes, including a rich, emotional finale that players loved. But even changes that appeared to improve the game stoked the simmering rancor inside BioWare, infuriating Dragon Age leaders who had been told they didn’t have the budget for such big, ambitious swings."

"“It always seemed that, when the Mass Effect team made its demands in meetings with EA regarding the resources it needed, it got its way,” said David Gaider, a former lead writer on the Dragon Age franchise who left before development of the new game started. “But Dragon Age always had to fight against headwinds.” Early testers and Mass Effect leads complained about the game’s snarky tone — a style of video-game storytelling, once ascendant, that was quickly falling out of fashion in pop culture but had been part of Goldman’s vision for the multiplayer game. Worried that Dragon Age could face the same outcome as Forspoken — a recent title that had been hammered over its impertinent banter — BioWare leaders ordered a belated rewrite of the game’s dialogue to make it sound more serious. (In the end, the resulting tonal inconsistencies would only add to the game’s poor reception with fans.) A mass layoff at BioWare and a mandate to work overtime depleted morale while a voice actors strike limited the writers’ ability to revise the dialogue and create new scenes. An initial trailer made the next Dragon Age seem more like Fortnite than a dark fantasy role-playing game, triggering concerns that EA didn’t know how to market the game. When Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally premiered on Halloween 2024 after many internal delays, some staff members thought there was a lot to like, including the game’s new combat system. But players were less impressed, and sales sputtered."

"“The reactions of the fan base are mixed, to put it gently,” said Caitie, a popular Dragon Age YouTuber. “Some, like myself, adore it for various reasons. Others feel utterly betrayed by certain design choices.” Following the layoffs and staff reassignments at BioWare earlier in the year, a small team of a few dozen employees is now working on the next Mass Effect. After three high-profile failures in a row, questions linger about EA’s commitment to the studio. In May, the company relabeled its Edmonton headquarters from a BioWare office to a hub for all EA staff in the area. Historically, BioWare has never been the most important studio at EA, which generates more than $7 billion in annual revenue largely from its sports games and shooters. Depending on the timing of its launches, BioWare typically accounts for just 5% of EA’s annual bookings, according to estimates by Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Even so, there may be strategic reasons for EA to keep supporting BioWare. Single-player role-playing games are expensive to make but can lead to huge windfalls when successful, as demonstrated by recent hits like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3. In order to grow, EA needs more than just sports franchises, said TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz. Trying to fix its fantasy-focused studio may be easier than starting something new. “That said, if they shuttered the doors tomorrow I wouldn’t be totally surprised,” Creutz added. “It has been over a decade since they produced a hit.”"

Article by Jason Schreier. [source]

[sha-lyuzar]

Nothing quite like having your right to exist in queer spaces questioned by people who were barely born when you went to your first pride protest, because a pop star you don't know released a song you don't know, and another pop star you only know by cultural osmosis, is dating a man now, instead of a woman

[sha-lyuzar]

There are two basic arguments for shutting the fuck up about cishets at Pride.

First: What if a trans kid asks their parents to show their support by attending Pride with them? What if a lesbian can only attend pride if she gets a ride from someone and the only person willing and able to drive her is her straight brother? What if a bi disabled person can't attend a large outdoor event without hands-on assistance from their straight partner? What if someone just wants to bring their fucking friends? What if, contrary to popular tumblr discourse, most queers don't inhabit perfectly pure social bubbles populated only by other queers? What if it's none of your business?

Second and perhaps more important: If you think you can tell that someone is CIS, let alone HET, by LOOKING at them, you are a cop and an idiot.

[sha-lyuzar]

lord the peasants are so loud today

[sha-lyuzar]

Madame

[sha-lyuzar]

Idk who needs to hear this but bisexuality includes trans people. Not "it can" include trans people or it "sometimes" includes trans people. It does. It always has. Any bisexual who says there's doesn't is just a transphobe and doesn't fucking represent what we're about.

[sha-lyuzar]

I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come. I stand this morning with a difficult message... ANDOR | 2.09

[sha-lyuzar]

dragon age tumblr in 2025 is really just scrolling and being repeatedly slapped in the face with some random tumblr user using their scant free time to come up with some development arc or character design or quest idea or literally anything for veilguard on some random thursday evening for free thats always 5000x more creative, unique, complex, lore compliant, compelling and well-thought out than what it took a team of dozens of industry professionals with decades of experience to cook up in 10 years with full time salaries. amazing

[sha-lyuzar]

Nemik’s manifesto.

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this: Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.

Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

And then remember this: The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

And know this: the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. 

Remember this. Try.

