#while bioware is a shit company with shit people

[islesbiyana]

keeping my thoughts (mostly concerns) about the dragon age show to myself — i'm just pleased to see my mutuals rave about it !

[dalishious]

Did you see the news from Bioware that they laid off 50+ employees, including several of their writers? They made a statement about on the EA website. go.ea.com/SoBW2023

Reading this news has made several Dragon Age fans, including myself, very concerned.

Yes, I saw the news, and I think the damage control statement is fucking pathetic. The thing is several paragraphs long of just. Nothing. Not a single real explanation as to why they're doing this.

"It will allow our developers to iterate quickly, unlock more creativity, and form a clear vision of what we’re building before development ramps up."

Ah yes, the famously faster and more creative work of less people. //sarcasm

"These changes coincide with a significant number of roles that are currently open across EA’s other studios. Impacted employees will be provided with professional resources and assistance as they apply for these positions. While it’s unlikely that everyone will find a new role within the company, we are committed to supporting our staff as they navigate this change."

You fucking laid them off! If you wanted to put them in different positions, you can do that without laying people off!

"If you’re wondering how all of this will impact development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, let me be clear that our dedication to the game has never wavered. Our commitment remains steadfast, and we all are working to make this game worthy of the Dragon Age name. We are confident that we’ll have the time needed to ensure Dreadwolf reaches its full potential."

You think I give a damn about a video game more than I do abruptly dismantling actual real life people's livelihoods? I would rather Dreadwolf never see the light of day in exchange for 50 employees not losing their jobs for no apparent reason.

Gary McKay can eat shit.

[solavelyan]

intro.

It's a Dragon Age sideblog! My main blog is @bogunicorn, and I go by Bog (or any type of nickname you can wring out of "bog unicorn"). If you're looking for more info about me as a person, that'll all be over on my main.

This blog and my main are both 18+. Please do not follow me if you're under 18. I don't keep close track of my followers, but I do check out blogs that follow me because of the spambots, and I block minors on sight.

eta oct 2023: given The Bullshit happening at bioware following their mass layoffs and their leveraging of the next game against former employees' requests for proper severance pay, please assume that none of my posts or words are an implicit or explicit endorsement of the company itself. i mean, they already weren't, i just want you to imagine that all of my reblogs have an invisible "EA/BW execs fall off a cliff challenge" tacked onto them.

regarding the veilguard.

Yeah yeah yeah, who ever had "Bog sees one (1) trailer with Solas's face in it and rethinks their Veilguard policy on this blog" on their bingo card is one square closer to a line, okay? So, there will be SOME Veilguard posting here. However, I am personally sticking to looking at official sources only for my Veilguard info, or people or blogs directly quoting official sources. I will not be seeking our nor acknowledging any leaks, and will be generally avoiding any in-depth speculation or theories or whatnot, even ones that come from Veilguard promo. All of my Veilguard posts (including images of Solas or Varric that are from anytime after The Missing) will be tagged #datv, and anything I think might contain any kind of spoilers will be tagged #datv spoilers. It's mostly just gifs, shitposts, and pretty fanart of the new companions and stuff. For my own sake, I'm really making an effort not to pre-plan my new character or romance or speculate on what specifically the Inquisitor has been doing, and am doing my best to go in with a very open mind while still being excited, and I've found that sticking to what's officially shared in promotional material is about the speed I want to go here. My "no DA4 chatter" policy for this blog was because too much intense speculation and headcanoning and Fandom Anxiety (you know what I mean) gives me a lot of anxiety. I always also hesitant to engage with it too publicly out of respect for the laid-off developers and not wanting to be supportive of Bioware. However, as Mary Kirby herself feels comfortable getting ~hype~ for this game even with all of the context around it, I'm not going to be precious and defensive on their behalf about the whole thing and letting myself be excited. I'm very consistent with my tags, especially game-specific and spoilery ones, so this blog is still a safe spot for anyone who wants to go in 100% blind.

Still might blacklist the fandom entirely when the game launches if people are annoying, though.

what to expect here.

Gifsets, fanart, jokey jokes, and sometimes (reblogged) meta posts.

My own Dragon Age thoughts, feelings, theories, random whatevers. My original posts of all kinds are tagged #bog post.

A general positivity toward queer shit, weird shit, horny shit, and kinky shit.

My fanfic and my OCs. I don't post fic too often, at least not in the last few months, but I have a ton of OCs (roster TBA). I write notes and profiles and little ideas for them as a hobby even when I'm not actively writing fic. Anything relating to my own writing will be tagged #bogfic, anything involving my characters tagged #my ocs and then #character name (oc).

Generally, I'm a multishipper at heart and can find something to love about any given ship, PC choice, character, or type of storyline. Chances are if I'm spending my time talking about something or speculating on it, it's because I'm having fun or enjoying myself.

Commentary on fandom trends and behaviors (and, sometimes, common sense reminders not to be a dick to each other about fake stuff).

To get blocked if you put rude or annoying shit in my mentions, including using any of my posts to character bash or otherwise go off-topic in order to air your personal grievances underneath my stuff. I don't care if you don't like Solas, or if you have strong opinions about Anders vs. Fenris, or if you think "supporting" the mages/Templars/Chantry is good/bad, or if you feel like your personal favorite character/PC option/romance isn't represented by my posts and you feel your specific criticism is the exception. Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch, I was there when it was written (like 8+ years and two US presidents ago). Mind your manners and blacklist or scroll if you need to.

what not to expect.

Untagged Veilguard spoilers, or in-depth Veilguard speculation or guesses. All my Veilguard posts with potential spoilers will be tagged #datv spoilers.

Consistent character bashing or character hate. I simply do not spend a majority of my online time thinking about stuff I hate.

Anonymous asks. Anon is always turned off, both here, on my main, and on my AO3.

Real world politics and news, or general (as in, not-DA-specific) Disk Horse. Honestly, probably not even that much Dragon Age Discourse, either.

Equating in-game choices or fandom opinions with real life politics and morality. I don't "support" any group in Thedas because Thedas is fake. My politics and activism are for real people, not Wizard Politics or whatever.

Egg or cheese jokes.

the tag system (tm).

#timeless posts - Anything reblogged from the depths of @bogunicorn in the last 10 years. Usually queued.

#bog post - Any and all of my original posts.

#bogfic - Anything involving my writing or my OCs.

#my ocs - My OCs. Often accompanied by #[character name] (oc).

#spicy bog - Ye olde horny tag.

#bogcrit, #[character name] critical, #dragon age critical, #[game] critical, #fandom bs - These are my Complaining Tags. If you never want to see anything truly critical or negative, just blacklist #bogcrit. If you want to avoid grousing or critique of a specific character, the games in general, individual games, or the fandom itself, blacklist whatever listed tag is relevant to you.

#fic, #art - Fanfic and fanart that I didn't make.

#meta - Meta or speculation posts.

#da au - Any kind of alternate universe post.

#ask meme - Blanket tag for any put-it-in-the-tags posts, as well as actual ask memes.

Characters are tagged by their full names. Origins and Inquisition PCs are tagged #the warden or #the inquisitor, as well as by surname. Hawke is always just #hawke. I don't specify gender in my character tags, this system is already complicated enough.

Ships are tagged #[character] x [character] in alphabetical order, with the PCs just using their surnames. I also use the more portmanteaus (like Solavellan, Fenhawke, Adoribull, etc) because that's what people are inclined to click/search, but I would still slap "lavellan x solas" on a Solavellan post just for consistency.

contact.

complain to my manager

send me an ask

read my fic

[thebookworm0001]

Unless we get some hard evidence that DA4 is heading in a bad direction I ain’t putting any stock into the theories that it is and it’s caused/causing x y or z

there’s just entirely too much we don’t know and I’m not going to stress out over a game we know almost nothing about because it might go a direction I don’t want

-anyway rant in the tags-

[bidickgrayson]

ppl are so annoying about video games lmao

[felassan]

Zero To Play podcast episode: John Epler, Narrative Director at BioWare

In the most recent episode of Zero To Play podcast the guest was John Epler, Narrative Director on DA4. He talked about narrative games, how they fit inside an industry leaning towards games as a service, his experience being at BioWare for almost 14 years, and advice that he has for aspiring devs who want to create memorable, impactful and transformative moments in games.

The episode summary read as follows:

In this episode John brings his 13+ year experience being at BioWare and working on titles like Mass Effect & Dragon Age: Inquisition to explain how he believes storytelling will evolve and develop through the medium of games.

He shares some of his favorite moments and why he thinks games are the most powerful and interesting medium to be exploring in this generation.

It’s a good and interesting interview, so worth checking out if you can! You can listen to it here or on Spotify.

This post contains some notes on what was talked about in the episode, in case a text format is better for anyone (for example folks that can’t listen to it due to accessibility reasons). It’s under a cut due to length.

A bit of paraphrasing.

The average dev stays with a game company/studio for about 5 years. John joined BioWare right after the EA acquisition happened.

[on going into Trespasser] “Myself and the Lead Writer Patrick Weekes both knew that we needed to wrap up at least this part of the Inquisitor’s story, and set up where we want to go next with the franchise, with the IP. We learned a lot of lessons from DAI itself. DAI was a game with a lot of exploration and open-world content, and while we stand by that (I still think it was the right call for the game), one of the pieces of feedback we got from the fans was that they really wanted some more directed storytelling. Jaws of Hakkon was more of a continuation of open-world, more free-from exploration and free-form design. Trespasser was our opportunity to tell a story in a much more linear and focused way. [this way of telling stories] really does help to be able to create that sense of pacing and emotional escalation. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re mixing up storybeats with big, wide open-worlds. Trespasser was a project where everyone was kind of in sync, we were all building [towards] the same thing.” 

-

“There were [story]beats [in Trespasser] that I don't think we would have been able to get away with in basegame DAI, one of those being the - quite frankly - incredibly lengthy conversation you have with Solas at the end. Because by this point we knew that if someone is playing this DLC then they are in it - they’ve been in it for the last two DLCs, they’ve played through the entire game, they want something incredibly story-focused. And we were able to really dive deep into that, some of the deep lore, some of the narrative. This was one of the only conversations that I’d worked on which, due to limitations of the engine, we actually had to break into two different conversation styles because it was so massive. We also got opportunities to do some fun callbacks. One of my favorite ones was one Patrick suggested which was, ‘What if I [didn’t like Solas much and] spent the entire basegame telling Solas I didn't want to hear anything he had to say?’ So we had the option that if you never chose ‘Investigate’ or a dialogue option that implied that you wanted to hear him blather on, there was one dialogue option that you could pick which was basically ‘Solas, when have I ever wanted to hear any of the shit you have to say?’ And it just kind of wrapped up the conversation super quickly, and Solas looked exasperated. It was fun because it’s not the kind of thing you can necessarily do in the main game, but in a DLC which is entirely for those core fans, you have a lot more options as to what you can do.”

John has an understanding of games as an interactive medium.

“Choice of combat, choice of mechanics, all of that does have an impact on the storytelling and on the narrative that you’re trying to put through. A lot of storytelling in games is trying to make sure that the - there’s a phrase, ludonarrative dissonance - [for example, say] I’m making a game where I’m trying to make the player feel powerful. How do you [do that?] [...] In games, this is kind of the challenge. Interactivity is so key to it. [...] It’s a lot harder [compared to characters in film] to put the player in a situation that they are going to lose, because as soon as you take away that autonomy, you’re taking away some of that interactivity. [...] If as a player I'm making you feel strong and powerful, and then I pull you into a cutscene and suddenly you’re losing the fight, you’re losing what’s going. That is a much different sensation, that is something movies can get away with that games can’t.”

-

“What are [players/our audience] actually meaning when they say that they ‘want choice’? I think that in a lot of cases we conflate that with ‘Oh, they want to make a big decision that changes the world’. But in a lot of cases what players want is the game to react to what they’re doing and the choices that they’re making in a way that feels organic and natural. I think this is something CD Projekt Red and the Telltale games did really well - of making it clear when the game is actually going to pay attention to what you said or did, so that when you see it later you’re like ‘Oh right yeah, I made that choice, the game said it was going to remember it, and it remembered, this is cool’.

And it doesn't always mean completely changing the course of events. The Telltale writers, as they got on through the games, they realized that the better way to address choice - and something we’ve done too - is, if we make the game have three endings, four or five - like DAO had an absolute massive amount of ways that it could turn out. How do you pay that off if you want to do a sequel? There's basically two choices. One is that you make an incredibly short game because you have to account for these very different branches, OR you collapse them and say ‘Sorry, this is what we’re going with’. And I don't think either of those are necessarily satisfying. For me it’s about making the players feel like their time and the choices they made have been respected. More than anything else that's the key, it comes down to understanding your fanbase, what it is they’re looking for, what it is they’re asking for, because there is that desire for choice, reactivity, consequences. And it’s something that BioWare, that we’re especially sensitive to because it’s always been a big pillar of the games we make. It’s just about understanding what this actually means from a practical standpoint and how you execute on that in a way that makes your fans feel satisfied, while still not writing yourself an impossible check to cash, because, you know, you can react to anything, but if you have a game that ends in three separate ways, you have to go with one of those two options and neither of them is going to be intensely satisfying to the player.”

-

“A phrase I’ve been using is, what I'm describing as - the half life of quantum. ‘Quantum’ is what we say when it could be like, one of six different things. The half life of this is how long before you actually resolve that down to a single point. Like, provide the player with that reactivity, but collapse those into a way that you can proceed forward. This is 100% a lesson learned from Dragon Age, for all the games. ‘Ok, what do we do with this? Holy shit, that is huge, how are we actually going to pay that off?’ Reactivity, but without putting yourself in an impossible-to-win situation [from a story/writing standpoint].”

-

“More than anything else, the advice I would give [to aspiring devs] is, come up with some fundamental pillars of your story and of your design. There's a misunderstanding that we plan out the exact story for years in advance. We know what we want to get to, we kinda know how we’re going to get there, and a lot of it is just making sure that you have those pillars and those razors. So as you go through development and find, ‘Oh this piece is not working, this piece is clunking’, you’ll always have principles that you can go back to. What is important about this story? Does the piece that isn't working satisfy any of those things? If no, then we have to change it or get rid of it.”

-

[more advice] “Don’t be afraid to fail (I say fail here as a good thing). Don't be afraid to put something out there and have it absolutely torn to shreds. Feedback is your best friend, having people that you trust to provide that feedback. If I were building a big epic narrative, a big epic franchise, [I’d advise that you] start with your principles and the core of what you want to do, and then just start putting out ideas. ‘Here’s my idea for this story’. It’s easier for me, I'm inheriting a lot of work that's already been done, a lot of ground that's already laid - I have a Lead Writer that has been doing this longer than I have, PW is fantastic. But for myself, it’s just been a lot of like, okay, taking this stuff that's already been built, and making sure that I know what we want to do with whatever the next project is. It sounds overly reductive and overly simplistic, but it really is about just having a really strong sense of what is important to your franchise, what’s important to your brand. If you’re coming up with a new IP, it’s a little trickier. You need to spend some time thinking: what’s the tone, what’s the setting, what kind of story do we want to tell.”

-

[more advice] Don’t be afraid to heavily reference existing media [as actual razors, internally]. But that's not something you ever want to have go out to the public, because people go like ‘Oh, you’re just being derivative’. It’s like no, we’re just leaning on cultural touchstones that people know, so that when you’re communicating with people outside your discipline, or with people above you like executives, they can at least get a sense like, ‘Oh I kinda get what you’re doing, okay that makes sense’, versus ‘Let me first of all explain the entire history of the world’. My experience with executives is that they don't have time for that and justifiably so. But if I tell them we’re doing X but with Y and Z it’s like, ‘Ok cool, we get that’. [...] It’s a tiered approach. You have levels of detail that you provide to different people based on what they need to know. You yourself may need to know the history of these characters and how they relate to each other and the thousands of years of history for that, but the person building combat probably doesn't need all that detail and just needs to know ‘What am I working with, how do these characters fight.”

-

“A razor is a statement that you use to slice away what doesn't fit. The narrative razor for Trespasser was, I can’t remember exactly, we were basically trying to go for the Avengers meets Indiana Jones, Winter Soldier. Avengers meets Winter Soldier. [a razor is] a statement that you take all the content [by], ‘Okay, does this actually fit this statement? No? Okay, get rid of it’. It’s about focusing your game. Cutting away the ideas that don't really fit is how you avoid scope-loading and people crunching, and how you keep your project focused.

Trespasser was an intensely-focused DLC, in that it focused on basically two main core things, Solas and the fate of the Inquisition. Everything kind of wrapped into those two razors. As we were going through content, we had stuff like - I said this at a GDC presentation in 2016 - the Qunari are farming lyrium to make Qunari templars. And then we looked at it like, how does that apply to either razor? It doesn't, it doesn't fit either one of them. So we simplified it to, ‘Okay, what actually makes this work in the context of what we’re building?’. [a razor is] a statement that you use to slice off what doesn't fit into the game that you’re building. It can be painful, but having strong razors means that it never comes across as a personal thing.”

Narrative does not mean story.

Two of his least favorite mechanics in games [not including Stalker and DayZ] are weight limits and weapon degradation.

On games as a service:

Interviewer/host: “Talking about games as a service, it’s definitely something that is talked about a lot in gaming in terms of the most successful games. With Dragon Age, putting DLCs out is kind of maybe that same influence, but games that are launched and then iterated on and updated and pushed with content every month, like Fortnite, Riot Games, League of Legends, Valorant etc, that's kind of I feel where the trend of games are trying to go and make the most of those interactions between other people, to make replayability possible and easier. How do you see narrative, do you see it being forgotten with this increase of games as a service? [...] Do you see that as a positive part of narrative in games or do you think there’s still work to be done in that space?”