[sha-lyuzar]

assertion: veilguard is a cowardly and politically regressive game

socialist-flavored haterade below the cut :)

i have tried to see what others saw in veilguard. i've gone thru many of the positive posts and read lots of veilguard "defenses" (too many of which come with snide commentary and bad faith assumptions about those who critique the game, which i honestly find tragic. do y'all not critique the things you love? ive been bitching abt dragon age since i first played origins lmao. step up your game, vg fans! /joking)

anyway! i have been pondering 2 arguments in particular:

1) veilguard is politically important for having trans representation

2) veilguard's plot was likely changed in response to real-world politics

the second point is important, imo. art is not made in a vacuum. it is created by people living under systems that influence and shape their experiences. with any piece of media, we should consider the environment in which it was created, ask ourselves what it is trying to say, and consider what it might not have meant to say.

da:i and trespasser set up several plot threads that had the potential to change thedas on a massive scale. the elven uprising, the cure for tranquility, the possibility of the veil coming down. veilguard chose to ignore all but the last, and even that was only used to set up a much simpler story about the forces of Good versus Evil.

because it is quite a simple, straightforward story, isn't it? there's no options in-game to challenge or even question the power the crows hold over antiva. they're your allies, so for all intents and purposes they're Good Guys! there's no elves in the game who argue that maybe solas has the right idea - better to risk it all for the chance at something better than to accept the continued enslavement and oppression of their people. there's no dalish who are unwilling to accept that the entities they have worshipped as gods for hundreds of years are both 1) not actually gods and 2) super evil.

the lack of differing in-game perspectives is a problem with far-reaching consequences, imo. veilguard does not encourage the player to be curious about what it sets in front of rook. it does not ask you, as previous games did, what you think about the world - you are expected to accept what you're told by the narrative at face value. it does not ask you whether you agree with the ideas expressed by your companions - why would you want to argue with them, anyway? it does not offer you the choice to do things a different way - the game, in fact, goes out of its way to repeatedly tell you what you should be doing. altogether, the range of acceptable opinion veilguard allows the player to express within the framework of the game is remarkably narrow compared to other dragon age titles.

"stop!" i hear you cry. "get to the point!"

you're right, voice in the walls. the point is, da4 was primed to tell a story that dealt with complex political questions. when is revolutionary change justified? who gets to make that decision? who should get to make that decision? how do you go about building a better world? what sacrifices are acceptable in that pursuit? how do you respond if your efforts fail?

now dont get me wrong, i think bioware would have handled these questions clumsily at best, and id likely not love the answers they might propose. this is the studio that refuses to allow a single positive opinion on post-da2 anders to be expressed by in-game npcs, after all.

but! they didnt even try!! they walked away from all of that, hand-waved the systemic injustices set up over the course of 3 games, and instead told a story in which the diagetic message is that the role of a hero is to protect the status quo.

again, the story veilguard chose to tell deliberately places rook as an enforcer of the existing system. they don't even have the option to really question it! it's treated as an implicit truth about the world veilguard presents: things are best the way they are, and if you think otherwise you're dangerous and objectively wrong.

so how do i imagine real-world politics shaping this story?

we live in a world that is threatened by irreversible, catastrophic climate change. the richest country on the planet is bankrolling the genocide of a dehumanized population of mostly children. millions of people go hungry every day while a small number of (mostly white and western) ultra-wealthy assholes own 4+ homes and a private jet to fly them back and forth. far-right ideologies are gaining in power and popularity around the globe, many of them backed by the aforementioned richest country on the planet.

if im considering how world events might have changed the trajectory of veilguard's storyline, i see cowardice. bioware abandoned established plot threads that would have necessarily brought up questions of revolutionary, world-altering change. why did they make this choice? we can only assume. recall, though, how stridently bioware avoids any positive mention of anders, and consider that to ask players if revolutionary change is necessary in thedas implicitly raises the question: what about here?

as a nonbinary socialist, i couldnt give 2 fucks about the trans rep in this game. it feels like a dei training at the department of defense: here's your pronoun pin, now go kill some muslims qunari! hooray for representation!

(because listen, im sorry, bioware gets no points from me for trans rep when they double-down on the islamophobia at the same time)

in a time of heightened political crisis, bioware took a beloved ip known for its inclusion of socio-political themes and used it to tell a story that says the world is fine the way it is. have a little feel-good escapism and don't think about the bad shit.

to quote disco elysium: god is in his heaven. everything is normal on earth.

[sha-lyuzar]

You guys wanna look at my balls? For the class?

[sha-lyuzar]

Dragon Age Origins All companions

[sha-lyuzar]

Every quest-related note found on the ground in Veilguard is like:

"Attention, fellow evildoers! Please remember to lock the CONSPICUOUS HATCH on top of the ROOF that we use in our EVIL PLANS.