John: “[...] The place we start to see some confusion, a lot of people think it’s one or the other, but to me, it’s another way, another option for telling stories that by their nature have to be different. I think that's where you need to be, again, very cognizant of what you’re building and of the genre you’re working in, because a story that works for a more traditional box product is not necessarily the kind of story that would work for a games as a service product. [...] Games as a service, understanding what the cadence is that you’re planning to deliver to and what kinds of stories best fit that cadence - some games are better at it than others.

One game that did a pretty decent job of it is Destiny 2, through patches. Final Fantasy 14 is another example, they do a lot of their storytelling between the big expansion releases as part of their free patches. They always know that they have - I think, five big patches? - between each expansion, and they’ve structured their stories to fit into that very specific five-act structure. If they tried to do it weekly or bi-weekly it would be a very different experience. I think there’s always room for narrative. It’s about knowing that there are different lessons to learn and not being afraid to learn those lessons, as opposed to trying to fit the traditional box product square-peg narrative into a live service round hole. And that’s why you need to have a strong vision and why you need to have somebody at the Director level who understands and plays the kinds of games that you’re building, so they kind of understand what works and what doesn't - ‘This type of story worked really well for this game, and I'm not saying you should copy it, but you should at least be willing to learn those lessons and not reinvent the wheel every time.’

We’ve been making games for a long time now, there’s lots of lessons to learn, we should be trying to learn from them and not trying to like, change everything every single time.”

-

[on length of narrative] “In a lot of cases you know how long your game should be and the hardest part is sticking to that. [...] There is always a worry that fans are going to see a number and be like ‘That’s not big enough or that’s not long enough.’ I do think that there is sometimes a lack of confidence in what you're building, and a desire to make it shorter or longer, but I think at the core, the people building [a] game know how long it’s going to take to tell this story that they want to tell. I say this specifically for narrative, but even stuff like progression, you know how long you want it to take. For myself, I will always take a short but well-executed game over a long game that feels that it has a lot of [useless/boring] padding. It’s about identifying the kind of game you’re building. Open-world games are always going to be bigger and longer than more linear games. Being confident in that number and recognizing when you’re adding time and space for no other purpose than just to make that number on the back of the box longer [is important]. Fans don’t love that, they can see right through that.”

-

“It was nice to see the amount of hard work that went into DAI rewarded by the press [with the Game of the Year award]. There are definitely parts of it that didn't land that we wish we could have done differently, but it was a project that felt like we were all pulling in the same direction and when we started getting that positive feedback, it was definitely a sense of relief. Especially because a lot of us had been on DA2, and while we were proud of that project, it obviously didn't get the reception that we wanted at that time.

[when they were watching DAI’s release and tracking its reception] We’re keeping a running tally, like ‘Okay, this is really looking like we did something special here’. I’m proud of every project that I’ve worked on but DAI is definitely one that I’m especially proud of.” 

-

“Part of the advantage to being at a company for as long as I have, I've worked with a lot of the other people [responsible for things in other departments like art, writing, audio etc], so while there is that anxiety like ‘I reeeally hope that this works out’, I know it’s going to, because I know that everyone who is doing these roles, like our Animation Director, our Audio Director, Levels, all those other people on the project know what they’re doing and they know their shit better than I could ever hope to. So I’m just kind of standing here like ‘Hey y’all this is what we need’, and it’s coming in. And when it does come in, when you see the pieces together - I think for myself, on DAI, the moment that I first finally started feeling like it was really all coming together was, one of our music designers, going into one of the moments at the end of Redcliffe, doing the music/audio pass, and me finally seeing this scene that I’d been staring at and banging my head against for months - turn into something that actually conveyed emotion, that actually was something that I was excited for our fans to get to see and get to experience. That’s always a special feeling.”

Cinematics is one of the last things to come in, which means that audio is always waiting for them to come in: “They always did an amazing job with very little time, I will never not praise our audio and music designers.”

“Patrick Weekes is the Lead Writer, which means ultimately PW is responsible for the writing side of the game. As Narrative Director, I’m there to offer, to basically take the vision of the project and interpret the part that focuses on narrative and then provide that to my team - because I work with writing, cinematics, level designers and everyone - I’m there to be like ‘Hey this is the narrative we want to achieve’, which sometimes involves getting involved in the story side of things. But a lot of that is PW’s job as Lead Writer, they’ve been doing it for a long time, they’ve been in the industry longer than I have. It’s a really good working relationship. We worked together when I was in cinematics and they were in writing, we worked together on the Iron Bull, then we were both leads on Trespasser, so we have a trust.

I think what’s been really helpful is that they know that if I tell them something’s not working, it’s not coming from ‘I wanna do it my way, you better just do it my way because I’m the boss’, it’s coming from ‘This is something I think we need to do for the project’. And vice versa, if they push back on me about something, I know it’s not coming from ‘Screw you I'm the Lead Writer, I make the decisions’, they’re saying it because this is an actual concern. I do writing, I’m a writer on the project too but I will fully admit PW is a way better writer than I am, so I'm comfortable leaning on them for that stuff, and then I’m the person who can provide that ‘Okay, we know that gameplay is providing this, we know levels is providing this, let’s shift the priorities'.

It’s also about knowing, being able to take that back from any one discipline and say ‘Okay, what is the right decision for the project as a whole’, and sometimes that means telling PW something that they may not think is their favorite thing to do, but they will listen because they trust me and I trust them. I don't know how it works at other studios, there are places where Narrative Director is also the Lead Writer, or where there is Narrative Director and Lead Writer is the highest authority on narrative that exists, but it’s worked for us again because we have that lengthy experience. It would be interesting to see how it would work if we didn’t know each other for a while before this. It’s largely a relationship of trusting each other to know our areas of expertise and also just understanding what’s important to the narrative vision of the project.”

When they did Tevinter Nights it was ‘extracurricular’ work: “It was fun, I got to do some writing, I got published, which was really fun”.

[source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[meggannn]

Can I ask, what's the beef with Greg Ellis and Mark Darrah? I haven't been keeping up with BioWare in general and the Dragon Age fandom & company division in particular (I'm more of a Mass Effect person) so all I noticed is that two big names (were?) quit a few days ago so I am genuinely puzzled at that exchange. Did Ellis get screwed over by BioWare/Darrah somehow or is he doing some unfounded shit-stirring?

Oh for sure, so I don’t know all the details, but I’ll try

Greg Ellis

Greg Ellis is the voice actor for Cullen, a character who is in every Dragon Age game. the actor has been a pretty shitty person for a while—I’m sure there’s a callout post for him somewhere on tumblr—but he’s the British equivalent of a Trumper, transphobic, hosts a podcast/contributes to/does audio readings for a right-leaning website that complains about liberals and universities, often gets into fights with LGBT+ folk on twitter and block them (so many that a lot of DA fans couldn’t read his tweets today lol).

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “I praise @Ayaan for supporting @jk_rowling in standing her ground. They are heroes of our times. /end ID]

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “Today on The Respondent @GreggHurwitz discusses the challenges of identitarianism on college campuses. /end ID]

From Wikipedia: Identitarianism: “The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a post-World War II European far-right political ideology which asserts the right of Europeans and peoples of European descent to preserve the culture and territories.”

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet from June 2018: Indicative of our current culture that I tweet about inspirational free thinkers & up pops a trolling SJW who can’t separate me from my work. Conflating my inclusive & equitable opining with a video game character I voice is SJW indent politicking full blown.”

Greg Ellis tweet replying to a disappointed fan who was upset about his support for Trump: “Speaking ‘on behalf of thousands of fans’ of a video game & suggesting I ‘broke their hearts’ because I support ALL who hold Presidential office is ludicrous. VG fandom is not exclusive to LGBTQ or those not hate filled about @potus. I believe in equity & inclusivity.” /end ID]

to demonstrate how much of an attention-seeking child he is, Ellis also likes to tease his fans with hashtags and get them up in a tizzy to gain followers, tagging things #Cullennites and #DA4 just to wind up bait-switching and actually talk about something completely different, or maybe even nothing.

[ID: Tweet from Greg Ellis, I don’t have the date but I believe this was from spring of 2018: “I’ve been officially authorized to disclose details about the game only when I reach 10k followers. I feel like a puppet. Will you help pull the strings? I’m positively itching to share. #videogame #announcement #cullenites” /end ID]

Beef with Mark Darrah

I think what specifically started his beef with Mark Darrah was this summer, Ellis tweeted in support of Ayaan/JKR (above), resulting in a lot of upset fans replying to him. He got in lots of fights with them, blocking several, prompting fans to make more tweets expressing anger/disappointment about DA4/the future of Cullen, and even tweet at other Dragon Age developers asking if Cullen could be recast if he comes back at all.

Mark Darrah made a tweet saying basically nothing substantial about it, but he said: “It’s important to us that the people we work with are aligned with our BioWare values. This will be apparent when we’re ready to announce what actors will be lending their voices to the game.” He even replied directly to a few fans throughout the tags/search results who were concerned, including @theherocomplex​ which I saw, so it’s a safe assumption he was at least taking the anger seriously.

Ellis replied to the public tweet: “What r the @bioware values @BioMarkDarrah? Don’t the loyal #Cullenites & @dragonage fans have a right to know? Don’t u have a responsibility to tell them? DO u support cancel culture? Do u support defamatory comments like this? Careful how u answer ~ u might lose ur job”

I mean, it’s pretty ballsy to threaten a lead creative at a company responsible for a chunk of your fame when your character’s arc is effectively over and they don’t need to have you in any games anymore... there are tons of crappy British actors out there to replace you, and it’s not like they don’t already have Gideon Emery in a dozen different wigs, lmao

What Happened This Week (Dec 3 and Dec 4, 2020)

Mark Darrah was, until recently, a staple in the Dragon Age team. A lot of people were worried when his resignation yesterday came out of the blue, and Casey Hudson (also a lead creative/big name) also resigned from the Mass Effect team at the same time, which to me is pretty concerning.

Yesterday after the news broke, a fan asked Darrah if his beef with Ellis might have had anything to do with his departure (basically asking if it was a forced resignation): “If this has anything to do with a recent blowout with a VA from Inquisition who publically called for @BioMarkDarrah to be fired, I'm going to be so sickened and disappointed by this company for siding with bigotry.” Darrah replied with just “lol” which to me was a little concerning, because if you read it sarcastically, it seemed to imply the drama with Ellis did have something to do with it. without proof, it’s difficult to say, and of course Darrah and Hudson gave polite goodbyes but are silent on the real reasons that prompted them to go.

Today, Ellis has managed to convince himself that he did get Darrah fired, likely over the stink he raised about Darrah publicly for siding with LGBT+ fans over him. but in his replies to that, Darrah mentioned pretty open skepticism in his tweets that Ellis would ever be rehired by BW again, so.... maybe the Ellis drama is not it. IDK.

TLDR: basically, Ellis is a bigoted right-wing voice actor who picks fights with fans who call him out, and he is still coasting off the attention highs he got from voicing a highly controversial video game character in a franchise that hasn’t hired him since 2014. in summer 2020, Ellis threatened Darrah’s job (not at as if he has any power to threaten him with), basically because Darrah stood up to him, and now that he no longer has to play civil as a BioWare employee, Darrah finally snapped and called him out on twitter for being unprofessional and implied Ellis wouldn’t be asked back to BioWare anyway even if Ellis WAS the reason he left. other Dragon Age developers (who still work at BW) are liking and replying to Darrah’s tweets with supportive gifs/emojis, so I think it’s a fair to say Darrah’s attitude is prevalent in the company but current workers just can’t say anything, and they do not want Ellis back again.

[fitztrevelyan]

Verse: Inquisition

This is a in-depth description of Mistral’s role in the Inquisition and her personal POV on it. 

Iorveth is a character from the witcher series (all rights belong to  Andrzej Sapkowski & CDProjekt) translated into the Dragon Age universe (all rights belong to Bioware and EA).

More under the cut

1 - A hole in the Sky:

Mistral has just fled from Kirkwall. She’s trying to get a Tevinter mercenary company off her tail. While heading toward Orlais, she makes a stop-over in Heaven for supplies. It is only by chance that she eavesdrops on a conversation between a customer and the innkeeper about the conclave and the people who’d be attending; her half-cousins are in the list. Mistral ignores the cheering exchange of the men about the flow of gold that the event has brought into their pockets. She just drops a small coin pouch on the counter, stashes her supplies, and readies herself to leave silencing the emotions that stir in her stomach.

She is crossing the threshold when an explosion makes the sky turn green.

2 - Stuck

The hole in the sky wouldn’t be a problem per se, she could just ignore it and be back on her way... if only the bloody thing wasn’t vomiting demons and a large variety of other shit... 

There’s a group of religious fanatics that are enlisting voluntaries to help the poor sods who survived the explosion here. They speak of riots spreading like wildfire, much like the voices about the explosion to be intentional. Everyone is in shock at the assassination of the Divine. This is exactly the kind of hot mess where the Tevinter guys would never go looking for her... Interesting.

3 a- The Herald 

Masses are fickle. Opinions have the lifespan of a fly. Today you are accused to be a murderer? tomorrow they may just well call you a hero. Masses are nasty, nasty beasts, unpredictable; they need to box people in stereotypes to feel safe: mages, Qunari, Dwarves, Elves. Ah! Those little labels! They are just so reassuring when things turn sour...

And now the crowds have just anointed one of those freaks ODDITIES “the Herald of Andraste”. Mistral’s enjoying this madness more than she anticipated, watching the spectacle from her corner. Adan’s grumpy remarks on the events are a breath of fresh air and the guy knows his stuff about explosives. Until he’s around, stirring potions for the wounded and gathering herbs won’t be too bad. 

3 b - Saint Trevelyan of Ostwick

This is unexpected and potentially disastrous. Her cousin has been anointed by the crowds a savior and champion of Andraste. She’d laugh if the situation wasn’t so grotesque. She has no interest in reconnecting with the Trevelyan but at the moment she has no other option than to stay, trying to blend into the crowd. Working with the apothecary might be low-profile enough. She also might want to use her Rivaini name, for the time being, unless the spymaster manages to uncover her past. That damn girl knows her shit. 

4 - An unexpected turn of events

This is still a WIP. Adjustments are to be expected.

( I’ve been discussing this point with a friend who’s given me interesting prompts on the matter, so thank you mate for your valuable insights! The organization of Fen’Harel’s spy network is definitely based on your hc’s so thank you twice.)

It’s official, we’re in politics. The Inquisition has a fortress, an army, a good share of followers (more like devoted), and a spy network. A bloody good one too. Mistral has drawn the spymaster’s attention. She assumes that working for Leliana will allow her to control what information about her origins will fall into the former bard’s hands.  A gross miscalculation. It took quite some time, yes, and hard work too but in the end, Sister Nightingale managed to find out about Mistral’s connection to the Trevelyan family.

That poses three major problems: 

1- her cousin might expect her to be in their service much like grandfather did because back in Ostwick, that’s the way of things if you are a bastard. And Mistral isn’t into this option at all. 

2- The Trevelyan might feel threatened by the bastard daughter of Gallant; even more so because his wife, Lady Pandora Anaxas of Nevarra, has never stopped looking for the girl. If the wife of the rightful heir decided to adopt the girl, she would have a claim to the title of head of the house. That would mean only one thing: soon enough, the Crows of Antiva would be signing a ridiculously rich contract on her life. Not a risk she’s willing to take

3- Problem 1 and 2 aren’t mutually exclusive.

Everything points to an inevitable ending. Mistral wants to go back on her way but unexpectedly someone reappears from her past. 

Iorveth her friend, partner, and occasional lover has joined Leliana’s network. But there is more.  In time, the elf tells Mistral that, in fact, he is working for a broader plan involving the wellbeing of the elves and a shift in power. Mistral warns Iorveth he's walking a dangerous line: Leliana is extremely good at her job, not even she managed to throw her off the scent. Iorveth insists that the organization he's working for is vast, well networked, and secure. Different units with different tasks and different leaders; each leader reports to the higher ranks. The members of a unit don't know those of other units.

That's a lot to take on trust, the woman concedes, but Iorveth is determined in his argumentation. This is not some random raid against slavers ships like those they did when they worked together in Kirkwall. This is an actual chance for his people to take control over their own destiny.

When Mistral asks him why he's telling her all this, Iorveth, who's always been in love with her, reveals that he means to recruit her as a counterspy for his organization, but Mistral turns him down. Too many risks, and too blurry the ultimate end. Iorveth tells her secrecy is a necessary requirement but he can vouch for the nobility of the purpose.

Iorveth was always an idealist. She likes that about him as much as she is disillusioned about power, politics, and machinations. No revolution is fair unless your job is writing history books for those who have won the war.

They part in good terms. Mistral leaves Skyhold at night. She hasn't gone far when three Crows ambush her and try to kill the woman. Blackthorn is seriously wounded to defend her human sister. They would have died hadn't it been for Iorveth and his bow. Mistral is injured but safe; Blackthorn, on the other hand, needs urgent tending to her wounds. The only solution is to go back to Skyhold. In the process, Iorveth risks being uncovered as he carries stolen documents that he was supposed to deliver to his elven superior. Mistral manages to distract her fellow agents and puts the documents back in place (not without taking a peek).

Now she's the only one knowing the content of those papers. Her first job as an (unwilling) agent of Fen'Harel. The first but not the last.

Although the woman refuses repeatedly to enter the counterintelligence with Iorveth, she'll find herself time and again involved in the Dread Wolf's plans... 