All the worst,

Evilus Venatorius"

[sha-lyuzar]

[sha-lyuzar]

like i just. i just need to lay this out. becuz i need to go to bed but i will not be able to stop thinking about this otherwise. okay. so

the tranquil we see in inquisition

Avexis. who was a major player in the events of dawn of the seeker. helped save the day alongside cassandra. was honored by the divine. she's tranquil now. she's minaeve's assistant and we see her around haven but we can't speak to her

overheard dialogue between her and giselle reveals that she has been so horribly abused while tranquil that she wouldn't chose to be cured becuz she doesn't think she could handle dealing with her trauma with all her emotions intact

cassandra, who knew avexis, who tells you the story of saving the divine and mourns how she is celebrated while the mages were forgotton, has absolutely fuck all to say about any of this. if she even knows avexis is in haven

you don't know avexis's significance if you haven't watched dawn of the seeker. we don't see avexis again following in your heart shall burn

Helisma Derrington. becomes your lead of creature research upon your arrival to skyhold. presumably one of minaeve's assistants prior as she is given the position by minaeve if minaeve lives

(minaeve is the only character afaik that you can talk to about the tranquil at any kind of length and who appears to give any kind of shit about them)

you can have conversation with helisma, which i think is great, and she even gives you war table missions if you talk with her enough. it's been too long since i've played and i couldn't find a full video, but you can get SOME of her perspective on being tranquil. it isn't much. her memory doesn't appear to be very good

Clemence. you have one (1) conversation with him which is his recruitment, and that's only if you check out the mages in redcliffe and then bother to talk to ppl after your convo with alexius. his conversation is interesting but brief. i don't know if anyone has taken a fly cam for close ups on everyone wearing robes in redcliffe, but for the average player, he's the only tranquil we know to be there. we do not see him again

Maddox. a tranquil from kirkwall. he was made tranquil for passing love letters. samson was kicked out of the templars for passing them for him. the only thing cullen has to say about it is that meredith made mages tranquil for even lesser "offenses"; he doesn't appear overly bothered by this

you only get to see maddox if you side with the mages. he dies. he kills himself ostensibly to aid samson. he remains loyal to samson to the end. this is arguably the best evidence we have of a tranquil exercising autonomy

(EDIT: forgot to mention Pharamond. you only learn about him by finding an obscure note in a certain cave in the western approach. it doesn't really tell you what he was doing there and you have to intuit that he's an ex-tranquil. you don't know the significance of this unless you've read asunder)

~

the tranquil are all killed. not all of them obviously, but a lot. the majority. so many are killed that their murderers have trouble finding more to kill. they are killed by the venatori. their skulls are used to make the ocularum that allow you to find the shards. tranquil skulls specifically are needed to make them. we don't know how they find this out

a tranquil must be killed within proximity to shards for the oculara to work. no one knows where that proximity is until the tranquil is killed and the oculara is able to be made. if the oculara doesn't work, they move to a different location and try again. the tranquil must be killed exactly as a demon possesses them. if their death is off even by mere minutes, it won't work. they have to do it again

(take into account how many ocularum there are. take into account that tranquil were among the largest populations in the circles and that the majority of them were killed. remember how many ocularum there are. take into account the failures during discovery and the failures during attempts to make them. estimate a number. remember that so many tranquil were killed, the venatori struggled to find more to kill. double the number)

you only find out what happened to the tranquil, this knowledge about the ocularum, if you enter the shack near the docks in redcliffe. it requires the deft hands fine tools perk. nothing is said about them otherwise

your companions have various dialogue about this. cassandra says she'd wondered what happened to them and that she should have looked harder to find them. solas says he'd wondered what happened, he says their deaths are a waste. vivienne says she'd assumed they were with the rebels and that she shouldn't have. cole says they couldn't call for help, that if he'd heard them he'd have saved them, that he'll avenge them

once you leave, no one says anything more. you can't say anything more. you don't even get a war table mission about it. if this happens prior to promise of destruction you can't bring it up in your post-quest convo with cass. you can't bring it up when you later discuss releasing the truth of the cure with her

the ocularum stay up. you can continue to use them. nothing is mentioned about whether they are ever taken down

people didn't care about the tranquil, if they even noticed they were gone. the people who cared about them didn't look hard enough for them, or they decided someone else must have. no one mentions them to you when you're herald, when you're inquisitor; you aren't given the option to look for them

the loyal templars didn't protect them. the seekers didn't protect them. the rebel mages didn't protect them. no other mage group protected them. minaeve is the only person we know of that makes an effort to protect as many as she can

we never get to talk to any tranquil character about this. we can't tell them about the ocularum. we can't tell them about the cure

the tranquil suffer the worst cruelties the circles have to offer. and then they die. they are killed en masse. off-screen. and they are never mentioned again

no one cares about them. you aren't allowed to care about them. the bioware writers sure as fuck don't care about them

[sha-lyuzar]

Project Joplin save me.

Project Joplin.

Save me Project Joplin.