[pestopascal]

While I will absolutely agree that CB2077 isn’t the ONLY game doing all this bullshit, or that other AAA studios don’t deserve the flack CDPR is getting, I have to say that this is absolutely the perfect storm and I think people are FINALLY seeing the problems in modern AAA gaming. CB2077 might be fun to play, may have a good story, but it’s almost impossible to see because of the glaring issues. Which, honestly, is a good thing. I hope games change after this.

under here

AAA studios have been like this and this sort of release has been completely normalised on all accounts by both the businesses themselves and fans because of the inherent reliance on modders (bethesda at the forefront of this), as well as the pushback every time companies actually go ‘uh we need a lil more time’ (although... they just shouldnt announce potential release dates, im even of the camp they shouldnt even start releasing the game until like 6 months out from their official date because they fuck it up every time. borderlands 3 being the only game i know of being in “secret” development and then announcing itself in march for a september release. game itself aside, thats how companies should do it). easily i can remember a lot of 2011 release games which have had the exact same issues as cp77′s release, and then every other game in between since. very rarely do you actually have a game that isn’t a fucked up mess of a pile of pixels. and it is always the customisable character ones that are honestly, genuinely, ugly looking at release. but you can definitely say its been happening looooooong before 2011, with unrealistic expectations, word limits, 11 month time frames, offloading sequels to smaller companies so they can suffer if it fails, etc etc. the entire system has been like this for so long... they dont know any real different nowadays.

i mean look. tlou2 released under crunch conditions this year, and was rewarded. it was ALL over the social media feeds, it was quite the controversy because, surprise surprise, the company promised they wouldnt do it uwu and then. bam ! crunch conditions. literally around that time too, bioware employees came out with a statement saying ‘man we wish dai FAILED so that back in 2014 we couldve proven crunch was a wrong practice’. they say this as well after having to produce da2 in 14 months, which just suffered from fans and journalism for reusing environments, because it was produced in 14 months, and honestly? no one pointed that out back then, bioware themselves pointed it out again this year, 6 years after release, that that game was produced in 14 months. rdr2′s release was hounded by stories of crunch, and they all disappeared into the night because... it was heralded as the best game of all time. that was 2018, 2 years ago.

i think too is that some people get kind of ... morally and ethically concerned. which is understandable. can you consume something when you know it was made under conditions like crunch? and i think one of the most confronting things about it is that 9/10, not only has your favourite company engaged in crunch conditions, they almost actively choose to continue with them. and then that’s a whole other bag of issues blown up over there when it comes to what is able to be consumed what isn’t etc etc

i think also like a mix of marketing, promises and then the expectations of what the game will be like have really had cdpr earn the ire of fans which is just like... you don’t believe what these companies are saying. you never should, esp when it’s their ceo’s saying it who don’t work on the actual floor. bioware itself is the main culprit of doing this to the point they finally came around with all the da4 concept art and teasing to be like ‘ummm but actually dont get invested?’. remember all that qunari lady fanart that bioware management was like ... please dont get attached? yeah. yeah. like at what point as well is there going to be heavy level of apprehension to approach this? and i can’t really talk either, i cracked open the door for mass effect again. i know exactly what kind of shit bioware will pull, i know they are teasing it already on social media, but mass effect is my ride or die series. that’s why people keep opening the door on letting these companies get away with it. and you can’t fault fans entirely either because this is down to a science of how to get money. i mean, fuck, mass effect andromeda’s entire advertising campaign HINGED on the n7 logo. for the nostalgia value. and i see text posts in the same vein of both ‘guys, disney isnt gonna fuck you if you consume every remake for nostalgia value’ and ‘its understandable why people do it’.

so then you have to go ‘well are fans as just to blame’ and then that’s a whole other argument.

i think also like. i personally havent run into aaaannnyyyyyyy of the issues that you see posted online. which is ironic bc 1) i play on ps4 and 2) its an old dusty ps4. in fact a lot of ppl i have spoken to who have had issues have played on pc. does this mean the glitches dont exist? ofc not, the vids and screenshots are right there. but like... ive had a basically unhindered experience so far, and i get where ppl are coming from (i do, i promise) where theyve basically found the game unplayable. is there also a standard of what ppl consider unplayable because ive played most AAA games at launch when they basically rushed to slap the box label on the game and called it a day until they work on patches. when ppl consider unplayable is also just... different per person. some people have a slight blur on the screen when turning too fast even in an MMO and decide the game is horrible and unplayable. some people can have broken quests and npcs not loading and falling through maps and still be fine. there’s no agreed statement of what makes a game unplayable either, which is why you read threads on twitter and someone goes ‘yeah this npc t-posed so i quit in the first hour’ with a dozen replies. everyone has different levels of it.

it’s a mixed bag of issues. im not excusing cdpr, but the ppl who worked on the game are honestly likely not the ones who pushed for a release. you’ve gotta look at sony and microsoft and ceo’s with bonuses coming up and the investors and shareholders and people who sit behind computers and read numbers detailing interest and demand and supply and how every single time they had to delay this game, the loudest (but smallest) bunch of assholes on like reddit and in the twitter threads complained that it was delayed AGAIN even though back in what 2015? they said it’ll come out when it’s ready. and yeah there are times when game delays result in a mismatched half assed sort of story (kh3... p5... ffxv... dai...) and then there are times when, if they need to delay the game... they probably need to delay the game. sometimes delays are bad sometimes theyre good sometimes you are sitting there like whew if you only didn’t try to be like THIS TIME this is the release date.

the ONLY WAY this will stop happening is, quite frankly, unionising. and everyone is allergic to that whole concept so like... this is “the perfect storm” as you put it. but it’s also not. people have been so disappointed over the last 2 years alone for gaming companies, the final product, the attitudes from higher ups, that i think cdpr is receiving a good few years worth of anger. i think theyre also on the receiving end of misdirection from american fans who still don’t fucking get the company isn’t american, because that’s another bag of issues as well. like we’re holding at least 8 bags of groceries out of the back of the car now, and we don’t want to take another trip, because there are so many little bits of this entire situation to look at. there’s so much back and forth.

i think the worst, but most realistic thing is: games won’t change. how they will social media wise will. maybe. assuming bioware gets their heads out their asses but... they’re going to be a lot more careful. i mean, hell, sony offered refunds. that was just a publicity stint. they dont give a fuck if the game was bad. as i said before, if they did, they would make all companies fix trophy problems, starting from like 2010 or whenever the trophy system first came out. they just don’t wanna fall in alongside cdpr being thrown on its sword. but the companies are gonna learn from this, get smarter, still do the same shit to their employees, still pay off journalists, still do media blackouts, etc etc. and we’re gonna be here in another year’s time, with another game, having these same roundabout arguments, and cp77′s issues are gonna fade into just a wikipedia article.

[badsithnocookie]

and like the response in part to that is ‘headcanons are free and plentiful appo’ and yeah!! they are!! that’s why i headcanon that awenyth got together with kira finally after watching ziost die and realising finally that nah life is too short to waste worrying about other people’s onions, and why eirn just peaced out of the alliance altogether after nathema v2 and is currently sipping cocktails on a corellian beach someplace, and amy probably frustrates the heck out of tau while doting on arn like he’s their adopted son, and so on and so fifth but like

as defenses of the game’s shortcomings go that is severly lacking, especially given as Romances are such a Thing in bioware games (as much as i might sometimes wish otherwise). ‘i know this sucks but have you considered: pretending it does not suck’

and like fundamentally when i am playing viddie gaem while i will (at least in the case of rpgs, including mmos because i’m a gooby roleplayer) have ocs in mind when doing shit and roleplay mentally and write reams and reams of dumb fic in my head that nobody except me and my id will ever see, it is something i seek out to consume, not to create. like many people, including and especially creative ones, i have limited Fucks to spend on creating shit and came to the conclusion a while back that spending time and effort fixing up bioware’s shit to not stink wouldn’t be worth it even if they were paying me a living wage, not least because of all the dreck i’d be forced to work with (and all the more so if i were being forced to remain adherent to what passes for their canon)

i have. literally infinite better things to do with my life than constantly pretend i’m being sold a better product than i am being. demanding better from companies is the bare fucking minimum, especially when you are dealing with a multi million dollar franchise like the fucking star war

[antibioware]

My final thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda (a 3 years late review)

So I spent the past week and a half playing a game I paid 13€ for, one that I promised myself I wouldn't touch but that in the end I gave a solid try to anyway, because I was willing to give Andromeda the benefit of the doubt. Because I'm aware that sometimes I'm a bitch, and that the Mass Effect trilogy had its own problems too, but I still regard it as one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected it would be, but that doesn't make it good. Above all else, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that could have been interesting, had the creators actually cared to make something out of it outside of just “Dragon Age Inquisition in the Mass Effect universe”.

I wanted to write a more coherent post about what I didn’t like about it, aside from just shitting all over it like I’ve been feeling like doing since the canonical bury your gays in the game slapped me in the face. So here it is, an overlong post about a 3 years old game.

Before getting into the main elements that I disliked, I wanna preface this post by saying that I enjoyed parts of the game. The main characters, while not as well characterized as they could have been (no Bioware character ever is), grew on me the more I played the game, and by the end were the main reason why I kept playing. Unlike DA:I, the writers did a really good job building up the found family trope in this game, and while it turns corny at times, it’s very heartwarming. I think many of the planetary settings in Heleus were stunning to look at, to the point that I didn’t even mind all that much having to drive from point A to point B.

I didn’t hate the game, and I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who enjoyed it, but not enough to simply accept its many flaws.

The problems with the gameplay itself

There are three main things that I don’t think work well and are up in your face since the first seconds of the game: the game interface, the fight mechanics, and the open world aspect of the game.

◦ The first impact I had on Andromeda, right from the first 2/3 hours of playing it, was that it was very cluttered and very, very confusing. I had just finished playing ME3 and I had issues understanding how to move without having a proper map onscreen, how to read throught the thousand tutorials for the 100 new, useless elements they added to the game that are either reused from ME1 or taken directly from DA:I. The game didn’t need a crafting system, especially not one DIVIDED IN TWO DIFFERENT SECTIONS, it didn’t need an inventory system, and especially it didn't need to have the sheer amount of sidequest it had.

◦ The fight mechanics + leveling up/classes system is a hot mess. I understand they wanted to try something new, and in part they did make the fighting feel more fluid, but not being able to rely on teammates for necessary stuff like overloads/specific powers that you need during fights severely impaired the strategic element of the game. Now it’s just a third person shooter with teammates dying left and right because you have 0 control on how they fight, aside from putting them in one place or another.

The fact that you can only use 3 powers at the time is a consequence of the confusing leveling up system. Because you can have an endless amount of powers you can give your character, they needed to find a way to make them not too overpowered. The problem is…. You had more powers to use in-game in ME1. It doesn’t work so well.

When the fighting mechanics in ME3, a game that came out in 2012, feel way fluider and more enjoyable than the ones from the game that came out in 2017, something is very wrong.

◦ Open world games are a challenge, because too many developers don’t understand that turning a game into an open world doesn’t make it good, it just makes it bigger and slower. It was a problem with Dragon Age Inquisition, and it’s a problem here with Andromeda - with the only good aspect being that at least Andromeda gives you a decent car to explore the planets.

ME1 had some level of open world-ness, and there was a valid reason why ME2 and ME3 got rid of the concept: the maps you’re given are a big, cluttered mess of nothing. You have several thousands sidequests, many of which incredibly similar to each other, and nothing fucking else. Sometimes you will accidentally stumble upon something interesting, and then return to a 6 hours drive into the nothingness that keeps repeating over and over again.

It got to the point I almost stumbled upon the endgame because I got exhausted of running around doing errands, and I tried continuing the main plot, only to realize I was almost done with it. That was it.

Empty self-referencing

This is the term I used to describe my girlfriend why the way the game made call backs to the previous games bothered me so much. Call backs aren’t new to the concept of the game (the Mass Effect trilogy literally lived on characters returning from previous games, referencing things that had previously happened, etc.), but because this game wanted to be a separate thing from the ME trilogy, it couldn’t use this sort of material. And that’s completely fine! The game wanted to be its own thing, I was happy about it at first, because the trilogy was over and done for. If Mass Effect was indeed gonna continue, it needed a fresh start.

The problem is, it also needed to remind players that it’s a Mass Effect game, the game from which Commander Shepard came.

So, how to solve this matter? Well, instead of referencing stuff that actually happened in the trilogy, it solves the referencing aspect by putting a bunch of relatives of characters from the trilogy in the game. You get Conrad Verner’s sister, Nyreen Kandros’s cousin, a lost illegitimate son of Zaeed Massani, a brief cameo of Garrus Vakarian’s dad, a krogan on New Tuchanka being from clan Urdnot, and so on. And it was funny the first time or so, maybe even the second, but at some point it just turned awkward, and I started asking myself, “is this it? Is this all that’s left of the trilogy, just a bunch of big name characters to remind the player you belong from the same universe?”. The brief way they referenced back to Shepard was also very awkward and felt... out of place, with the rest of the game.

A couple call backs I really liked were:

Liara being acknowledged for her work as a Prothean researcher and being in contant with Ryder Senior, without much reference being done to her time in Shepard’s crew. It was good, seeing her from an outsider perspective.

The fact that Avitus Rix, being a turian ex-Spectre, knew Saren and was in fact his disciple.

Both these elements are things that make sense and tie the game back to the trilogy beyond just going “hey, this x character is the relative of this other x character, isn’t it crazy!”

The plot, and the problem with binary choices

It’s easy to make fun or critique the game struggling to find its own plot after something as big as the ME trilogy was. But Bioware isn’t an indie developer, it’s a huge fucking company, and they could have done better.

While I liked the design of the Remnants architecture and enemies, putting a plot point revolving around an ancient, long lost alien civilization who was much more technologically advanced, sounds a lot like a bad repeat of the Protheans.

I liked the Angara conceptually, but I didn’t like their design all that much and I often found it hysterically funny that angara are supposed to be a deeply emotional race, when the animators left them stuck with those mono expressive faces and unemotional eyes.

And on top of all of this, the kett are boring villains. The exaltation progress is really just a bad repeat of how Reaper indoctrination worked, and the way they talk reminds me of the big bad templars from the Dragon Age universe. It’s literally nothing new, and because of it, it’s boring.

When I was playing the endgame, all I kept thinking was “this is it? this is all they came up with? for real?”. I liked the twins aspect of the endgame, but aside from that, it didn’t feel satisfying.

And now comes the reason why it didn’t feel satisfying: the game got rid of the Paragon/Renegade system from the trilogy, and because of that, they also got rid of the possibility of additional problem-solving solutions during big choices. 

In Andromeda, almost every major quest has a binary choice attached to it: choose this or that. Burn the facility or save all the angara but leave the facility standing. Save the krogans or Raeka. Pick Sloane or Reyes. Keep Sarissa as the Pathfinder or not. Etc.

in the trilogy, complete, important binary choices were rare (choosing Ashley or Kaidan is probably the biggest one) and the consequences had long lasting effects. Not all of them did (saving or killing the rachni in ME1 and rewriting or destroying the geth in ME2 didn’t have so many long term consequences in ME3, for example), but a great deal meant big changes in the following games.

The issues with these choices in Andromeda? None of them matter. Characters will get angry at you for going against their will in a single dialogue line, and then never mention it again. The opinion on the Nexus won’t change if you expose Spender, Addison’s connections to the Exiles, or Nexus people targeting the angara. None of your companions will betray you or leave you for going against their will during their loyalty missions.

A Mass Effect game with choices that don’t influence the final result of the game feels like a joke, and while I know in many ways the trilogy also had a problem on this matter on some parts, dead characters stayed dead and betraying a friend’s trust meant losing them in the near future

The unavoidable part where I mention the issue with LGBT rep in this game because I’m a nonbinary lesbian and I can’t detach that aspect of myself from how I consume media

Endless gays and trans folks out there have already written this sort of matter so as my last point of critique, I’ll make it quick. Bioware has a long story with homophobia and transphobia in its character writing - this without mentioning the huge problems with racism in the character writing, too. Many gay/bi women in Bioware games are written by the same homophobic straight cis man with a lesbo fetish, AKA Lukas Kristjanson, and that alone gives a really good feeling on why such issues exist.

The original Mass Effect trilogy had very little gay romance options, out of the amount of romance options: as of ME3, there are two main gay romance options for fShepard (Liara and Traynor, without counting the mini-romances that were put in the previous games for pure fetish fuel) and two for mShepard (Kaidan and Cortez, both only added in the last game).

Andromeda wasn’t... the big breath of fresh air in the representation department they tried to pass it as. There are more romance options, but for once, there add to add another m/m romance option later on because the only gay romance available were with minor NPCs, and there’s an issue with the amount of content gay romances get compared to main het romances.

There’s a single trans NPC, and it's a random person you meet who tells you her deadname and the reason she transitioned right away. Ugh.

And now we come to the bury your gays mission that made me almost uninstall the game: the mission to find the turian Pathfinder with the help of his partner, the previously mentioned Avitus Rix,  who also happens to be the first gay male turian character in the game (the first gay female turian being Nyreen Kandros, who dies btw). You invest time to trace back to the turian arc, while listening to Avitus talk about how important the turian Pathfinder is to him, you realize pretty fast they’re lovers, and when you find out the turian arc, it’s all to discover that the Pathfinder is already dead. Not a choice in the game that could accidentally kill him, like with Raeka, or an active choice you make to keep him in his role, like Sarissa. He’s already dead, and you’re left with Avitus alone and mourning.

The game is from 2017. This sort of bullshit is unacceptable, and I will keep screaming it until Bioware manages to pretend like they care about their LGBT fans.

To end this mess of a post - Mass Effect: Andromeda lasted me a total of 50 hours of game, and in a way, I’m glad I got it out of my system. It was a delusion, but at least now I can cross it off my list and go back to playing other stuff. I understand that this is a game many ended up liking, and I’m sad I can’t say I’m among them, and that I couldn’t even fully enjoy the game at times. Also I promised myself I wouldn’t mention this but goddamn the facial animations of the game were so ugly.

DESPITE THIS, I really loved the characters, and I very much enjoyed Vetra’s romance, which was the main reason why I bought the game. 

[wishfulcynic]

Catching Up

Catch up.

I think this is the first time I’ve been tagged in one of these things! @crescentbunny tagged me.

Rules: tag every person you want to know better/catch up with and then answer the following questions.

Three ships:

Amell/Morrigan (Dragon Age: Origins)

Hawke/Merrill/Isabela (Dragon Age 2 - I will go down with this polycule)

Shakarian (Femshep/Garrus)

Harmony (Harry Potter/Hermione Granger)

The Leverage OT3

Nobody ever stops at three.

Last songs listened to:

Run You (The Qemists)

Daredevil (Ace Combat 7 Soundtrack)

This is Gonna Hurt (Sixx A.M.)

Currently Watching:

Besides the same shows I have on for background noise, I just finally watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse because it’s about to leave Netflix. Holy shit.

Currently reading: Several different fanfics and the Battletech novel Wolf Pack.

How’s it going:

The last few weeks, I’ve been picking up, on average, an hour and a half of overtime every day, because management apparently doesn’t realize that the best way to cut down on overtime is to hire more people. The bright side is they seem to have finally figured out who’s competent and who isn’t on my team, so when one of the incompetent people starts complaining about procedures or when someone on another team accuses us of some stupid shit we didn’t do, they’ve started listening to us instead of just jumping on us and handing out written warnings. It’s actually been an improvement, considering I nearly lost my job in the summer and the only thing stopping me from quitting my job in the middle of a global pandemic was losing my health insurance. The only (admittedly numerous) annoyances at my job have been the lower-level idiots I have to deal with on a daily basis, who frankly scare me because they’re the ones the customers interact with. And if your response to being told you made a math error on a form is “what’s math?” then maybe you shouldn’t be employed. If your attitude towards amounts, deadlines, and account numbers is “eh, close enough,” maybe working at a bank isn’t the job for you!

That said, working from home has been a blessing. I’ve been in a far better headspace not having to go into the office and not having to wake up early, pretend I care about my appearance, and fight through traffic has put hours back into my days. If nothing else, being able to hang up the phone, bellow profanity for someone giving me shit over their incompetence, and not have anyone give me an annoyed look has been nice.

Seeing Mass Effect allegedly coming back from the dead and the handful of tiny tidbits BioWare has thrown us for Dragon Age has been...disheartening. Not that I don’t love these games, it’s just that BioWare is still working under EA’s boot, and considering that EA as a company gives me strong serial killer vibes, I’m wondering how they’re going to fuck it up this time. Not to mention that the ME remaster almost certainly isn’t going to fix the numerous issues with the games, and whatever ME4 will be is going to have to work off the ending of 3. As for Dragon Age 4, I’ve come to realize that the problem with giving us the opportunity to make large decisions in games that import your choices means that most of your choices, in the long run, wind up meaning precisely dick. None of your boons in Origins get passed along, Hawke gets written to be a specific way no matter what your choices were in 2, and no matter who you choose as Divine, the Circle will eventually come back. You can’t claim our choices matter and then cut off the branches to force the story back into the narrow track you plotted out. Plus, several of the shitty-ass writers like Lukas Kristjanson are still there, and while hopefully Greg Ellis finally kneecapped his own career and we won’t have to deal with Cullen anymore, I’m not sure I’m feeling the BioWare magic anymore.

However, I did finally get my sister into Dragon Age, which has been both heartwarming and endlessly amusing to watch her play a mage whose first reaction to everyone and everything is “can I stab them and/or rob their corpse?” Some other highlights from her play-through are “this 90s slut top is giving me life,” “why is Duncan killing my himbos,” “can I go Palpatine on this guy yet,” and “who is this big-headed bitch?” Her getting into it actually got me writing Dragon Age again, so we’ll see if this holds and I actually wind up writing the Inquisition fanfic I’ve been saying I wasn’t going to do since January 2016.

Tagging: @himalayanwhite, @letmesharpenyourclaws, @heathenvampires, and @theunrealinsomniac. Half of you are fanfic writers - I’m a big fan.

[dgcatanisiri]

Sometimes I really want to divorce myself from the BioWare games, because even if they are giving me SOME crumbs of genuine queer content, it is always obviously born more of obligation than anything else, particularly for mlm - they’re known for it at this point, removing it entirely is impossible, but... I mean, how often do you see the various BioWare accounts reblog/retweet fan art that actually features the M/M pairings? Like I’ve seen FemShep/Liara stuff appear, but M!Shep/Kaidan? BroRyder/Gil? Hell, even when Dorian stuff appears, what I have seen is more Dorian solo, or Dorian in groups, rather than Dorian and M!Inquisitor. To say nothing of the shit surrounding Jaal.

You know, it’s the “here, you can lick the spoon while everyone else gets the cookies.” It’s something, but it’s clearly disproportionate, and yet if you complain, there’s a very real sense that you might lose even this little bit you get.

And, you know, the fandom doesn’t help, given the rabidly protective nature of some Dorian fans I’ve come across who take any critical take of him/his story as personal attacks. Not just that, though, but also the foaming-at-the-mouth anger and hostility if a queer fan effectively says something to the tune of “yeah, the canon same-sex pairing doesn’t appeal to me, so I’m gonna mod/headcanon the straight characters as bi to get what I need.” Queer fans say “the representation I have doesn’t actually do anything for me, I need more and varied representation,” these assholes respond “well fine, if I have to share one of MY countless toys, you have to share the single one you were given, because THAT’S equality!”

On top of the fact that a lot of the fan content tends to proceed to give the short end to these pairings - like I acknowledge that no one is mandated to offer any of this, these artists - “artists” as in both drawing artists and writers, meaning people who make art - are either doing it of their own love for certain pairings/characters or on commission, but... I mean, money, time, and talent aren’t offered in equal measure, a single person can’t match the output of the most popular pairings and we’re all strapped for cash, so the money that might be spent on a commission ends up having to be used for something else more necessary. So I understand the limitations, but... When it feels like you’re hitting up against them EVERYWHERE, it gets tiring.

Thing is, the other hand is... If I cut out BioWare games, where exactly am I getting alternatives? What else is there? Because the only company that’s putting out anything in the ballpark of what queer content there is in BioWare games at this point is Spiders, who... There’s a lot to unpack with how their last effort went (y’know, with implying that a romanceable character was raped by someone in his past and that is why he is not a same-sex romance option, or just the broad fact that in 2019, the best we got in terms of representation in this game matched the BioWare output of 2009, indicating that ten years hasn’t made much improvement if that’s as far as the needle’s moved). 

You know, if I turn away from them on this basis, then what am I left with in the search for any representation? Assassin’s Creed’s super shallow one night stands? Fallout’s “all bi, but no actual romance interactions beyond a declaration of love” approach? The isometric games that lack the full 3D models and, by extension, anything beyond text to portray said romance? Refuse to pay for anything, an absence of money that none of these companies will notice or understand what it is for? What are the options here? Cuz from where I stand, everything I’ve got sucks. 

[thebookworm0001]

Okay I have to ask because o see it EVERYWHERE and it looks like something of be interested in, but what is Dragon Age?

Strap in darling you just asked the question that will unlock hours of nonsensical ramblings. I will try to make it coherent.

Dragon age is an rpg developed by video game company BioWare (owned by EA). The game is set in a losely-European fantasy setting be sent by all manner of troubles mundane and magical. The first game, Dragon Age: Origins, was released in 2009 and focuses on what amounts to a magic zombie disease attacking the surface population known as The Blight. Blights kill and infect everything and are generally bad for business. You, The Warden, are brought from your home where it falls upon you to end said Blight.

The big draw of this game is the Origin. You choose a gender, race, and background, and get to know your character through an Inciting Event that leads you to become the Warden. This mechanic went away in Dragon Age 2, in part due to a rushed development cycle. You play as Hawke, a human fleeing the Blight with their family. You live as a refugee in a city called Kirkwall and seek to keep yourself and your family safe. In Inquisition, the mechanic returns, though with less impact. There is no intial origin-specific quest. Instead, the sky explodes and you have to fix the hole in it. You become the Inquisitor, leader of a religious movement to fix the Breach and have a weird ass magic mark on your hand. Which is good because it lets you fix those aforementioned sky holes. None of the games require the knowledge of the others to play, but it is helpful. You can jump straight into Inquisition if you like, but I suggest starting with Origins and working your way through all three games. They give you insight you otherwise wouldn’t have and can enhance plots in ways you might not have felt as attached to otherwise.

There a number of races in the game - Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Qunari. Origins allows you to play as the initial three. Inquisition lets you plays as a Qunari. Humans are… humans. Life can be great or shitty, but they are the most numerous race and the dominant religion is led by them. Elves once had an empire that spanned the entire world, then humans arrived and everything came crashing down. Tevinter, a country led by mages - powerful magic users - destroyed their empire and took what they wanted. Including the elves. They were enslaved, until they joined a rebellion led by Andraste. This rebellion started the Chantry, see: Catholicism led by women. Andraste is like if Jesus was God’s wife instead of his son. Andraste, Bride of the Maker, has her life similarly cut short by betrayal and went to the Maker’s side to be his bride and petition on behalf of his creation because he’s an absentee father. The elves were given a large amount of land, called the Dales, and life was cool for a while. Until the Chantry decided they sucked and should be Andrastians and held an Exalted March (see: Crusade) to wipe them out. Those who fled the dales became the Dalish, who refuse to submit to human rule, and the city elves, who generally live in poverty in slums called Alienages. Elves, like humans, can be mages. Mages outside the Tevinter Imperium’s aristocracy (called the Magisterium) have various degrees of sucky lives. Most mages are taken to Circles, “schools” where they can learn their magic in safety and away from other people. By and large, they function more like prisons. Templars, the Chantry’s soldiers, possess talents that allow them to combat magic. Ideally, they protect mages from themselves and others, and protect others from mages. Many times, they are glorified jailers, and that comes with a significant potential for abuse. Mages outside circles are called apostates, and the Chantry calls for the death of apostates. “Magic is meant to serve man, not rule over him” is something Andraste said and it has a number of different interpretations. Magic is accessed through the Fade, the place mortals go to dream and the realm of spirits. Mages are susceptible to demons, who wish to enter the world of the living, and becoming possessed often results in an abomination - a creature of immense power who wreaks havoc and death upon the waking world. Then there are the Dwarves. Dwarves cannot dream and therefore cannot be mages. Why can’t they dream? Unsure. However, they do not have an organized religion, instead venerating their ancestors and returning to the stone from which they came. They posses a ‘Stone sense’ which allows them to navigate below the surface. Their society is highly structured, containing castes which cannot be traversed with little exception. At the top of the list is the nobles who rule Orzammar, one of the few thaigs (cities) that were not destroyed by the Darkspawn - the creatures that dwell below ground and who carry the Blight. At the bottom are the casteless, who are not even considered dwarves by society at large. Then there are the qunari. It’s technically the name of the followers of the Qun, a highly structured religion, but the race is often synonymous. They are giants, often possessing horns, and have grey-toned skin. They can be mages, as they dreams, by within the Qun they are shackled, their mouths sewn shut, and their actions controlled by another Qunari.

There is a shit ton of lore, and the stories are incredibly compelling. Each game (Origins, 2, and Inquisition) follows a different protagonist with different goals and companions. The companions can be romanced, with various amounts of fluff and heartbreak. A fourth game was “announced” last year at the Game Awards and the fandom has been frothing at the mouth for new content since Inquisition’s release in 2014.

Tl;dr, if you like fantasy role playing games where stuff can get dark (and I mean implied rape dark) and there is a lot of gore (seriously the gore mechanic in DA:O is a lot) but the stories are compelling, the characters are rich, and you don’t mind screaming into the void because a bald elf gave you Feelings, play it. It’s a seriously wonderful series, even with its faults, and the fandom is pretty awesome too.

If you want more specifics PLEASE ask. I love talking about the series and I can and will speak until I lose my voice. Or… type until my fingers fall off, I guess.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

15 questions meme

tagged by @turianosauruswrex a while ago, thanks!

Are you named after someone? nope, my parents literally found my name in a baby-name book and liked the meaning (something like "of the Lord" or "gift of God").

Last time you cried? haha welllll that would probably be when Endgame came out and what I was getting from my thirdhand accounts was that not only was Loki still dead, the time travel overwrote everything, so what we were left with was a single timeline where 2012 Loki left with the Tesseract, wreaked havoc, gave it to Thanos, and died anyway, so it felt like...you know, it wasn't enough for them to kill my boy, they had to make him evil again and shit all over his memory and it seemed really awful and mean-spirited. also I think I was PMSing so that didn't help, but the result was I spent most of a day genuinely struggling not to cry. the time before that was probably back in November, the first time I walked Hazy, because she looked so much like Scully from behind and I was hit all over again with how unfair it was that he was gone and how much he'd lost over the past year or so even before he got sick. the last time I actually full-on sobbed was October 5, the day he was put to sleep. (I was also trying to get over a cold at the time and could barely talk, so the combination meant I REALLY had a terrible time making myself understood and I used up a damn mountain of Kleenex.) I really don't cry much, and maybe that's not super healthy because I hear it's supposed to be cathartic, but I don't remember ever getting that--it's just messy and I get an awful headache, and I don't so much get to a point of feeling cried out as much as I just get sick of it and make myself stop.  

Any kids? lol no. not like, living human children. I do have a "my kids" tag though. and Loki is my disaster child. and some of my action figures are my kids. I always assumed I'd have kids because it's What You Do, so I don't think I realized until at least college that it wasn't necessarily something I wanted, and then I eventually realized it was something I actively didn't want. I don't mind being an aunt, but aside from not having a chance to buy some fun baby gear I've seen (like a vampire-teeth pacifier), there is literally not a single part of the child-making-and-having process that appeals to me.

Do you use sarcasm? possibly too much. sometimes I confuse older people when I say, with obvious sarcasm based on the context, that something bad is great, and then I realize I have no idea how else to convey, like, a tiny bit of dark humor about something bad, and I’m a millennial so I gotta make those Jokes(TM) to cope  

First thing you notice about a person? I...don't know.  this always strikes me as a weird question because it's like...you mean a random person I walk past on the street, or the first thing I notice when I actually meet somebody? it depends on the person, too, because for instance if some random stranger has really rad dyed hair, I will definitely notice that and probably compliment them.

What’s your eye colour? hazelish, which is a fancier way of saying I used to think they were green but they’re more brownish than that without being outright brown.

Scary movies or happy endings? "both is good" dot gif

Special talents? ummm. I'm pretty resourceful, is that a talent? I'm often the person who goes "oh I have that in in my purse, want to use mine?" when somebody needs a bandaid, ibuprofen, a screwdriver, fingernail clippers, iPhone charger, etc., although of course the drawback to that is I'm kiiiiind of a hoarder and I'm almost incapable of packing light. finding random Loki stuff might count as a special talent at this point, idk.

Birthplace? middle of nowhere Minnesota.  

Hobbies? Reading, writing, collecting Loki stuff, attempting to customize action figures, cosplay but I'm not very dedicated or good at it, video gaaaaaames (but I’m also not very good at it)

Do you/have you played any sports? I was on the swim team in Barrow for a while but it was like...not really a competitive thing, just the next thing to do after swimming lessons. also entirely my parents' idea; I mostly hated it. (now swimming is one of the few forms of exercise I don't hate, in part because you can't feel yourself sweating when you're in the water.)

Pets? sweet but dumb Siamese-looking cat named Smocha (smoky + mocha). extremely silly, wiggly, kind of high-strung little dog named Hazy.

Height? 5' 3.75". that three-quarters of an inch is important.

Favourite subject in school? probably English because I pretty much always knew what I was doing.

Dream job? are we talking "literal dream job that doesn't actually exist because nobody would ever pay money for this" or something more realistic? because if it's the latter, I really don't know--I'd like to be a published author but not as an actual job, for instance, and at one point I thought I'd love to write for BioWare but now I think working for almost any game company would be a nightmare. if it's the former, I would like to receive a good salary and benefits to sleep as much as I want, play games, write fic, and cuddle my dog, so obviously that is never going to happen because that’s not a job.

I do not have the brain power tonight to tag anyone, sorry

[attempted-influencer]

Anthem is Good.

- The story is strong and compelling. The characters you're introduced to throughout breathe so much life into the world, and the NPCs that are part of the critical path feel really fleshed out and are always a treat to talk to. While your speech options are limited, they are at least nuanced enough to not make me want more options, save for a couple of specific conversations where I wish my tone wasn't as harsh, but that's 2 or 3 out of 50+ convos I had with people.

- Journal entries go very deep and really expand the lore of the world around you! None of it is must-know information, but so much of it fills the universe with such fascinating stuff!! And sometimes they're small little niche things that pull a smile on your face, like the romance radio drama and stuff like that.

- the gameplay!!!!! Is fantastic!!!!! Imagine they took all of the good parts of mass effect combat from across all of the games, and added the ability to fly freely around the map with jet boosters! Every javelin feels unique and powerful in their own way, and of course the javelin customization makes the game feel even better, running around in your hot pink 20 ton mech suit!

The only major negatives I could point to right now (I'm currently playing it before official launch on the 22nd) is that there are a handful of minor bugs, fixed by resets. A couple quests bugged but they were easy to reset and do over, and the audio cutting out is a frustration but both of those points as well as long loading screens are all being addressed for the launch and the day 1 patch! Bioware is on top of the problems and responding to people on Reddit and Twitter and they're all doing a really good job!

I will also say the microtransactions are overstated in their severity. It is not as bad as everybody claims it is. You earn tons of in game currency, and I was able to get a suit of purple cosmetic armor in about 6-8ish hours of playing, and long before endgame, and if I did want to purchase it, it would cost at most $10 USD. Nowhere near the "$20 for one piece of armor" other folks were claiming before launch.

I'm not going to be able to convince every single person that the game is good (but trust me, it is really great) but I just want to get records straight: yes EA is a shit company, no Bioware isn't, this isn't a quick cash grab and it isn't a "destiny clone" -- it's a new, unique, and really interesting IP from a development team that is well known for it's world building, and I feel like this game is getting unfairly panned by people coming at it already not liking the market of "games as a service loot shooters" as well as holding grudges against both EA and Bioware respectively.

I'm not being paid to say any of this, I've never had huge ties to any bioware franchise before (besides KOTOR) and there are no biases I hold to this game: Anthem is Objectively a Very Good video game, if the genre of third person shooter/action RPG appeals to you at all.